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During elementary and middle school (grades K-8), your student’s work, grades, and overall accomplishments will be entered into a semi-annual progress report. When your student reaches the high school years, a transcript will become a part of the record keeping process. A transcript is a record of your student's course work, grades, and accomplishments during the high school years (grades 9-12). The transcript will be maintained, in addition to the progress report, by the parent/teacher.

Your child's transcript will be the most important piece of information, beside the SAT or ACT score, to enable your child to apply for scholarships and attend college. Your child's transcript will be one measure in determining whether a college will accept your child or not.

What Means Do I Use to Create My Child's Transcript?

There are no set forms or standards to be used for your child's transcript, unless your home school accountability association has a set form or standard in place. You may create your transcript with word document, excel, or other similar type programs. You can use printed forms copied from the Internet, one you have created, or one that is generated for you through record keeping software.

A transcript from your home school/ high school is not something that you buy; it is something that you compile. We have no way to know what courses your student has completed, or what grades to assign them.  (The only places we know of that will sell you a completed transcript are those which also sell F*A*K*E* university degrees!)

How important is it to compile a transcript for your homeschooled son or daughter? It is very important, especially if they ever plan to continue their education at a college or university.  The diploma is simply a certificate stating that the student has fulfilled the requirements of the school. It represents the successful completion of your school's course of study. Transcript gives the specifics of what the student's education has entailed. Only the person overseeing the student's education can accurately compile the transcript. 

Compiling a transcript is ideally done one year at a time as your student finishes each grade of High School, but if you have kept good records, it will not be difficult to compile it once they have finished.  It is a good idea to create a transcript even if your child does not plan to go to college. It is far easier to do it at this point than to be faced with the possibility of trying to do it a few years down the road if it does become necessary! 

Dictionary A
transcript - An official school report which includes a student's courses, grades, and credits.
Dictionary B
transcript - An official school report on the record of a student, listing subjects studied, grades received, etc.

Yes, in South Carolina it is. If you homeschool under 59-65-40, 59-65-45, or 59-65-47, the parent-teacher will issue the transcript if one is awarded. Some associations may issue one for you; however, this is one of the parent-teacher's rights and responsibilities. Nowhere in SC Law is there a provision that anyone other than the parent-teacher should prepare the high school transcript.

It's an official document that is prepared by the homeschooling parents or parent-teacher that indicates the student's homeschool course of study.

The parent-teacher will issue the transcript when needed. Some associations may issue one for you; however, this is one of the parent-teacher's rights and responsibilities.

1) A high school transcript should be issued when the student's homeschool course of study has been successfully completed. You must teach and complete the requirements of 59-65-40, 59-65-45, or 59-65-47; however, your course of study may be significantly more. If your child is college bound you and he/she should consult several colleges that they are interested in to see what their minimum requirements are. You may also choose to complete the SC Public School Requirements, but you are not required to do so.

2) If you will be enrolling a child or children into a private or public school you should consider preparing a transcript for the years that you have homeschooled them. This will help to aid you, and your child/ren will have an easier transition into the school.

3) You may choose to update your student's transcript yearly. This would be very beneficial in maintaining an accurate transcript for them.

Yes, the transcript and the student's test scores will be the primary concern of most colleges looking at a homeschooled student for entrance into their college.

You know best what your child has done each year that you have homeschooled him or her. Not only is it your right, but it is your responsibility to accurately prepare your child's transcript. Even if your child is not college bound, you need to prepare a transcript for them. File it when you are done, and give them a copy to file. They may decide to enter college in a year or two, or somewhere in the future; and you will have what they need, their homeschool transcript.

Please remember to type all information on your transcript forms.

1) Student Identification
Basic Information on the Student

2) School Identification
Basic Information on your home school

3) Student's Academic History
List the Grade & Year for Courses Taken (and special level where appropriate; example English 9, English 10 or English I, English II), marks and the credits earned. Use titles that are clearly understood.

