High School Credit Explanation (with links)

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  • Claire
    Participant

    I thought some of you might like this post on how to determine high school credit hours.  There are some nice links in it too.  Enjoy.

    http://betsyhomeschoolconsulting.blogspot.com/2014/03/our-steps-to-college-giving-credit.html

     

    Claire
    Participant

    I just had a conversation last week that adds nicely to this topic so I’m adding it here.  A friend has a son who loves Science and does very well in it.  As a result he’s taken a lot of Science – more than needed for most high school transcripts.  She was worried that he did not take a Science this year; his Jr. year and that he did take some high school level Sciences during his 7th and 8th years.  Here were my thoughts:

    Our children sometimes take high school level courses (and complete with passing grades/evaluations) before they are “of age” or “technically” in high school.

    When it comes time to assign courses in more of a transcript fashion (and understandably there are a lot of formats for this) where do you place those courses?

    My thought was that they could be placed anywhere in the high school years provided they were really high school level.  In other words, there is no stress that they did Chemistry in their 8th year instead of 10th year … simply divide the courses out to fit the transcript model that asks for a Science credit every year (or 3 out of 4 years.)

    Wouldn’t you agree?

    Sonya Shafer
    Moderator

    You could also create a transcript that is sorted by subject rather than by year. That might make it easier.

    Monica
    Participant

    I just read part of the book “Setting the Records Straight” about writing high school transcripts.  The author included samples of some of the transcripts she had written.  The first section of the transcript said “Early High School Credits” and listed the subjects with the grade and the completion date.  She recommends including high school level work completed at any age.

    I was glad to read this.  My 8th grader is in Latin II and completing Algebra I this year, and I wanted to be able to include these on his transcript.

    Claire
    Participant

    Good point Sonya.  Here is another great resource that popped in to my inbox this month … be sure to click all the various links!

    HSLDA

    Jennifer
    Participant

    While doing it by subject may be fine for some colleges, I would suggest finding out for sure.  Many colleges have a specific kind of transcript they require.  I have research the two colleges that my son is interested in and they both say they will not accept any transcript except those in term/year form.  In other words, the subject transcript will not work for them.  So you might want to check with the colleges they are interested in before going with the subject transcript.

    jenni33
    Participant

    I organized my son’s transcript by subject rather than by year because there was some unequal distribution of credits through high school. For instance, he struggled to complete social studies his first two years, but studied math, science, language arts and electives quite well those years. So the past two years, he’s been focusing more on getting social studies electives completed. I felt it would be a better presentation if I organized the transcript by subject instead of by year. My personal feeling is that it shouldn’t matter. If they complete the course work, they receive a credit no matter when they completed it.

    Jennifer
    Participant

    I’m just going by what the colleges said they would accept.  They clearly stated they would not accept transcripts by subject.  So I suggest to check with the college to be sure.  🙂

    dmaxell
    Participant

    This is an old thread, but I’m going to add a reply, anyway, in case someone else is searching with questions like I was doing when I found this thread. 🙂

    I have two graduates and a current 9th grader.  We’ve always schooled year round for the most part.  We do take a summer break, but it’s shorter than the typical summer break, and then we take other breaks throughout the year as needed.  Consequently, my girls have always had subjects that overlap from year to year… still doing math hanging over from 9th grade while beginning 10th grade science, for example.

    I still did their transcripts by date, but I recorded the subjects in the year in which the BULK of the work was done.   So that 9th grade math was still recorded under the year for 9th grade, even though she was finishing it up after beginning 10th grade work in other subjects.  This pattern continued all the way through high school.  In fact, I’d have to look at my oldest dd’s transcript to remember which year I put Home Ec under (actually, I think there’s another preferred name for that now), because she was learning new skills and reading homemaking- and cooking- and nutrition- etc. type books all the way through high school.  But whatever year she learned how to make complicated costumes for her sister’s ballet production, AND made her first quilt, is the year I officially gave her credit for that elective subject.  (I’m pretty sure it was 11th grade, now that I think about it.)

    So doing it this way would satisfy those colleges that might require specific “school year” dates for those of us who don’t follow the public school calendar.

     

    Claire
    Participant

    I just finished my oldest child’s transcript for some scholarships and my ninth grader’s transcript for sports participation.

    I looked at all that we’d done each year and I combined some courses and made a course that looked more traditional out of them.  Then for some courses I put them where they traditionally would have been even though we did not do them in those years.  A few things that were pretty CM and not traditional even made it in to the transcripts too!  We averaged 11 subjects a year and they only do six or maybe seven a year in school so it made sense to give credit for the grades earned in all that we’d done (we do keep grades beginning in 9th) and to still not bombard the transcript with too much.

     

     

     

    Claire
    Participant

    … and, yes, our subjects went past a traditional calendar year many many times too.  No worries, I just recorded them where I needed them.  The work was done so it doesn’t matter to me where they need to feel comfortable seeing it.  Right? 😉

     

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