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Course Descriptions, gradeless transcripts and other things that keep me up at night


Maura in NY
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I have several questions that I keep mulling over as I gather my paperwork for my hs junior, and figured it was time to pick the brains of the wise women of this forum.

 

I'm in NY, so I do have grades for my son, since we have to assign grades on our quarterly reports. But I'd rather do an ungraded transcript. We don't really grade many assignments; it just doesn't fit with the way learning takes place around here. Because we homeschool to mastery, all the grades end up being As. He has the standardized test scores to support the As (likely NMSF), but I really have no idea how his work compares to "A" students in public school. He will have both ACT & SAT scores, along with 3 SAT IIs. He is taking one CC class now, which looks promising for an A, and is likely to take at least one more over the summer.

 

So my first question is to those whose children have submitted ungraded transcripts -- how has that been received by the colleges?

 

My second question concerns course descriptions. Are there any resources you can suggest for writing these - content, format, anything!

 

And, this one is picayune and silly, but every one I've seen has been in the future tense, like the public school course description guides. It seems out of place for this purpose, since I'm writing about courses that are completed. So, how did you do yours -- future or past tense?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

Maura

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I'm in NY, so I do have grades for my son, since we have to assign grades on our quarterly reports. But I'd rather do an ungraded transcript. We don't really grade many assignments; it just doesn't fit with the way learning takes place around here. Because we homeschool to mastery, all the grades end up being As. He has the standardized test scores to support the As (likely NMSF), but I really have no idea how his work compares to "A" students in public school. He will have both ACT & SAT scores, along with 3 SAT IIs. He is taking one CC class now, which looks promising for an A, and is likely to take at least one more over the summer.

 

So my first question is to those whose children have submitted ungraded transcripts -- how has that been received by the colleges?

 

My second question concerns course descriptions. Are there any resources you can suggest for writing these - content, format, anything!

 

And, this one is picayune and silly, but every one I've seen has been in the future tense, like the public school course description guides. It seems out of place for this purpose, since I'm writing about courses that are completed. So, how did you do yours -- future or past tense?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

Maura

 

1/ Have you checked w/potential colleges as to their graded/ungraded policy? I remember seeing some (during #1's application time) that stated that transcripts MUST have grades. Some schools don't pay much attention to "mommy grades" for just the reason you state, but that's why they weigh SAT/ACT scores along w/SATII's and outside classes heavily.

 

None of the 5 schools #1 applied to requested course descriptions, but I'd write them in past tense.

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Colleges my son applied to required grades on the transcript. My son had all A's and the test scores to back them up, so it was no problem. On truly ungraded subjects (Driver's Ed, PE, etc) we did pass/fail and no one complained. The first school he applied to gave us a sample transcript in the format they wanted to see. We used that for all the others with no complaints from anyone.

 

Only one school wanted a course description. We did this briefly - mainly like a table of contents. For subjects where we mainly used a text it WAS the table of contents. He got accepted there, so it obviously wasn't a problem.

 

Check with schools you might be interested in to see what they are looking for.

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Having emailed the admissions office of a Tier 1 school that we may be applying to (DS is a sophomore) about homeschool applications, here is a portion (relavent to your question) that I received from them:

 

Homeschooling guidelines:

 

- When it comes to application review, it is definitely helpful for students to have had some sort of outside instruction and assessment either by a tutor, teacher, college professors, etc. This is because more often than not a homeschooled student’s GPA will be a 4.0. Therefore outside instruction at a community college or one or two classes in the local high school help give us an idea of how a student will perform within the classroom setting. It is also in the students best interests to have teacher recommendations from people other than their parents. Obviously the only way to achieve this would be through outside instruction. Additionally, since we typically have a smaller amount of outside evaluation for homeschoolers, standardized test scores are important for us to review.

