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What makes a good high school transcript - tips for home school educators.

As a Transcripts Evaluator for a University, I see many different transcripts. Some are good, some are not, and many fall somewhere in the middle.

All universities will need to see a high school transcript. This poses problems for many homeschool parents. One way to solve the problem is to use an outside group to keep the records. There are many such organizations across the nation. Their functions range from record keeper (holding onto the records that you, the parent, send to them) to actually grading your child's work. Many of these organizations will actually issue the diploma. Some states require that you use such an organization, some do not.

If you are fully responsible for making your child's transcripts, there are a few things to remember:

1) Include a break down of academic grades - keep 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th separate.

2) Include course names - be precise. "Algebra 2" is better than "Math"

3) Include units or credits. A unit is a way to measure how long a student spent on each class. The Carnegie Unit is fairly standard. A Carnegie unit is basically 130-180 hours per year. The standard break down of this is five 45-minute periods each week for 36 weeks.

4) Include the grade percentages

5) Decide on a grading scale and include it in the transcript. Some normal USA grading scales include:

A = 90-100; B = 80-89; C = 70-79; D = 60-69; F = 0-59

A = 93-100; B = 85-92; C = 77-84; D = 70-76; F = 0-69

Some Universities require an achievement test to validate the homeschool grades. The ACT and SAT can sometimes count for this. Other tests include:

The California test
PSAT
PSAT/NMSQT
Stanford
Iowa test of achievement and proficiency

Learn more about this author, Joy Boudreau.
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