I'm curious: Is everything about the application process digital nowadays? (Did anyone actually send in transcripts or application paperwork, etc. via snail mail?) Likewise, do people still get "fat envelopes" for acceptances, or is that info delivered digitally, too? (I was fascinated by the earlier thread about the swag colleges sent peoples' kids. I never got anything like that! Part of me thinks it sounds super fun, and part of me was thinking: I'd rather they just lower the tuition costs instead of sending out 8,000 t-shirts, tote bags, masks and bumper stickers every year, lol.)

I'm considering some of Beautiful Feet's high school history courses. (Example.) I've never used their curricula before, but I do love that the courses are literature-based. It says on their site that the World History course can count as either 1 American History OR 1 Modern World History credit AND 1 Literature Credit. How do you handle this on the transcript and in your course descriptions? The reading for the course definitely seems robust, so it seems clear that the course would legitimately count for 2.0 credits total, but I'm worried about it looking like I am "double dipping" on the transcript. If you've done an interdisciplinary course (of any sort), I'd love to know how you counted it and how you represented it on your transcript/course descriptions. Thanks! Also, if you've used Beautiful Feet before, I'd love to hear your thoughts! I think a literature-based program would work great for us, though it might be almost too much literature, since I have tons of language arts stuff that I want to do as well. Trying to figure out how I would weave it all together.... P.S. Why is it called "Beautiful Feet Books"? I find the name kinda bizarre.

Thank you for sharing!! I LOVE reading others' course descriptions!

Yes, exactly! Thank you to everyone for helping me think out loud here on the boards. It helps a lot!

Thank you for the feedback! (You always provide thoughtful feedback. Thanks for that!) And yes, for both of these courses, I would count them as electives for sure, NOT core requirements. I appreciate the reminder that I don't have to decide right now how to categorize everything! (I can see that I'm trying to figure out every little thing right now, when much of this will have to shake out over time. I just don't want to mess anything up, so I'm trying to be thorough in my thinking and planning...) I think I'm going to move ahead with the goal of keeping excellent records of what we do (I'm a meticulous, color-coding sort of gal, so record-keeping is genuinely fun and soothing fun for me, lol) and then I'll decide what to DO with all of it closer to college application time. It's so easy to feel like high school has to fit in a certain type of box and mostly, I want to be able to continue to look at our homeschooling creatively and see what it all adds up to.

Thank you SO MUCH for sharing this perspective!! I was beginning to think APs were mandatory to be a competitive college applicant, but I so don't want to do the teaching-to-a-test thing. (Not that an AP course HAS to be miserable and all about the test, but it's just a train I don't really want to get on, if I can avoid it. Obviously, we will take it year by year and I will serve my daughter and her goals, but philosophically, I'm with SWB on the APs.) I think it's very likely my daughter will do some DE in the upper grades, because I think she will enjoy dipping her toes into the college experience (and because we have College Credit Plus here in Ohio), and she will obviously take the SAT or the ACT, but I am sort of hoping to avoid the AP insanity. But seriously, thank you for sharing. I love hearing all the different ways homeschooling high school can be done successfully!

Wow, congratulations! That is wonderful! I am always so encouraged by other homeschoolers' successes. I confess I worry about people questioning my mommy grades. (Like, are the College Admissions Police going to show up on my doorstep and demand I substantiate my grades? lol) But yes, I have a feeling I'll be doing "mastery" as well. Still trying to figure that piece out. (With our math curriculum, I can obviously just give clear-cut grades based on the end-of-lesson tests, but for every other subject area, I really feel like we operate on mastery.)

Yes! We love it all. I could totally do a whole course on fairy tales or children's authors for sure. I actually have been a little sad this past year because my oldest is "aging out" of middle grade fiction and it is kind of breaking my heart, lol. She loves the middle grade novels we've read--and I was sure to cram in as many read-alouds this year this year as possible, to make sure she "got" all the books I'd hoped her childhood to contain--but intellectually, she's completely ready to move on to typical high school and adult literature. It's bittersweet. (I love all the high school novels as well; but the middle grade stuff is so special. Luckily my 11-year-old is still loving it, so I have another year or two, I think!) 😉

This sounds wonderful! And yes, I feel like this is how my family learns, too! We do some formal, traditional curricula in our homeschool, for sure (for math and such, especially), but so much of our life is just following interests--reading, discussing, and doing Cool Stuff and making art. I've never issued grades for anything in the past, so making this jump to high school and getting started on course descriptions and a transcript is the first time I've really had to formally "package" our learning, and it feels weird!

Thank you for sharing this as well! This is exactly how it is for us with language arts, and for art with my oldest. This child paints or draws in every spare waking moment. (She painted for like six hours yesterday alone.) So I feel like she will legitimately earn a TON of fine arts credits by the time she's a senior. (She is currently planning to be a painting/illustration major.) As I map out her courses, it's been a challenge to figure out what to put where, and how to group things together. There are so many different ways I could put the puzzle pieces together. I appreciate your sharing these examples!

