One of the most important jobs in homeschooling high school is creating your student's homeschool transcript. Sometimes I get questions on how important it is to have a typical looking transcript with grades, credits and a GPA vs. a more narrative type of transcript, or even one with courses listed but no grades.

Perhaps it would help if you thought about it a little differently. When preparing transcripts, think of yourself as a foreign language translator. Your job is to translate your homeschool into words and numbers that colleges understand. Your job isn't to change your homeschool - just do what works for you. You job is only to translate your experiences (whatever they are) into the "love language" of colleges.

I know some colleges don't mind a narrative explanation of a homeschool. I went to a Christian college fair and there were a handful of colleges where 15-20% of their student body had been homeschooled. Those admissions people talked about narrative records in a very warm and open way. This weekend went to a Homeschool College Fair, and these colleges were equally welcoming to all sorts of homeschool records (otherwise they probably wouldn't be at a fair just for homeschoolers, right?) But I think the majority of colleges may not understand anything other than a traditional transcript because it will seem like a foreign language to them.

You might want to group your student's learning experiences together into groups that are approximately 1 credit worth. Label it something that sounds like a class title. Once he has put in a year's worth of math work, for example, you could call it "Discrete Math," "Concepts in Math" or something similar. You could look at CLEP exams, and see which ones look like academic content that your student has learned, and then list those subject names on your transcript. Check out Barb Shelton's Homeschool Form-U-La book. It's not for everyone, but she does have a good explanation of how to take what you have done and explaining it in college-friendly language.

And remember you can't prepare a great transcript unless you are keeping homeschool records! Failing to keep homeschool records is one of the "5 Biggest Mistakes Parents Make When Homeschooling High School." Learn how to avoid all 5 mistakes in my free e-mail mini-course. You can claim it at http://www.thehomescholar.com/5mistakessignup.php.



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