Great Books Homeschool has just released this free tool for generating high school transcripts using the standard American unweighted GPA system. It's available to the public at no cost, and no account creation is required.
These are both resources that would have saved me time as a new homeschooling parent, and I hope they are helpful to others.
Comments and feedback are welcome!
If you're entirely homeschooling on your own, a transcript that looks like you created it in Microsoft Word is not going to go very far.
OTOH, some places recognize homeschooling provides a unique perspective on education. For example, I was invited to interview at Yale's biology graduate program at least in part due to my homeschooling background.
My guess is that low end institutions looking for respectability are more sensitive to getting official transcripts, where the high end is looking for more diversity of background.
(Bonus points if you can make it past freshman year, which when I was tutoring was always a huge concern for the newly free homeschool kids, but tbh freshman tuition and room&board is enough)
Not sure what "a recognized homeschool program" is; we used a mixture of materials.
When you start homeschooling, you will begin to meet other parents who are also homeschooling, but it's still your journey and not anyone else's; we've found that different tools work for different kids, even within the same family. Choose the tools that work best for your children and your style of teaching.
E.g. something like Khan Academy's homeschool curriculum, or CK-12, etc. that is a complete curriculum ostensibly developed by people who know what they are doing, not just some moms making it up as they go.
Also if a kid wants to be involved in sports, that is more complicated for homeschoolers.
Colleges have become increasingly comfortable with accepting homeschool high school transcripts both because of their increasing regularity but also because of the actions of the HSLDA. One of the reasons we’ve been members for well over a decade.
It worked, and the school backed off. Might be a good idea for anyone thinking of teaching their kids at home, especially if they're going to be pulled from public schools like I was. Busybodies and troubled administrators are a real mess and aren't always rational, which can be very bad and expensive for parents.
As an aside, I finished high school homeschooled. A state scholarship requires you to be in the top 10% of your class, so the state added me to a cohort of 120 people I had never met, decided I was 7th in that cohort, and gave me an extra $10k in scholarship money.
So yea, “top 10%” metrics are dumb.
My siblings and I were homeschooled and we all admit it severely stunted our social development during critical periods. Once a critical period's window of opportunity has passed, you forever miss out on the development it enables.
Unmitigated homeschooling is to social aptitude as a nutritional deficit is to physical stature.
My brother and I were homeschooled for a couple years and it messed us up for like 3-5 years after. I've worked with people who were homeschooled until college and they are very weird, socially inept, and occasionally inappropriate.
I'd argue that what serves one best in life is learning to function at an adult level with other adults. Most homeschoolers I've known spent substantial amounts of time in adult company every day. Mixed-age peer groups (as seen in homeschool co-ops) can also create a natural dynamic and expectation for the student to both be a mentor and be mentored (relationship skills one should know how to cultivate as an adult).
Conforming as an 11 year old to the culture and social behaviors created by other 11 year olds in a space where a few overstretched adults struggle mightily (if with good intentions) to create a positive environment is...not an optimal use of that child's time.
Not that most homeschoolers aren't also hanging out with same-aged peers too. Much time is saved by not having the administrative overhead of a school. Lots of homeschoolers hang out with their friends all the time like any other kids do. Having buddies over and gaming until 3am is just as fun either way.
Fully acknowledging that I'm deep in anecdotal territory here and that these are sample sizes where all outcomes will be well-represented.
I also know of people who went to public school their whole life and are weird, socially inept, and occasionally inappropriate.
Again, I'm very sorry you've met some people who were weird and happened to homeschool, but it's unfair to pass judgement on a large group of people, just because you met a few who didn't fit your own standards for normalcy.
I've met hundreds of articulate, friendly, intelligent and confident homeschooling families.
I think the myth that homeschooling leads to lack of socialization is largely untrue and a treat to those families who want to create an education that honors their child's unique academic AND social needs.
I could write a lot more on this and I have, in this blog, if you're curious to learn about the real lives of highly social homeschoolers. https://joinmodulo.substack.com/p/but-what-about-socializati...
In the same vein, my spouse and I have developed an app called Logbook. It's a student activity tracker built to simplify homeschooling record keeping and reporting, integrating with Apple iCloud for secure data storage and syncing. It also supports exporting of student reports as PDFs. This simplifies the reporting burden for homeschool educators immensely. If anyone is interested in checking it out, our website is https://logbook-ed.com
I have considered building a transcript generator as part of our tool. We already keep the records and generate reports, but a transcript is pretty different to yearly education audit reports. I'm looking forward to giving this tool a try when the time comes, it may have saved me the trouble of building my own!
Again, thank you for your contribution to the homeschooling community.
[1] https://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/high-school-beyond/high-sch...