A unit or credit is defined as five 45 minute periods each week for 36 weeks (basically 45 minutes for 180 days). Courses that were taken for 45 minutes for 18 weeks (or 45 minutes for 90 days) would be issued ½ credit. Usually non academic courses such as Home Economics and/or Cooking would be the ones issued as ½ credit.

Grades
A grading scale of A, B, C, D and F is the most common. An explanation of the grading scale would be beneficial. Example: A=95 100, B=85 94, etc.

It would not be wise to use a pass/fail system. A pass/fail system could hurt the rating given to your student by colleges.

4) Student's Academic Summary

List the GPA (grade point average), and mark the credits earned in the appropriate space. ***Make sure to give an Anticipated Graduation date or if the student is already finished with high school make sure to enter the actual graduation date. This is one of the most important sections.

5) Additional Student Information
a.) Interests, activities, and achievements
b.) Special features of student's program
c.) Special problems or needs
d.) Personal inventory or checklist
e.) Written Comments
f.) Other

6) Test Scores (Primarily Grades 10 12)
If the student is college bound you should have at a minimum a SAT and/or ACT test listed. Additionally, if they have taken any standardized tests (Iowa, BSAP, Stanford, CAT 5, etc.) in the 10th 12th grades these test scores should be included.

***It is recommended for students college bound to take the SAT or ACT at least once a year in the 9th 12th grades. Additionally, the PSAT should be taken in the 11th grade year. A repeat exam late in the 11th grade or up to the middle of the 12th grade may show a good raise in the students scores (especially if higher level studies were done along with studying a guide to prepare for the test.***

7) Additional School Information
a.) Accreditation information (N/A)
b.) Method of computing GPA (grade point average)
c.) Key to symbols and titles
d.) Explanation of curriculum
e.) Description of marking system
f.) Frequency distribution
g.) Other

8) Previous Secondary Schools Attended
List any High Schools the student attended for a period of at least ½ semester.

9) School Officials
a.) School Principal You may either put N/A or list Dad as the principal.
b.) Person to contact for additional information List Mom or Dad.
c.) Signature of Parents / Supervisors

As an educational consultant and director of a private school, I have read and prepared hundreds of high school transcripts over the past 23 years and have seen a wide range of notations, as one would imagine. There are some important pieces that should always be included when preparing a transcript for a college.

Include the specific name of the course, not the text title: for instance, English 9 or Algebra I. The place for the text title(s) would be in a portfolio, not on the transcript.

Course numbers are not necessary for high school courses. In fact, they may cause confusion for the college admissions people. Instead, use AP (Advanced Placement) if such a course was taken or Coll (College Prep) is the course was that level. If your child took an actual college course, use the course number ALONG WITH the actual title from the college, the grade achieved, and the credit(s) the college awarded.

College admissions folks appreciate reading straightforward transcripts, not ones that are composed to look official. By that I mean, don't use numbers just because someone else came up with them. Colleges use numbers to keep things straight in their course catalogs and timeline for their students.

Another suggestion is to include the words with Labs if the science course included a full complement of labs. This way, admissions will know labs were done. If they don't see it, they may assume no labs were done.

As for those unique courses, such as ditch digging, that falls under the category Construction. Try to determine what category a unique courses would fall in. For instance, beekeeping is Apiology, not Animal Sciences.

The use of correct terminology is important and both the student and parent need to know what each term on the transcript means. When the student goes for an interview with a college admissions officer, s/he must have a handle on each term so that if explanations are needed, s/he can give it graciously. Saying, "Gee, I don't know," doesn't go over very well. A teen college applicant should be able to say something similar to:

"Apiology is the focused study on beekeeping. I took a full year course taught by the Maine Apiology Association and received my license. Now I have ten sets of hives and sell my produce in five local grocery stores. I'm thinking about expanding and selling to Maine and New Hampshire in the next year."

