Slim and trim are the key words when it comes to cooking up a high school transcript. Because of the fear of being incomplete, homeschool parents often create them entirely too long. Consequently, community colleges grumble that homeschool transcripts are incomprehensible. You may be surprised to learn that you only need your transcript to be one page long.
Jeannette Webb, recipient of the 2005 Presidential Scholar Distinguished Teacher Award and contributor to Practical Homeschooling magazine, describes her teens’ transcripts in detail and provides a useful guide for parents. She has tutored many families to use the following format to apply to various schools from Ivy League on down.
The Top Section
Divide the page into three sections separated by two horizontal lines. Provide for two columns in each section. On the top fifth of the page list the student name, parents’ names, address, telephone, birth date, Social Security number, name of school, and year of graduation. The next five-inch section contains the following headers: Grade (class grade, not year in school), Subject, and Credit (how many credits the class was worth). After that, you can be more particular about your description for each subject. For instance, under the science header there would be the total credits earned and then the name of each science class, such as biology, chemistry, and so on. You would do the same for mathematics, language arts, social studies and all other subjects. One word of warning is to avoid filling your transcript with many non-core subjects, such as cooking or farming. This makes your transcript lose credence since it appears padded. Also, be very careful about putting “AP” before any topic. AP means that your student has covered very specific material at a college level, he has taken the AP exam, and the CollegeBoard sanctioned it. Admissions officers become suspicious when parents use the “AP” designation flippantly. Contrary to the information from one curriculum, there is no such thing as an AP Anatomy course. This mistake has caused controversy between homeschoolers and colleges before.
After listing the classes, show total credits, GPA, grade scale (all as bolded headings) and a brief explanation of special circumstances or anything that appears unusual. One example is, “Courses without grades are in progress.” Another is, “Credit calculated according to Carnegie Unit standard = 120 or more contact hours.”
The Bottom Section
In the final portion of the page, you can write all test data such as SAT and ACT scores on the left side, as well as volunteer service hours. Under this, you will need to save a space for an official signature, date, and a place to use your embossed stamp with the name of your school and its establishment date. The stamp is optional, but certainly lends your transcript an official look. You may purchase these stamps at an office supply store for around $25.00. On the bottom right of the transcript, design around 18 lines for achievements and awards, as well as leadership positions.
Print your paper on heavy, white rag paper for two reasons: the embossed stamp will not tear your page, and this paper will look more professional than ordinary copy paper.
Get Out Your Shears
Prune and keep pruning until it is painful. Less is more for transcripts, which is true for most things that need to appear professional. This is undoubtedly good to know for parents that are anxious over the process. For others, it may be hard to hear if they really had their hearts set on adding in their child’s knitting class. It may be different if you had multiple educational providers; you will then need to have more than one transcript submitted by each source. Other than that, you should only need one page, and for most of us, that is good news.
