<p>In constructing my transcript, should I include only academic courses? I mean, would it look obnoxious to fill it up with "non academic 'courses'" such as home economics type things or music lessons? Would activities like gardening avidly or weekly harp lessons/daily practices go under extracurriculars, not be included at all, or what? Thank you.</p>
<p>I put only academic classes on my transcript, and included a summary of all the non-class activities I did at the end of my list of course descriptions.</p>
<p>On my son's transcripts, I just listed academic courses. I also made up an Activities and Honors resume, on which I listed things like music activities and non-academic pursuits.</p>
<p>Harp lessons and practice certainly could be listed as a music course, especially if supplemented by music theory lessons.(These could be done independently.) Gardening would be better listed as an extracurricular.</p>
<p>Our rule of thumb has been, if it is a course that might be offered by a traditional school (public, private or college) and if our child spent enough time on it to justify at least half a credit, it would go on the transcript. </p>
<p>Our son took piano lessons, practiced at least 2 hours a day and played keyboards/ piano for a local orchestra. That went on his transcript. Our oldest daughter took violin lessons but would only practice when forced to. 15 minutes was a good week. She did not receive credit for that on her transcript. </p>
<p>As for your case, I would recommend that you include Home Economics if you feel that enough time was spent to justify that. For something like gardening , if it was not in depth enough to be classified as a Horticulture course, it should probably stay on the EC list. If this was a real passion, there is usually a way to highlight it on application essays.</p>
<p>Well, I mean, I cook elaborate meals all the time and spend a good deal of time knitting/purling, sewing, etc...but it seems lame to add things like that on my transcript. Also, horseback riding or other physical activities seemed unnecessary, but I thought it might be unwise to just not include them at all.</p>
<p>Um..this may be too much to ask, but could someone possibly PM me or email me or IM me copies of transcripts that worked and how they were formatted and what they included and such? :( Thank you so much, everyone.</p>
<p>we included my son's sport under "PE". But we did not try to fit hobbies or activities of daily life into his transcript.</p>
<p>I think you could count some of those activities on your academic transcript if you wanted to. If you're more traditional in your approach to education, you might prefer to count them as extracurriculars; if you're more of an unschooler, you might prefer to count them as courses. I think you could go either way with most of the activities you listed; just document in the way you feel more comfortable. Also, keep in mind how you want to present your studies to colleges. In some cases, you might prefer to emphasize traditional academic work, and in others you might prefer to emphasize the less typical parts of your education/homeschooling/life.</p>
<p>Also, consider what seems weaker right now: your trasncript, or your list of extracurriculars? It might be worth it to count some activities as courses if you think your transcript suggests that you were doing less than you actually were (just don't put all of them, so you don't look like you're trying to cover up a weak courseload or something). If you don't have a lot of extracurriculars, you might want to try to add to that list over adding to your transcript. Mostly, if you're truly worried about looking like you tried to fill your transcript up with things that might not belong there, you probably shouldn't - your accomplishments will still be noticed if you count them as extracurriculars. Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for all this help, it's terrific. </p>
<p>One more question: What about non-academic classes that have been taken at local colleges for credit? For instance, one-credit courses in organic gardening or ancient wilderness living skills. What to do with them?</p>
<p>I'm sorry, I'm so clueless about this whole process. Ha.</p>
<p>How about you put the college classes on your transcript and call them electives? I'm pretty sure electives can be anything, academic or not.</p>
<p>On our two transcripts, we put the Tae Kwon Do (12 years and 10 years committment, respectively) down as PE and included the music lessons and instrumental practice for the D, who puts in a lot of time, but not for the S, who plays piano whenever the mood strikes him.</p>
<p>Everything else became either ECs or activites/hobbies. Sounds like the same thing as Texas137.</p>
<p>Thank you guys!</p>
<p>One more suuuper dumb question. Is it okay if my transcript is two pages stapled together? I have way too many things on it to have it on one page unless I used font size 6...and that's leaving out all the "courses" that I didn't feel I had fully "mastered".</p>
<p>my son's actual transcript, in the sense of listing courses, test scores, and grades, was 2 pages long, with two school years per page. Then we also sent a list of honors and awards (1 page), a list of ECs (1 page), a school proile (1 page), and course descriptions (3 pages). That made 8 pages total. We took it to Kinko's and had them "bookletize" it using double-sized paper. So it ended up being a double sided, 8-1/2 by 11" booklet with staples in the fold. We put the awards and honors list on the "cover" since that's what we wanted to emphasize. The actual transcript came next, making that a two-page spread that could be viewed without flipping. The course descriptions were last, in smaller font, since we viewed that as supplemental. Course descriptions averaged a few lines per course, although a little more for some things that were unusual, less for others that were standard (like AP courses).</p>
<p>We sent the whole booklet whenever anyone asked for a transcript. (School transcripts are frequently accompanied by a bunch of boilerplate also, describing the school, the courses, and whatnot.)</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>Haha aw, I feel so ignorant.</p>
<p>Good plan, Texas137! I may borrow your method...</p>
<p>One more dumb question. </p>
<p>I have done a lot of activities not as a part of an organization, but as one day type things (going to New Hampshire on election day and registering people to vote, ten million protests and community lectures and such, various isolated charity walks, etc. etc. etc.) It hasn't been any long-lasting activity but more a series of isolated actions that have gone on for years and taken a lot of my time and effort, altogether. I'm not sure how that can be listed and put on an activity list, though. I don't want to leave it all out, but...:-/</p>
<p>fids - is there some theme that would let you lump them together? Like "active in various political or community events involving multiple short-term activities per year"</p>
<p>That's a really smart idea. Thank you.</p>
<p>My daughter lumped things together too. She included just about everything she did, including drumming, snorkling - you name it. But these things were organized under more standard headings like PE and music. The only thing she didn't include is her theater work, because she sent a separate "theater bio".</p>
<p>Our transcripts are just a page with the profile, a page with the GPA and courses taken (no description), and then a list of exams taken and scores gotten.</p>