Jump to content

Menu

awarding credit


Recommended Posts

If a 9th grader takes a math course that begins in February and finishes in July, is that credit earned in 9th grade or 10th grade?

What if a course begins in May and finished Nov. first? That's 10th grade, right?

I am just trying to figure out how this works out on the transcript. AOPS courses don't run on a normal school schedule.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If a 9th grader takes a math course that begins in February and finishes in July, is that credit earned in 9th grade or 10th grade?

What if a course begins in May and finished Nov. first? That's 10th grade, right?

I am just trying to figure out how this works out on the transcript. AOPS courses don't run on a normal school schedule.

 

If the transcript is set up by grade/year:

 

- Usually, if a course is started in one grade and continued into / completed in the summer, then it is credited in the grade in which the course was started. (Started in 9th grade, completed in the summer between 9th & 10th = credited as completed in 9th.)

 

- If a course is begun in one grade and completed in the midst of the next grade, it is credited as completed in that next grade, AND partial credit is awarded in each grade where work was done on the credit. (Example: started in May of 9th grade, completed in Nov. of 10th grade will look like: 0.25 credit = 9th grade, 0.75 = 10th grade; completion date = Nov. of 10th grade)

 

- If it is a strictly summer school course, then it is usually counted towards the coming grade. (So, if done in the summer between 8th & 9th, counted towards 9th; if done in the summer between 11th & 12th, counted in 12th.) The exception is a summer school course required for graduation, done in the summer between 12th and college -- that is counted in the grade before, so, 12th grade. And the graduation date (or date of diploma awarding) is AFTER the completion date of that summer completion date.

 

 

If you set up the transcript by subject, rather than grade/year, then you can bypass all the headaches, as you don't have to worry about partial credit in one year and partial credit in the next year, or what grade/year to award the completed credit. That allows you to accrue credit over more than one year, and just list as a completed credit. Example:

 

MATH

course . . . . . . . . . credit . . . grade . . . completion date

Algebra 1 . . . . . . 1.0 . . . . x . . . . . . July 2015

Geometry  . . . . . 1.0 . . . . x . . . . . . January 2016

Algebra 2 . . . . . . 1.0 . . . . x . . . . . . November 2016

Pre-Calculus . . . .1.0 . . . . x . . . . . . April 2017

Calculus . . . . . . . 1.0 . . . . x . . . . . . November 2017

Statistics . . . . . . .1.0 . . . . x . . . . . . May 2018

total credits/GPA . . 6.0 . . . x.xxx

Edited by Lori D.
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd just list the courses in whichever "school year" makes the most sense within the context of the rest of his transcript. That's what I did anyway. Except for his Lukeion courses, and a couple of DE courses, very few of DS's credits fell neatly into a standard PS "school year." Some stretched over several years. I just put them where it made the most sense, so the credits were fairly evenly distributed across all four years.

Edited by Corraleno
  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd just list the courses in whichever "school year" makes the most sense within the context of the rest of his transcript. That's what I did anyway. Except for his Lukeion courses, and a couple of DE courses, very few of DS's credits fell neatly into a standard PS "school year." Some stretched over several years. I just put them where it made the most sense, so the credits were fairly evenly distributed across all four years.

This will help tremendously to even things out. I am going to list the class that started on May by start date rather than by ending date.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd just list the courses in whichever "school year" makes the most sense within the context of the rest of his transcript. That's what I did anyway. Except for his Lukeion courses, and a couple of DE courses, very few of DS's credits fell neatly into a standard PS "school year." Some stretched over several years. I just put them where it made the most sense, so the credits were fairly evenly distributed across all four years.

 

:iagree: This is what I did. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What what does summer belong to?

For us, summer would belong to the current year of homeschool. Because, our school year is from September 1 to August 31. For ex: last year, 2016-2017, my son was in 9th. That 9th grade extended through the summer. 10th grade started on September 1 of 2017.

 

Hope that helps. I don't know how your state determines a "school year" for homeschoolers.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd just list the courses in whichever "school year" makes the most sense within the context of the rest of his transcript. That's what I did anyway. Except for his Lukeion courses, and a couple of DE courses, very few of DS's credits fell neatly into a standard PS "school year." Some stretched over several years. I just put them where it made the most sense, so the credits were fairly evenly distributed across all four years.