Thank you for this. So much. And yes, we would absolutely increase the rigor over time. They've submitted work to poetry competitions, and readings and galleries--we are very much into that sort of thing! (When it's not Covid times.) To clarify, in these daily sessions we're not reading like, Shel Silverstein--although we love him! (Well, okay, every now and then I throw in some Jack Prelutsky for fun and nostalgia from when they were tiny, lol.) But overall, we're reading American poets, British poets, diverse authors, all different forms, Shakespeare. Like you say..it feels "real" to me, for sure, so I want to count it, if I can. Thanks again for your feedback!

Oh, I love this idea! Yes, we could easily add in a few significant, formal papers to round it out. My daughters would love that anyway. Honestly, now that I'm writing and thinking about it, I could easily include the poetry we write in this class as well. (As I mentioned, I'm a former English teacher, so our homeschool is overwhelmingly language-arts based. We will have more than enough language arts credit to fulfill our basic courses. I could definitely siphon all our poetry work into this class without coming up short elsewhere....) Thanks for helping me think through this!

No, I don't suspect she'll need the credits, numbers-wise. Poetry and nature journaling are just huge areas of interest for us and I guess I'd want to highlight that, if possible? (I'm a former high school English teacher, and my experience is that poetry is barely taught in American public schools. I guess my goal in separating this as its own class is to highlight poetry as a special area of interest, and show the breadth and depth with which we've studied it.) I guess a related question would be: Wouldn't my daughter want to show as many credits on a transcript as possible? (I'm genuinely asking! I'm so new to high school...) Thanks!

We don't do "morning time" per se, but for years now, we've opened our school day with poetry. Our process: I make photocopies of the day's poem. I read it aloud while the girls read along. Then, they annotate the poem, observing/commenting/responding to it in the margins. They highlight favorite lines, we discuss it using a literary vocabulary (identifying literary devices, commenting on the structure, tone, etc. etc.). Some days we might simply read and discuss, but most days the girls are definitely responding in writing for at least a few minutes. It's casual, but it's good, academic work with poetry. When I tally that up, it works out to about one hour, 15 minutes per week. Over the course of an average school year: 1.25 hours per week x 36 weeks = 45 hours. 45 hours a year x 4 years of high school = 180 hours. If we continue this practice through all four years of high school, can I legitimately call this a 1.0 credit language arts elective? Or would you just consider this practice a part of language arts? (We write original poetry, too, but for us, that's more intermittent and I feel it falls under the umbrella of our main language arts/writing work. And we definitely do more than enough language arts to earn the necessary credits without including our morning poetry sessions.) We would be able to cover many poetry collections and anthologies over the course of four years. (I would obviously keep track of the resources we cover and note them in the course description.) If you did call this its own course, would you title it "Poetry?" "Poetry Appreciation?" Something else? Likewise, we do formal nature journaling for 1-2 hours most Fridays. (It's our favorite part of the week!) Can I tally this up over four years' time also? We put in enough hours that we easily could get 1.0 credit out of it over four years. We use well-known guidebooks as our spine, and we do legitimate scientific observation during each outdoor session, noting the day, time, location, season, weather, etc. We observe natural objects in scientific detail and we list their common names and often look up their scientific Latin names afterward, etc. But it's also obviously an artistic exercise, as we use a variety of artistic media (watercolor, brush pen, colored pencil, etc.), and pay attention to things like color mixing and composition. Would you label this a natural science elective, or a fine arts elective? What would you title the class? Just "Nature Journaling"? Thanks! I'd love feedback. I think I'm mostly looking for confirmation that this is the correct way to tally high school credit done over a span of time and not, like, "credit grubbing." (If I'm misunderstanding, I'd appreciate correction.) And if anyone else has given credit for morning time-type activities, I'd love to hear about what you did and how you tallied it. Thank you!

Oh, this is good advice! Thank you for this. We've done TONS of American history over the years, so I was wondering how to frame her study of it at the high school level.

Thank you for this reminder! I keep forgetting this - that each state has wildly different graduation requirements and that colleges get applicants from all 50 states (and internationally), so they have to be open to all different configurations. Your post prompted me to read the fine print of my state's (Ohio) social studies requirements (page eight) and they are so weird. Public high school students must have 3 credits in the social sciences, but the only requirements are "one-half unit of American history, one-half unit of American government, and one-half unit in world history and civilizations in the three required social studies units." (I'm not necessarily seeking to adhere to public school graduation requirements, but I like to be aware of them. I care most about college admissions requirements.) So, now I see I have a lot more flexibility and freedom in this area than I previously thought. This is both exciting and overwhelming, because it means I am no closer to making a decision, lol.