 

- As far as homeschooled portfolios go, the more succinct they are, the better. I once received a 100+ page portofolio with a 5 paragraph summarization of each class the student had taken. Needless to say, it was overkill. Yesterday, I reviewed a application with a very well done 5 page portfolio, plus an reading list including both required and independent reading, with each class simply summarized. Here are two examples of course descriptions:

 

French I: (1 credit) Using the Rosetta Stone language course and a weekly one hour class with French tutor, this course built “ a foundation of fundamental French vocabulary and essential language structure,†developed “basic conversational skills, including greetings and introductions, simple questions and answers, shopping and much more.†www.rosettastone.com/learn-french

 

Or

 

Geometry: (1 credit) Using the Harold Jacobs test, Geometry, this course covered the following topics: conditional statements, direct and indirect proofs, Pythagorean theorem, lines and angels, congruence, inequalities, parallel lines, quadrilaterals, transformations, area, similarity, the right triangle, circles, the concurrence theorems, regular polygons and the circle, geometric solids, and non-Euclidean geometry. www.whfreeman.com

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{snip}We don't really grade many assignments; it just doesn't fit with the way learning takes place around here. Because we homeschool to mastery, all the grades end up being As......

 

My second question concerns course descriptions. Are there any resources you can suggest for writing these - content, format, anything!

 

 

In our homeschool we instruct to mastery so my ds has all A's on his transcript. He also has grades from several online classes on his transcript. Since these were all A's too, in my mind it backed-up my mommy grades. I did explain our grading system, that we taught to mastery, in the homeschool profile document.

 

I also wrote an ~20pp course description booklet. The internet came in very handy for this project. I spent hours and hours reading over high school course description documents, gaining an understanding / appreciation for how a course might be described and then wrote the descriptions for DS courses.

 

Mine were written in future tense since that was the style of the course desciptions I read online. My thought was that that was the form familiar to the colleges.

 

I did include a list of textbooks or books read as part of each course description. I did not find that to be the case with the online high school course descriptions but I wanted the colleges to see exactly what DS had used.

 

Carole

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Maura,

 

I did something similar to what DebbieC posted with my son's course descriptions. There was 1 description for each course on his transcript that was 3-4 sentences about the course plus a list of the associated novels, poems, textbooks, science materials, etc. The whole thing ended up being 1 page summary transcript + 8 pages of course descriptions. I believe I wrote the descriptions in the past tense for courses that were completed and in the future tense for courses that were currently in progress. For his courses from the CC, I copied the course description from the CC catalog, and I included the name of the instructor and the CC course number & number of credits.

 

I would highly recommend putting grades on your child's transcript. The colleges will interpret these as they see fit, knowing that they come from a homeschool parent. They will likely give higher weight to grades from outside courses/teachers. Some scholarships/programs require certain test scores AND certain GPA, so if you don't include a GPA, you might take your child out of the running for programs he/she qualifies for.

 

HTH,

Brenda

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Thanks for everyone's advice. This is helpful stuff. Especially Debbie's info directly from the Tier 1 school.

 

I guess I'll just keep my descriptions short, and only provide them on request. I like the idea of separate school/leisure reading lists.

 

What about the Common Application Supplement -- where they give you an itty bitty line to list "textbook" -- for courses where you used a living books methodology? (I'm thinking "see attached"?)

 

Maura in NY

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What about the Common Application Supplement -- where they give you an itty bitty line to list "textbook" -- for courses where you used a living books methodology? (I'm thinking "see attached"?)

 

Maura in NY

Don't use the term "living books" anywhere. No one will know what that means. The correct term would be "trade books." All professional educators know what those are.

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Back when I applied as an undergraduate, I showed only grades for the college classes I'd taken, and classes from outside sources. For classes at home that resulted in AP/SAT II/CLEP scores, I listed them next to the classes. No college had a problem with crediting me with a 4.0.

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I guess I'll just keep my descriptions short, and only provide them on request. I like the idea of separate school/leisure reading lists.

