Transcript Help - course titles and completion dates for an unschooler
I am working on finishing up my rising HS senior's transcript.
He has a few classes he does as classes, like Science and English, but he is mostly "unschooled" for high school. His math is all over the place, unfortunately. I am just going to have to figure that one out. For other subjects, I have an OK record of what has has done as far as hours and activities he has spent learning History and social studies, in order to assign credit and even make a course description if needed, but he wants to take English and Science next year at the community college for dual enrollment, and they only take a one page transcript that follows their desired format. (courses taken listed by year of schooling, fall to spring) Plus, there are a few electives I would like to assign to him just because he spent an exorbitant amount of time doing these things. For instance, in 2019-2020, he and his dad spent every free evening and weekend repairing and refurbishing our old house. My son had to do minor things like paint, but also repair doors, gutters, roof, redo floors, repair ceilings, scrape, smooth and paint ceilings, clean out and repair drains pipes, install water heater, He learned to use all the power tools, build things, etc. I am assuming that if he were in a large public high school, there would be some class offering dealing with these sort of things. I know my high school did stuff like that, because they had a huge vocational section, but I don't know what the classes were. What would something like that be called? He has the skills now to go do those things on his own, so he definitely learned how to do it. Also, he he took bagpipe lessons for a year and is now an active member of a non-profit band. I have the band listed in activities, but I'd like to count his lessons. What do I call that? I have half a credit for his hours of lessons, but he also practiced nearly every day, and learned a bit about the history of bagpipes, different types of bagpipes, different styles of play, etc, outside of lessons. Would you assign a full credit and a grade? He easily has 120 hours in a year, due to 3 hours a week in home practice/lessons the year he took lessons. But, the year was Jan-Dec, not Jul-Jun, which the comm. college wants things listed as. So, I could do half a credit for sophomore year and 1/2 credit for beginning junior year if I wanted to. Or, I could just stick it somewhere. How would you count it? And what would you call it? I know people put piano on stuff. He had to learn from scratch, even how to learn music, if that helps. Also, if your student has gathered credit over a few years, would you just put the class under the year that has the completion date? For instance, my son has gotten a lot of history credit from special short classes on topics he was interested in - like maybe 20 hours each 10 weeks of weekly classes and outside reading, then books he has read on topics he is interested in, field trips to various museums, documentaries we have watched, etc. I figured out that he had enough credits to get a whole credit by the end of 9th grade, but then he has another credit from stuff he did in 10th grade plus stuff from a few trips we made and finished up a few months ago in 11th grade. If I put it in 11th grade, it makes it look like he did no history or social studies in 10th grade, except for Dave Ramsey's personal finance, which is really an elective, but I think I read our state is probably requiring a personal finance class as a social studies class in place of American History for incoming high school students next year. He was doing Notgrass World history this year, but did not finish. So, I could put US history this year and half of world this year and half next. I dunno. I wish I could just list it by subject and completion date, but the community college requires all classes listed by Freshman, Soph, junior, etc. Not very homeschool friendly. That was very rambly, but helpful for me to write it all out. Any suggestions for course titles and where to put them? And how much to count? I know the whole "Carnegie credit" thing, but it is the double dipping and where to put them and what to title them that has me uncertain. |
Re: Transcript Help - course titles and completion dates for an unschooler
For the construction project you could list it at remodeling, work study, construction or something similar.
I wouldn't worry too much about when classes were completed (jan-dec vs sept - june). Just put them on in the school year they were completed. For the bagpipes you could call the class music or bagpipes as you prefer. This link about unschool transcripts may be helpful for you. |
Re: Transcript Help - course titles and completion dates for an unschooler
We didn't unschool but ds did have few classes that didn't fit the traditional transcript. For example he did art appreciation for 3yrs as part of a Charlotte mason co op class. It wasn't enough in one year for me to give a credit but over the course of three years it was more than enough. I listed it as a 9th grade class because that was the year he had the least credits. I did the same for music appreciation. He also had what I called career electives which were basically any topic he thought might be interesting as a career. He did photography, and auto mechanics. He also volunteered as an aid in coop for two years so I gave him a credit titled "early childhood education practicum" for both years combined. Honestly I just balanced out his transcript so he had about the same number of classes each year and made sure the basics were in order.
My grading scale for any class without tests was dependent on his time and effort. Excellent effort beyond my expectations got an A, passing effort got a B, sub par effort got a C, and anything less than that didn't go on the transcript at all. |
Re: Transcript Help - course titles and completion dates for an unschooler
I don't need it for the dual enrollment, but did you write course descriptions for all of your classes for the final transcript if applying to a 4 year college?
I was looking at Lee Binz's stuff, and it was totally overwhelming with all the info she put on her transcript. And honestly, her examples seem to be for super students with all the CLEP tests and tons of core academic credits, etc. |
Re: Transcript Help - course titles and completion dates for an unschooler
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What great skills, by the way! |
Re: Transcript Help - course titles and completion dates for an unschooler
I used the template from Baylor University even though ds isn't going there. It was the simplest one I found.
https://www.baylor.edu/admissions/index.php?id=872661 |
Re: Transcript Help - course titles and completion dates for an unschooler
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Did you use numerical grades? |
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Re: Transcript Help - course titles and completion dates for an unschooler
I counted music lessons. I put “Fine Arts: Music.”
For history, you could use half credits…i.e. if he did it over two years, you can do World History A and B or come up with a more specific name based on what he’s studying. For my DS, he studied World War II, so I called it “The History of WW II,” “World War II History” or something like that. |
Re: Transcript Help - course titles and completion dates for an unschooler
I just did this last month. I used the NYS template (NY is picky) and estimated the hours. Perhaps a bit generously at times. In addition to all the mandatory stuff he has all sorts of interesting electives (guitar 1, chess strategy, introduction to conlangs, introduction to linguistics, Biblical Greek) which the university didn't bat an eye at.
He's starting his first class today so I guess I did a decent job. |
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