Thank you x 1,000!! This is so incredibly helpful!

Hi! I'm trying to figure out a 4-year history plan with my rising 9th grader. She is heavily art-focused and would love to do a one-year art history course for at least one of her social science credits (most likely senior year), but I want to make sure we're getting in the expected/typical college-prep history progression as well. What is the basic college prep social science progression? One year of world history followed by one year of American history? Yes/no? Then what? I ask because I'm seeing a lot of different offerings on different curriculum websites. I guess I'm confused because I feel like American government is important, but then where does that leave world geography? Economics? Psychology? Which of these are required? We'd love to skip economics, if possible. (We'll definitely be doing personal finance, but none of us has any interest in economics....) Most college admissions websites I've visited just say "3 years of social sciences" are their minimum requirements, but they don't offer specifics. My daughter would love to do something super focused, such as a year-long deep dive into a topic like World War II or women's history or women's studies or Renaissance art history, but I'm unsure if this is okay, as far as college admissions goes? (Could art history BE her world history course? Does world history have to be a survey course of the entire globe, or could it focus on just, say, early European history?) I would love advice from the experienced! Mostly, I'd love to know the 3- or 4-year history progression your child did for high school, and why. Bonus points if you include the specific curriculum you chose (or a quick description of a course you put together yourself.) Thank you so much!

Thanks! It's interesting to see how mixed others' experiences have been. Personally, we have always tracked our reading (literally since kindergarten, lol) just because I'm the type who likes to track things like that (I love to remember!). So we will definitely continue to keep track. I just wasn't sure where to put the info (and it looks like opinions are mixed on that, too). TWTM recommends keeping a reading list, so I thought it was expected/standard for high school.... I think I will just continue to track everything. I'll definitely track the "in-depth" books that go with specific courses in the relevant course descriptions, and then I'll keep an overall list that tracks everything, just so I have it. (I figure, I can decide later what to do with the info once we get to senior year/college applications. It looks like some colleges definitely don't want that info, but your post suggests that there are some colleges that do want it.) Anyway, this post has clarified my thinking, so thanks to everyone who chimed in!

Next year (9th grade), my daughter will study certain works specifically for her 9th grade English credit (I'm still planning it out, but it will surely include lots of typical classics, like Animal Farm and Romeo and Juliet, etc.). To study these works, we will do close readings/analysis and write essays, etc. But she also reads a ton independently, both fiction and nonfiction. We typically do not analyze or write in response to her pleasure reading, but we do chat about it. (Her pleasure reading includes fun teenage fare--books by John Green, The Hunger Games, etc.-but she definitely reads "legitimate" literary fiction, too.) (Note: I personally consider it all "legitimate," but I think you know what I mean in this context....) My question: What do I put where? Do I put the only the books that we study in depth on her English 9 course description? Or should I list her pleasure reading in the course description as well (since that reading will have been completed during 9th grade)? OR, do I list the books studied for the course under the English 9 course description, and then list only her independent pleasure reading on the reading list? OR, should I just put every book read on the reading list, even if it was already mentioned in the course description? Basically, I'm wondering how others organize this. (By the time we get to 12th grade, there will be so many books!) I'm inclined to put every book read--regardless if it was for a course or not--on the reading list, so the reading list is a complete reflection of her reading life, but I'm not sure if there is a standard way to do this. Bonus question: Do you (personally) include audiobooks and read alouds on the reading list? Or do you only include the books the student has physically read to themselves? (Pretty sure I will include audiobooks and read alouds on my reading list, but am curious what others do....) Thank you!

Thank you for taking the time to share all of this! I appreciate it!

This is helpful! Thank you for sharing. And yes, I'd love to read your other course descriptions, if you don't mind posting them. Thank you!

This is a helpful list! Thank you!

I like this! Thanks for this suggestion.

I'm not talking about the main subjects here (English, science, etc.)! I'm talking about electives and things likely to be half-credit courses. For example: If I am planning a high school health class for my student, can reading and discussion suffice to issue a credit, so long as the reading and discussion meet the hourly requirements? (In other words, if I wanted the health class to focus on sex education, can we simply read and discuss books in that genre and call it good? Or do I need to require testing or a written component of some sort for the credit to be legitimate? How did you approach this?) Thus far, we've always covered health through reading and discussion (and sometimes videos), and I'm just curious if that same (effective!) approach generally cuts it at the high school level. Another example might be personal finance. Can we just read and discuss books (say, Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman stuff) and call it good? It's important to me that my children be educated in these areas, but our core subjects will already be extremely writing-heavy. I don't want to add busywork unnecessarily! I would love to hear about any courses you've given credit for that did not involve tests or writing. Thanks!