Now, THAT will make them sit up and take notice! Of course, that's also not an unusual statement for a homeschooler, as we all know. :-)

Sincerely,
Shirley Minster, Director

If you plan to go to college, you probably place a lot of weight on your grade-point average. But you may be interested to know that many colleges don't.

The problem is that GPAs-always somewhat unreliable because curricula differ so much across schools-have in some cases become almost meaningless as high schools experiment with ways to measure students. Some high schools, worried about putting their students at a disadvantage with college admissions offices, give extra weight to grades in more difficult or AP courses. Other schools, in a nod to political correctness, are either reluctant to measure students at all with traditional grades or have developed their own creative way of assessing them.

To try to cut through this hodgepodge, colleges around the country are coming up with their own formulas to recalculate each applicant's GPA. One strategy-used by Emory University and the University of California system, among others-is to drop the pluses and minuses alongside letter grades. (So a B-plus in trigonometry becomes a B.) Another approach is to disregard the applicant's entire freshman year of high school. Some schools, like Haverford College in Pennsylvania, now go a step further, throwing out the GPA altogether and relying instead on the student's class rank.

In short, many colleges are changing how they approach GPAs, and in a surprising variety of ways. The upshot is that it is now often impossible for students to assess the admissions power of their grades unless they know the system used by each college they are applying to. Colleges say that in most cases, GPAs wind up dropping after the recalculation. So for some high-school students, a 4.0 might be worth far less than they thought.

Pluses and Minuses

The high-school transcript of a student with lots of pluses next to his grades, for example, could mean more to Johns Hopkins, which takes those shades into account in its recalculation. At Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, by contrast, "an A is an A is an A," says Michael Steidel, CMU's director of admissions, regardless of whether there was a plus or a minus alongside it.

In addition, since colleges like Emory don't give credit in their formula for difficult courses, it may not make sense for a student already taking a decent dose of APs to overload on them and risk a low grade.

Of course, none of this in any way means that high-school grades don't matter. Even where colleges don't take course difficulty into account in the calculation itself, that doesn't mean they aren't checking how many honors classes a student is taking. Many colleges continue to look more favorably on applicants who take challenging classes, even if they don't factor that into their GPA formula.

In the past couple of years, Johns Hopkins began recalculating GPA by throwing out "non-academic" courses like art or music, unless such a course shows academic rigor, as in AP art history or AP studio art. (One recent applicant's transcript included an A in lacrosse-needless to say, that didn't make the cut.) Johns Hopkins, as well as the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Carnegie Mellon, also throws out all freshman-year marks.

Some colleges, including Georgetown University and Haverford, ignore GPA altogether, instead focusing on class rank. One hitch to this approach is that many high schools are abandoning the practice of ranking students; in a recent study, over half of high schools said they no longer do so.

But that doesn't stop college admissions officers from considering that measure. Rob Killion, director of admissions at Haverford, says that in the absence of a ranking, he may have to "guesstimate" how those students placed in the class. "Sometimes that hurts the applicants," he says, since his guess is usually conservative.

Just Ask

While colleges often don't publicize the details of these formulas, students should simply ask colleges whether and how they recalculate. In the case of courses such as art or religion, which may not be counted in the GPA formulas, students can ask their high-school counselors to write a letter vouching for its credibility as a rigorous course. It carries sway with some schools.

"When in doubt, we typically include [a course]," says Mr. Steidel at Carnegie Mellon.

In large part, the GPA policies are simply a response by colleges to the growing variance among high schools in how they grade. For example, Taft School, a boarding school in Watertown, Conn., favors a six-point scale for its GPA, rather than the traditional four-point scale. Other high schools, like St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., use descriptive phrasing to distinguish merit, such as "high honors" or "honors," instead of A's and B's. Governor Livingston High School, in Berkeley Heights, N.J., even uses an "E" grade to "soften the blow" of failing a course, says Jane Webber Runte, the guidance director there.

