<p>I was at a homeschooling umbrella meeting last night and we were discussing high school transcripts. </p>
<p>How did you compute GPA? If you computed a GPA, did you have a weighted GPA or a non-weighted GPA? I'm trying to figure out the best way to do that for my daughter's transcript. Also, if you taught the course as opposed to taking it via distance learning or college, did you assign a grade to it? </p>
<p>Thanks for any insight. I don't know if it will make a difference or not to the schools.</p>
<p>my son had grades from distance learning courses and college courses. He also had AP scores that I translated into grades (5 = A). I did not weight. We also elected not to include any parent-generated grades. Frankly, I thing most admissions officers would consider them totally worthless, and I thought they would detract from the other grades.</p>
<p>(note on parent grades - I think that homeschool parents have a very good idea of what their child achieves in parent-directed subjects. What's lacking is a basis of comparison to a large number of other students.)</p>
<p>I also used nonweighted grades. It doesn't really matter which you use, as long as you indicate it on the transcript and indicate how they are weighted, if they are, so that the college can change them to its own way of computing, for comparison with other students.</p>
<p>I did give grades for classes at home. It just made the transcript look more "normal," I guess. It probably would not have been at all necessary since my sons took a number of outside courses, but that is just what I decided to do.</p>
<p>I graded my son's at-home classes on a 4 point scale (A=4). Classes which he completed dual-credit at the community college, I considered honors classes, so I weighted them (A=5). This is how many public schools do it. So, when I have some A's counting as 4 and some A's counting as 5, that's a weighted transcript.</p>
<p>I had to complete an unweighted transcript for the AF Academy. So, I made all A's=4, honors or not. That's why an unweighted GPA will always be lower than a weighted one (unless you took no honors courses...in that case they'd be the same).</p>
<p>I disagree about parent-generated grades. I mean, it's true that they maybe <em>should</em> be worthless, but the fact is that for all the college applications and scholarship applications our son submitted, he had to have a GPA. And you have to have grades to have a GPA.</p>
<p>There was a lady on another list who was getting grief from her senator's office. Her daughter was applying for a nomination to a military academy, and they insisted she had to have a class rank. The mom tried to explain that she was homeschooled, and this secretary at the senator's office told her to go to the local public school and get them to give her a class rank. Isn't that hilarious?! I told her just to put 1/1 and forget about it. :-)</p>
<p>You definitely need a GPA and class rank to keep computers from having a hernia. I computed a GPA based on the outside grades and test scores. There were enough of them that I did not feel that the lack of grades for the parent-supervised work was an issue. We put 1/1 everywhere we were asked for class rank.</p>
<p>My daughter has a number of summer courses and distance learning courses on her transcript. I guess I will just read the evaluations and compute a grade based on their comments. I'll also include a copy of the evaluations with her transcript or the "school materials".</p>
<p>We make our transcripts showing both weighted and unweighted GPA, using the same mechanism and weights as the local high school. That is, regular grades for high school level work are on a scale of A = 4, and honors is 4 = 4.5 and AP/College level is A = 5. For the honors you simply add 0.5 to the high school grade. For AP you simply add 1.0 to the high school grade.</p>
<p>We don't like this method too much (seems inflated to me), but it has the advantage that we can justify it as the system used locally by our big public schools.</p>
<p>Since we calculate both the unweighted and the weighted GPA on the transcript, we show the AP grades, community college grades, and any distance learning grades or reports as the basis for the grades on the transcript. We have very few grades that actually depend from us alone, but we do include these grades since otherwise the overall report could be inconplete.</p>
<p>We also go to a good amount of effort to make the transcript look official. Whether that helps or not, we can't say yet (hs freshman and junior this year). But the document looks GOOD. Of course, this is the royal "WE" as my wife did all the work...</p>
<p>about half the courses on son's transcript had no grade (stuff done at home, or the fencing we called "PE", or with a tutor who didn't grade, or academic summer programs). It didn't seem to matter. He got in everywhere he applied.</p>
<p>On my son's transcript, I haven't included any grades for courses studied at home. He has at least one outside "data point" for each main subject (English, history, math, science), so colleges can see his general level of achievement. I calculated an unweighted GPA based on his outside course grades.</p>
<p>I didn't grade. My umbrella wouldn't even accept parent-generated grades. None of the schools my daughter applied to (or their computers) seemed to mind. An application may ask for grades, but this doesn't necessarily mean they are required or that they will be given much weight if provided.</p>
<p>As for class rank, the umbrella calculated one based on my daughter's ACT score (well, it just said top 5%, not a specific number).</p>
<p>Of course, it may depend on where you apply! I was always nervous about the lack of grades and the umbrella said that if they were necessary, such would be developed. (Since it is a private school under state law, it would have to sign off on any grades given.) I also asked every college my daughter considered and not a one came back and said, "Oh, no, you need to give us grades."</p>
<p>The only time we had a problem was with the NCAA. I ended up faxing them a statement certifying that the courses on the transcript were things I thought my daughter passed. It was really rather silly, but regs are regs ...</p>
<p>There is no one way an "official transcript" has to look. Some organize them by year, others by subject. If you google, I think you can find some templates you could use. Beyond the courses, when taken, amount of credit -- and grades, if given -- you probably want to include outside classes, the date of "graduation," and any other pertinent information you think would be useful. Some people put in test scores. My umbrella's form mentioned that only outside grades were included and said that one credit is a minimum of 120 hours. There was a little space on there, so I had them put in a list of my daughter's extracurriculars.</p>
<p>Which included fencing BTW, texas137. It does seem to be a popular thing among homeschoolers. DD does saber; what weapon does your son do? Is he fencing (or going to fence) at a particular college? DD's at Brown now.</p>
<p>Very strange indeed! My three younger siblings fence saber as well. In fact, they will be attending the nationals and will be leaving on Friday. </p>
<p>There are three siblings at their fencing club who are also homeschoolers.</p>
<p>I'd say don't weight. Keep in mind that you need to establish crediblity, and which do you want an admisisons officer to say when they look at your child's transcript, "Hmm, why did they think they needed to weight this?", or "Ah, AP level courses and not even weighted."</p>
<p>We didn't grade home based courses either, but my daughter had enough graded distance and community based courses to establish crediblity. I would only try grading if the student has absolutely no outside graded work, but don't expect those grades to be taken too seriously. Be sure to provide ample information about content and performance.</p>
<p>Don't forget you can always call the admissions office to find out what kind of transcript that particular institution requires from homeschoolers.</p>
<p>I used a 4.0 scale, unweighted with parent generated grades--no one had any problem with them. My kid had only 4 classes taken at a public high school and I wrote in the grades he received on my transcript. The high school did not provide a transcript. I listed course titles only, no descriptions, no book lists. Make it look like an ordinary school transcript, and include the classes/categories that the college requires (4 English, 2 Foreign Language, 3 Science, whatever). Make it simple for the admissions office people. IMO, the more "normal" your transcript looks, the less room there is for questions (like--"what are these weird homeschoolers up to?! etc.) Don't give extra stuff unless the school asks for it.
School grades are subjective, too, so don't be paranoid/shy about parent generated grades if that is all you have. Most schools don't care where your grades come from. What they want are good SAT/ACT scores to back up your grades.</p>