How to Make a Homeschool Transcript

First, you need to know that high school grades and credits are the love languages of colleges. Colleges need to understand your child’s homeschool experience, including what homeschool curriculum you used, and they need words and numbers. One of the critical homeschool requirements is for you to take your normal and natural homeschool experience and translate it into words and numbers colleges understand, that is, the homeschool transcript that includes high school grades, credit hours, and GPA. Don’t change the way you homeschool as long as it’s working. Instead, translate what you’re already doing into the language of college, that is, high school grades and credits, so they will understand and appreciate what you’ve done.

Second, recognize that all schools calculate high school grades and credits differently. This can help you feel more freedom, and less stress. If you believe there’s only one universal method used by all schools to define what makes a high school credit, here’s a little-known secret: even the experts don’t agree! In reality, there aren’t any hard and fast rules! Throughout my fairly exhaustive research on this topic, I found few things that all of the experts and books agreed upon when determining high school credits.

It’s clear there’s a lot of leeway for evaluating your student’s work. Of course, this is not an invitation to be unscrupulous; your student’s grades will ultimately be either confirmed or questioned by their college entrance test results. But don’t let fear keep you from homeschooling through high school! You are competent and capable of evaluating your child, and providing them with a superior education through homeschooling!

No need for a scary-sounding boot camp involving sweat and tremendous effort while the Drill Sergeant is screaming at you. Instead, calculating homeschool credits is more like getting a massage or eating chocolate. It feels like “Ahhhhhh! That’s better!” Let me take away that worry for you. You’ll feel more confident about homeschooling once you figure out the little trick to doing it easily!

You can measure credits by the book or by homeschool curriculum. One textbook is one high school credit. One semester class is a half credit. If you don’t use pre-measured homeschool curriculum, you can measure credits by estimating hours. One credit = 120-180 hours, or about 1 hour a day. One half credit = 60-90 hours, or about half an hour per day.

You can give high school credits for high school level work at any age. For instance, your middle schooler could earn credit in Algebra 1 or higher, high school level biology or higher, and foreign language if you use a high school curriculum. Children can earn high school credit if they do college level work at any age. And they can get credit based on demonstrated expertise – e.g., their work is published or they perform in an adult orchestra.

You can also give high school credit for work completed at high school age, even if your child is behind in a subject area. A public school would give credit for any class they attend, even remedial classes, and you can, too.

Some homeschoolers think it’s tons of fun to go back through four years of high school records and try to find or recreate every possible test, quiz, and assignment. I was not one of those people! Don’t focus on tests, focus on learning. When you give grades on the homeschool transcript, think beyond tests, and consider every way you have evaluated. Your high school grades should include what your child has done, what they know, and what they have produced.

Because not all homeschoolers use tests, I have created a quick grading estimate for homeschool parents.

Quick Grading Estimate

• Grade A or 4.0: means mastery, and the child meets high expectations, has high test scores, the child loves the subject, or the parent is not annoyed with what the child has done.
• Grade B or 3.0: is good, but certainly not worth an A, or the parent is somewhat annoyed.
• Grade C or 2.0: is not very good at all, the parent is both annoyed and disappointed, but kept going onto the next level in the subject.

• Assign each class a credit value, for example 1 credit.
• Assign each class a numerical grade, for example 4.0.
• Multiply each class credit by the class numerical grade. This gives you the grade point for the class.
• Add all the grade points for all completed classes.
• Divide the total grade points by the number of credits completed.
• The answer is the current grade point average.

Yes! Can a homeschool parent name courses, award credits, and assign grades to their student? Yes! Your homeschool records are official, because your homeschool is official. You do not have to be a “professional educator” to determine what counts and what doesn’t on your child’s homeschool transcript. As the parent, you know best what your child has learned and what credits they have earned.

As the homeschool parent, you are responsible to create the homeschool records your child needs for college and career. You are the one who gets to make the official homeschool transcript.