Jump to content

Menu

"Double Dipping" Credits on Transcripts


Recommended Posts

Thinking ahead (DD is a rising 8th grader).  On a high school transcript could a year of ballet count as meeting both PE and Visual/Performing Arts requirements, or would I have to pick one?

 

I took 4 credits of band growing up that ended up counting as both PE and Fine ARts -- but the SAME credit didn't count for both.  The fall of each year (Marching band) counted as 1/2 credit of PE and the spring counted as 1/2 credit Fine Arts. After 4 years, I ended up with 2 credits PE and 2 credits Fine ARts. (All I needed).  Could you split the ballet year similarly to give you what you needed?

Edited by vonfirmath
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agree, pick one, and I'd suggest making it the Fine Arts credit.

Note: if your student is spending more than 6 hours a week on the Ballet, you would be able count some of the EXCESS hours, *along with other physical activities* towards a PE credit. What you can't do is double dip and count the same hours twice.

Edited by Lori D.
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll be the dissenting voice.  Mock, for us, counts as 1.5 credits last year.  I gave him one credit in Logic & Argument and a half credit for Civics.

 

Why?  Because a credit is 120-150+ hours.  There is no set limit.  So, if your child pours 300 hours into ballet each year, it can count as two full credits.  It obviously counts as the Fine Arts credit and there is no reason it wouldn't be PE as well.

 

Just my .02.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll throw in another option. If ballet is one of your daughter's passions, you may want to keep it out as an extracurricular to make it stand out and show longevity in the activity. I'm doing that with both aikido and theatre for my daughter.

 

She's been doing aikido since she was 6, spends an hour and a half 3-4 days a week on it, and this year has been helping instruct new students, showing leadership. I am keeping that out separate so that it doesn't get lost in a PE credit. Instead, I tracked hours of activities she's been doing otherwise for PE---ice skating, swimming, camping, kickboxing, hiking, biking, etc.

 

Theatre is a passion, and something she's considering as a major or minor, so I didn't want her work on shows to get lost in an arts credit. For her fine arts credit, I cobbled together an "intro to visual and performing arts" ocurse tracking attendance at a variety of performances (concerts, plays, musicals, improv, opera, cultural festivals), along with some instruction in drawing, painting, and photography at a co-op. I threw in some lectures on appreciation as well.

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always scratched my head at the "extra curriculars look better if you don't give transcript credit" philosophy. I don't get why a college would count this against someone.

 

Is this actually something people have seen in college admissions guidebooks or something? I'm looking for something more authoritative than "I heard on college confidential that...."

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've used a physical activity for both PE and extra-curricular.  My son was involved in the martial arts during high school. He needed 1/2 credit of PE, so we used it as PE in 9th grade while his competitions/belts were shown as extra-curriculars the following years.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always scratched my head at the "extra curriculars look better if you don't give transcript credit" philosophy. I don't get why a college would count this against someone.

 

Is this actually something people have seen in college admissions guidebooks or something? I'm looking for something more authoritative than "I heard on college confidential that...."

 

In the less selective schools, I don't know how much extra-curricular activities are weighted in the college admissions process but I do know that they are weighted quite heavily for scholarships given that many kids will have the same GPA.

 

The more selective the school, the more the extra-curricular activities are used to distinguish one student from the other. Most, if not all of the students admitted will be 'A' students, but not all 'A' students will be admitted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always scratched my head at the "extra curriculars look better if you don't give transcript credit" philosophy. I don't get why a college would count this against someone.

 

Is this actually something people have seen in college admissions guidebooks or something? I'm looking for something more authoritative than "I heard on college confidential that...."

 

 

LOL,  well, ya know, we could also go with the, "Colleges really don't give much credence to Mommy grades."

 

:D

 

 And, if that being so, realize that none of our credits are worth two hoots and if she's going for any kind of dance scholarship there will be auditions, and if academic scholarships, they'll require good ACT/SAT scores.  So, that being the most likely scenario, I am starting to realize that transcripts are not as make it/break it as I once feared.  That said, of course we are honest in credits earned and worked for, and obviously we want to showcase our kids' efforts.   However, I'm not convinced there is only one "correct" answer to this.  I will say that we are part of a public school funded homeschooling group though this has not always been the case.  We have the option of receiving a "real" high school diploma from the sponsoring district.  We are allowed to essentially make a class out of activities and learning that totals at least 120 hours worth of high school level work in any one area.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll be the dissenting voice.  Mock, for us, counts as 1.5 credits last year.  I gave him one credit in Logic & Argument and a half credit for Civics.

 

To me, this is not double-dipping. You split up the credits; you didn't give him 1.5 credits in each.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always scratched my head at the "extra curriculars look better if you don't give transcript credit" philosophy. I don't get why a college would count this against someone.