But as more colleges come up with new GPA formulas, some high schools are now following their lead. Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, Mass., for instance, is now moving away from giving extra weight for harder courses. The school hopes that doing so will lead colleges to look more closely at the total transcripts of its students, says Peter Gow, the school's academic dean.

  
Another suggestion is to even try to work around their requirements by seeing if you can work with one of their counselors to find "equivalencies" in meeting requirements. This is breaking new grounds, scary, but it has been done and needs to be done if homeschoolers are to forge ahead and (gently) take their rightful place in society. This is usually done one brick at a time at a grass-roots level where you find a lot of dirt, bugs, and rocky ground!
   
SEVERAL OPTIONS FOR DIPLOMAS
  
There are actually many options in this arena for those not wanting to connect with a curriculum program.

You can purchase an official looking diploma made up professionally. Several businesses offer such diplomas. (Cost ranges from $10 to $25. See end of article for addresses.)
   
You can make one yourself using press-type lettering and high quality paper (available in stationery stores) which is as professional an appearance as you can get without spending a chunk of money or owning a high-tech computer. (I include one in my senior high manual, but it's not as spiffy as some you can purchase.) (Cost is about $3 to $5.) 
   
Recognizing that some could still feel a need for a "valid" diploma, prior to completing my senior high book, I made arrangements with Triune Biblical University to offer an "official" diploma. This diploma enables  Do-it-your-self-ers to translate their student's learning into classes and credits and still have an official-looking diploma to show for it. There is a list of required classes to follow, but parents determine entirely the content of these classes. (Cost is about $100, payable as you accumulate credits through senior high years.)...Home School Associates of New England offers a similar plan.

SO BACK TO THE QUESTION
   
But if that wasn't exactly what you meant by "Does your diploma mean anything?" I do have more to say...  Keep in mind that the following is not an answer I would actually give someone who was honestly asking the question. It would contain elements of the following response, but the purpose of this answer is to give you some food for thought. My answer starts out in the form of a question...
   
What does your diploma mean? How has it prepared you for the "real world" where offices don't usually have 25 people all the same age, and work days aren't usually divided by bells into six totally unrelated sectors? Has your diploma prepared you to be a loving, considerate husband or wife or a wise, nurturing dad or mom? (The most important roles you'll probably ever hold.) Did what you learned in science reveal to you the awesomeness of God and give you more of a sense of His hand upon the making and history of the universe or are you even more convinced of the "Big Blast," evolution, or the "gene pool"? Did your diploma help you acquire wisdom and true knowledge ~ or mere head knowledge? Do you view all knowledge as being "truth" only as it aligns with the truth ~ His Truth?  Or has your training made you hesitant to make such a "biased" statement?  Does your diploma indicate you are closer to God? More confident in His love for you?  Better equipped you to accomplish the work God has "prepared beforehand" for you to walk in through life? ... Just thought I'd ask..."
  
BACK TO REALITY
   
I assure you that the diploma we award our kids won't guarantee that its recipients have attained all these high ideals! We can do all the planting we want; only God can do the growing. But our diploma will signify that we tried, that we went the direction we believed God was taking us, with His values as our "Student Learning Objectives," with His vision our vision. 

   
OUR DIPLOMA
   
The diploma we issue our children, then, will be in alignment with dad and mom's priorities rather than the "state's." It will not be state issued or state-approved. We are a private, home-based school; not state-funded or even state-affiliated.
   
As the world's values and morals continue to spiral (plummet) downward, the chasm between the values of Christians and those of the world is widening dramatically. God has an abundance of work for His people in these latter days and perilous times! I believe we need to be more concerned with preparing ourselves and our children for His work ~ and finding out what that is ~ than with obtaining a diploma that will open bigger doors to higher-paying careers or gaining entry into a more prestigious college. 
   
