By Lee Binz, The HomeScholar
The Secrets That Earned Our Family $187,000 in College Scholarships Will Work for You!
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
Here is a brief review of how to calculate homeschool GPA:
I don’t recommend weighting grades. It makes it harder for colleges, and colleges will like you more if you make their job easier. Here is the problem: every high school has a different policy on weighting grades. There are so many variation possibilities, and colleges need to compare students from different schools and school districts. For this reason, the first thing they do is un-weight any weighted grades.
Colleges have asked me to tell parents not to weight grades, so I don’t recommend weighting grades unless your first choice college prefers weighted grades. Read more about Why I Do Not Recommend Weighting Grades.
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.
There are SO many advantages to making a homeschool transcript! You can let the personality and giftedness of your child shine through. The information you include on a homeschool transcript can help make your student very attractive to colleges and scholarship committees. If your child loves one subject, such as music or art, you can highlight their gift on the transcript. Homeschoolers can highlight the strengths and gifts of their students, demonstrated in their unique coursework and activities. Of course, you should also include the courses your child didn’t excel in, but you have the freedom to highlight your child’s individuality and make them shine.
You can create courses based on your child’s unique and passionate interests, describe those courses to colleges on your child’s transcript and course descriptions, and show your child for the special and wonderful person they are. In the competitive world of college admission and scholarships, homeschool records are one of the biggest advantages a student can have. Make sure your homeschool records do your student justice!
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Lee Binz, The HomeScholar, specializes in helping parents homeschool high school. Get Lee’s FREE Resource Guide “The 5 Biggest Mistakes Parents Make Homeschooling High School” and more freebies: HomeHighSchool.com/freebies.