👆This is how I am handling it, too.ðŸ‘

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If a 9th grader takes a math course that begins in February and finishes in July, is that credit earned in 9th grade or 10th grade?

What if a course begins in May and finished Nov. first? That's 10th grade, right?

I am just trying to figure out how this works out on the transcript. AOPS courses don't run on a normal school schedule.

I’ll put the one that finish in July as 9th grade as most of the months fall under 2nd semester 9th grade. The one that finished in November as 10th grade.

 

For my oldest:

6th grade

AoPS Intro to Geometry June 5th - Nov 20th, 2015

AoPS Intermediate Algebra June 3rd - Nov 11, 2015

AOPS Precalculus December 1st, 2015 - May 10th, 2016

AoPS Introduction to Programming with Python February 29th - May 16th, 2015

7th grade

AoPS Intermediate Programming with Python Jun 10 - Aug 26, 2016

AoPS Calculus Sep 30, 2015 - Apr 7, 2017

 

(ETA: the non-core classes are just listed in this post to show correspondence of AoPS courses with our academic year for our case. We’ll probably leave them off the transcript. Sorry for the confusion.)

 

What what does summer belong to?

Summer goes to the next grade. We end the school year on the first week of June, same as my local district for my convenience of planning summer camps.

 

ETA:

UC’s definition

“For California residents:

 

Classes taken during the summer after 9th grade count as 10th grade; classes in summer after 10th grade count as 10th grade; classes in summer after 11th grade count as 11th grade.â€

http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/requirements/gpa-requirement/index.html

Edited by Arcadia
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nothing prevents from also having summer school sections between each grade/year, and listing credits completed, or largely done, during the summer in those summer sections. :)

 

Again, I vote for organizing the transcript by subject, rather than year/grade, and include a completion date. Easy-peasy and no headache of trying to figure out which grade/year had more of the hours, or needs to be evened out.

 

 

If, for some reason, you MUST list the transcript by grade/year, then just decide on a single method for consistency (colleges like consistent policies for understanding transcripts! :) ), and in case you need to explain your method. Example: "All credits are listed in the in the grade/year of when credit was completed, and credits completed during summers are listed in the grade/year that follows that summer completion date."

Edited by Lori D.
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Arcadia, I noticed you mentioned computer science course. Do those fall under math and are therefore reportable prior to high school? In CA we can only report math and foreign language before 9th grade. Just wondering if computer science will fall under math.

Computer science falls under electives for my district so it is moot whether it falls under Math or Science as it doesn’t fulfill core requirements. I just copied and paste the list from my budget spreadsheet so I didn’t delete the python classes. Just showing how the AoPS classes timeline fall with respect to our academic calendar year. I won’t be reporting 6th grade classes anyway for UC.

 

I am using credit by exam for UC for both kids as they have their AP Computer Science A scores already. So I would be reporting AP scores from their 6th/7th grade.

 

ETA:

We are looking at out of state and out of country though as my husband don’t mind (or is rather interested in) relocating for college.

Edited by Arcadia
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In CA we can only report math and foreign language before 9th grade.

This is a followup response to the math credits. Our oldest kid are about the same age so I am leaving all information in my spreadsheet and then prune them when oldest decides on where he really wants to apply to.

 

If I don’t remember wrong the UC online app only has one slot each for math credit in 7th and 8th.

 

So for my current 7th grader,

Precalculus would go into the UC slot since its core math

Intro to NT and Intro to C&P would go under the transcript as electives

 

For my 8th grader,

Calculus would go into the core slot for 7th and Linear Algebra for 8th. Intermediate NT would go under elective in his transcript.

Edited by Arcadia
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For a "by subject" transcript, how necessary is the completed date, in your opinion?

 

Not at all necessary in my experience (which is with one kid).

 

Agreeing with EKS. We listed by subject and did not include completion dates, and had no troubles.

 

However: YMMV. ;) While most of the time it will be fine without, there are always a few colleges that require completion date, or require a transcript that lists by grade/year, or require some other special bit of info or way of listing. So as always, check the specific colleges of interest to see if they are fine without the completion date, OR, if they have some specific requirement about the transcript.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

However: YMMV. ;) While most of the time it will be fine without, there are always a few colleges that require completion date, or require a transcript that lists by grade/year, or require some other special bit of info or way of listing. So as always, check the specific colleges of interest to see if they are fine without the completion date, OR, if they have some specific requirement about the transcript.