 

What about the Common Application Supplement -- where they give you an itty bitty line to list "textbook" -- for courses where you used a living books methodology? (I'm thinking "see attached"?)

 

Maura in NY

 

Maura,

 

If I were you, I'd provide the course descriptions as attachments to the transcript and submit it all up front. If you wait until someone requests them, you will just delay the whole process. Why not provide the information up front all in one organized section? You'll have to pull the info together anyway. One thing to consider if your child will be using the Common App is that once you hit "submit" for the Secondary School report, the same version of this will go to all the colleges, and you cannot edit it. The only way to add to it electronically is when you submit the mid-year report in January, you can send an updated transcript.

 

Regarding the Common App supplement, I just put "see transcript submitted with Secondary School Report" on all the lines on their "transcript" page. My son's courses didn't all fit on their form, and I thought it would be better to have them look at a nice, formatted one page summary transcript to see everything than to have them hunting around with some courses listed on the HS supplement and others in other places.

 

JM2Cents,

Brenda

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Maura,

 

My daughter's transcript had grades so I can't help you with your first question.

Her course descriptions were eight pages long. I'd be happy to share them with you (or anyone else interested) if you send me a personal message with your email address.

 

Regards,

Kareni

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Maura,

 

Regarding the Common App supplement, I just put "see transcript submitted with Secondary School Report" on all the lines on their "transcript" page.

Brenda

 

Brenda, I like this idea.

 

Do schools that accept the Common Application generally REQUIRE the Common Application? Or do they think they are doing you a favor, but don't mind if submit something else?

 

Thanks again, everyone, for all the great advice and ideas.

 

Peace,

Maura

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Brenda, I like this idea.

 

Do schools that accept the Common Application generally REQUIRE the Common Application? Or do they think they are doing you a favor, but don't mind if submit something else?

 

Thanks again, everyone, for all the great advice and ideas.

 

Peace,

Maura

 

Maura,

 

You need to check with each college individually to see if they accept:

 

1. only the Common App

2. the Common App OR their own application form

3. only their own application form

 

The schools my son applied to all accepted the Common App, so he used it for all of them (and greatly simplified the paperwork, BTW).

 

Brenda

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We're also in NY so this may help....I sent copies of the IHIPs and a good list of books read with my daughters transcript (with grades, however!) and three of the four schools she applied to accepted her with no trouble. Her SAT result were high (well, the verbal and writing were!) and I guess the whole package looked good because she was offered some great scholarships!

 

But the last school was a City University and they, like I have heard about several SUNYs, ignored everything about her until they saw a GED. They did accept her but they were not nice about it!

 

As for the transcript without grades....I didn't know you could do that! I will be watching to see how it goes for you :)

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  • 7 months later...
We're also in NY so this may help....I sent copies of the IHIPs and a good list of books read with my daughters transcript (with grades, however!) and three of the four schools she applied to accepted her with no trouble. Her SAT result were high (well, the verbal and writing were!) and I guess the whole package looked good because she was offered some great scholarships!

 

But the last school was a City University and they, like I have heard about several SUNYs, ignored everything about her until they saw a GED. They did accept her but they were not nice about it!

 

As for the transcript without grades....I didn't know you could do that! I will be watching to see how it goes for you :)

 

Isn't it funny that the SUNY schools are fussier than the more difficult private schools???

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We did something unpopular here. My son applied to one college and got in, so I have no idea if what we did would work for more colleges than this small state one. I don't grade but my son had 6 classes from CC when he applied that did have grades, so I had to have a space for grades on his transcript. I marked all his home classes pass (since he had). Then I explained our grading policy in the school profile. I don't think they even looked at what courses he took at home, anyway. What they really wanted to see were his CC classes. He had math, science, speech, composition, drawing, and how-to-use-your-computer. Since he wasn't going into liberal arts, this was enough. Not very helpful, probably. You can add it to your count of students getting into college with an ungraded mummy transcript, though.

-Nan

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