Do we want a "valid diploma" for the wrong reasons? "Let us study (through these high school years) to show ourselves approved by God" ~ not man! We may need to ask God for a spirit of doing all things well for the glory of God, in readiness for doing the will of God. All God needs is a heart completely yielded to Him. A "good-education," defined accurately as being the result of yielding ourselves to being taught of God, will only enhance and equip us to that end. Our values should never take preeminence over our call to serve and know God ~ or cause the fire of our love for Him to wane. 

The above article is excerpted and rewritten from the book Senior High: A Home-Designed Form+U+la by Barbara Shelton.
   

What is a diploma anyway?
Here is a dictionary definition:

diploma: a document certifying the successful completion of a course of study.

(Source: Word Net ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University)

diploma is a piece of paper
(unless you use real sheepskin) that designates or confers the completion of some line of study. We find it interesting that parents who confidently homeschool turn to jelly when it is time to award the diploma. If you have homeschooled your child and he has completed your designated course of study for high school, you may and should award a diploma.

So the issue is not whether you may award a diploma, but rather, what does the diploma mean to others.

 

There are several considerations here. In many states, including, New York, the state mandates that only the State Board of Education (board of Regents) is authorized to grant a diploma. That is their opinion. We do not give our children diploma; the fact that the state does not recognize them does not mean much to us. After all, we know plenty of people who hold accredited diplomas who could not pass the requirements to receive one of our diplomas!

• Do Homeschoolers need a high school diploma?
  The answer is, "Sometimes."
  
  
• Do they need a diploma from an accredited school?
  
  
• The experience of thousands of families indicates that the answer is, "Almost never."

Every homeschooler can have a document verifying graduation from high school because – as the principals an administrators of small private schools – all homeschool parents can create their own diplomas.

Homeschoolers earn diplomas several ways.
Some test out, earning an equivalent diploma by passing the GED or a state test like the California High School Proficiency Exam. Although a few people connect the GED to high school dropouts, others realize that many high school graduates could not score well on this comprehensive test.

Grant, a homeschooling father in Oklahoma, holds a position that requires him to interview many young people every year. He sees the GED in a different light and writes, "I cannot tell you how many people with a high school diplomas I have interviewed who have a difficult time reading the job application. A diploma means only that the person sat in a classroom for a certain number of hours. On the other hand, a GED tells me that the person can read and write and that he has basic skills and knowledge. Personally, I do not depend on any piece of paper when considering someone for a job, but I sure don’t attach a stigma to someone who comes in with a GED."

Some homeschooled teenagers receive diplomas from umbrella schools and independent-study programs. Yet another group of families, perhaps the majority, grant their own diploma. In our case, we fired up he word processor, designed one, and issued the diploma. Janice plans something similar in writing, "I will order a blank diploma from HSLDA and my husband and I will sign it." Dinah reports, "We have registers our homeschool asa private school and will grant our own diploma from Winston Christian Academy."

Skeptics question whether homeschool diplomas are recognized – by colleges, employers, the military and so on. That depends. College admissions officers reply primarily on transcripts, test scores, and letters of recommendation. Most never ask about diplomas because typical applicants, high school seniors, do not yet have them. Employers care mostly about experience. If you have granted a homeschool diploma, your teenager can answer "yes" to the diploma question on most job applications. Seldom does anyone ask to see the actual document. And, interestingly, employers never seem to phrase the question this way: "Do you have a diploma from an accredited high school?"

Historically, the military cares more about diplomas than either colleges or most employers. Military regulations pertaining to homeschoolers are in a state of flux, with every recent change in favor of homeschoolers. Contact local recruiters for current information. If you know your son or daughter plans to enlist in the army, navy marines, or air force, consider using an accredited diploma-granting independent-study program or make sure your teenager earns at least sixteen college credits during high school.

Cafi Cohen is a columnist for Home Education Magazine and Homeschooling Today. She is a respected speaker on homeschooling teenagers and the college application process. She successfully helped her daughter get into Agnes Scott College and her homeschooled son into the U.S. Air Force Academy. She lives in Arroyo Grande, California.