 

Yes--this is true.  My younger son is interested in applying to the University of Washington, and they have a transcript form you have to fill in that separates everything out by grade (after you're accepted you send the official transcript, at least I think that's how it works).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since some colleges do require that courses be assigned to a specific grade/year (and there is a new section on the Common App where you list courses by grade/year, although not all colleges require it and there is a way to opt out), I think it's just simpler to go ahead and assign courses to a grade/year rather than trying to make different transcripts for different colleges.

 

I don't think it's a good idea to list individual completion dates for each course — IMO that just draws attention to something that adds nothing to the transcript and takes attention away from the things I want to highlight. If someone is only going to spend 10 minutes looking over my kid's application, I don't want them spending any of that time reading a bunch of random dates and trying to figure out what was done when, or puzzling over why 10 credits were completed in the year-that-would-have-been-11th-if-the-transcript-had-years while only 6 were completed in what-would-have-been-10th.

 

I also don't include any extra notes about how courses were assigned to particular years since that is really not something colleges care about. My philosophy is to only provide information that is either requested by the college or adds something positive to the application. Adding unnecessary dates, or calling attention to the fact that some courses were completed over several years, or started in one year and finished in another, does not enhance an application, and risks raising questions that could even be seen as negatives: Does this student have trouble finishing things? Is he flaky? Is this homeschool disorganized? I want adcoms focusing on the content of the education, not how it was scheduled or the format in which it's presented.

 

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since some colleges do require that courses be assigned to a specific grade/year (and there is a new section on the Common App where you list courses by grade/year, although not all colleges require it and there is a way to opt out), I think it's just simpler to go ahead and assign courses to a grade/year rather than trying to make different transcripts for different colleges.

 

I don't think it's a good idea to list individual completion dates for each course — IMO that just draws attention to something that adds nothing to the transcript and takes attention away from the things I want to highlight. If someone is only going to spend 10 minutes looking over my kid's application, I don't want them spending any of that time reading a bunch of random dates and trying to figure out what was done when, or puzzling over why 10 credits were completed in the year-that-would-have-been-11th-if-the-transcript-had-years while only 6 were completed in what-would-have-been-10th.

 

I also don't include any extra notes about how courses were assigned to particular years since that is really not something colleges care about. My philosophy is to only provide information that is either requested by the college or adds something positive to the application. Adding unnecessary dates, or calling attention to the fact that some courses were completed over several years, or started in one year and finished in another, does not enhance an application, and risks raising questions that could even be seen as negatives: Does this student have trouble finishing things? Is he flaky? Is this homeschool disorganized? I want adcoms focusing on the content of the education, not how it was scheduled or the format in which it's presented.

I also find it simpler to look at transcript by grade. So I would include course title, grade, credit, and anprovider's name, right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since some colleges do require that courses be assigned to a specific grade/year (and there is a new section on the Common App where you list courses by grade/year...  think it's just simpler to go ahead and assign courses to a grade/year...

 

I don't think it's a good idea to list individual completion dates for each course — IMO that just draws attention to something that adds nothing to the transcript and takes attention away from the things I want to highlight...

 

I also don't include any extra notes about how courses were assigned to particular years since that is really not something colleges care about. My philosophy is to only provide information that is either requested by the college or adds something positive to the application...

 

Yes, I agree this is more simple  -- either list by subject with no completion dates, or list by grade/year with no completion dates.

 

I suggested completion dates as a compromise for the parent who is struggling to decide which grade/year to award credit and wanted to provide as much info as possible about courses and when they were taken. ;)

 

We did not use completion dates on our listed-by-subject transcript, and we had no troubles with college admissions. I personally find it easier to look at and understand a transcript that is listed by subject, as that is what colleges are looking for -- does the student have enough credits in each of the subject areas to meet the admission requirements. Listing by grade/year is easier to understand for others.

Edited by Lori D.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I assigned credit earned during the summer to the previous school year. 

 

When my daughter applied to college in the fall of her senior year, her transcript therefore showed classes that were in progress rather than a mix of classes that were in progress and completed during the summer.

 

Regards,

Kareni

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...