 

They don't count it against people. But when colleges routinely receive hundreds or thousands of applications from students with 4.0+ GPAs, that A in Tae Kwon Do (for example) doesn't mean anything, really, but having a 3rd dan black belt and 13 years of Tae Kwon Do as an extracurricular does.

 

And honestly, when parents stuff their kids' transcripts with things that would clearly be extra-curriculars for schooled kids, it does look like you're just trying to pad the transcript. I was going to use hockey to fulfill my kids' PE requirements, but I decided to use their summer track club instead. My kids will graduate high school with 14 and 12 years of hockey, respectively, but they only run track for 6 weeks in the summer. Which one is their passion?

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

They don't count it against people. But when colleges routinely receive hundreds or thousands of applications from students with 4.0+ GPAs, that A in Tae Kwon Do (for example) doesn't mean anything, really, but having a 3rd dan black belt and 13 years of Tae Kwon Do as an extracurricular does.

 

And honestly, when parents stuff their kids' transcripts with things that would clearly be extra-curriculars for schooled kids, it does look like you're just trying to pad the transcript. I was going to use hockey to fulfill my kids' PE requirements, but I decided to use their summer track club instead. My kids will graduate high school with 14 and 12 years of hockey, respectively, but they only run track for 6 weeks in the summer. Which one is their passion?

 

This is my goal--that the activity will be noticed as unusual and be seen as an asset. Knowing that each transcript gets only a few minutes of time initially (from writings by many college admissions folks), my assumption is that the admissions person is likely to scan the course titles and the list of extracurriculars, particularly for schools that don't want detailed course descriptions. A semester of "PE" can be anything, 12 years of aikido shows something else entirely. The title "Visual and Performing Arts" gives a different impression than working 90+ hours each on three 10-show runs of community theatre. 

 

If ballet isn't the student's passion and it's just a class she's taking to try it out, PE would be totally appropriate. That's how I handled kickboxing (which only lasted a few months) and the painting/drawing/photography classes for my daughter. Even if she's spending all her time there, though, it's not "wrong" to use part of it for PE.

Edited by KarenNC
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll throw in another option. If ballet is one of your daughter's passions, you may want to keep it out as an extracurricular to make it stand out and show longevity in the activity. I'm doing that with both aikido and theatre for my daughter.

 

She's been doing aikido since she was 6, spends an hour and a half 3-4 days a week on it, and this year has been helping instruct new students, showing leadership. I am keeping that out separate so that it doesn't get lost in a PE credit. Instead, I tracked hours of activities she's been doing otherwise for PE---ice skating, swimming, camping, kickboxing, hiking, biking, etc.

 

Theatre is a passion, and something she's considering as a major or minor, so I didn't want her work on shows to get lost in an arts credit. For her fine arts credit, I cobbled together an "intro to visual and performing arts" ocurse tracking attendance at a variety of performances (concerts, plays, musicals, improv, opera, cultural festivals), along with some instruction in drawing, painting, and photography at a co-op. I threw in some lectures on appreciation as well.

 

I'm doing something similar with dd's theater: we're doing a theater credit, which involves attending plays and reading and analyzing film versions (and writing assignments). She's also got theater as an extracurricular, and that's where her performance time goes for her involvement with community theater.  So she's getting both an elective credit and extracurricular "credit" for one of her passions. It's not the same hours being counted twice, though, they are different hours.  I imagine that it can't hurt to have 2-4 Theater Arts credits on her transcript along with evidence of extracurricular involvement since the age of 7 in community theater.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just as a side note -- check your state's requirements.  Mine doesn't require PE for homeschoolers as an actual credit; it has to be covered *sometime* between 7th and 12th grade, but it's not at all required as a high school credit. Soooo, since my kids' main extracurricular is martial arts, I counted it as their PE in 7th and 8th grade, so that we have a documented PE as required, but it'll be an extracurricular in high school.  (If they end up as assistant instructors at some point, I will list that as a separate spot on the extracurricular list to show leadership skills.)

 

Fwiw, I made a poll here a while ago, and nobody's colleges, except for maybe 1, required credits of PE to graduate.  Which is why I decided I didn't care about having an official PE credit.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Aside from state universities sometimes having very specific requirements, do selective college admissions people really look at credit totals, assuming there are more than some bare minimum?  My guess is that they consider the relative rigor of the academic course load rather than sheer numbers of credits for electives and random requirements like PE - is this an incorrect assumption?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Aside from state universities sometimes having very specific requirements, do selective college admissions people really look at credit totals, assuming there are more than some bare minimum? My guess is that they consider the relative rigor of the academic course load rather than sheer numbers of credits for electives and random requirements like PE - is this an incorrect assumption?

Here's an article about how more selective schools score transcripts. If you don't want to read the whole thing, scroll down to "Looking at the Numbers."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, if it's for college admissions, colleges don't care what you do for PE, correct?

 

If it is for state requirements and fulfillment of regulations, that is one thing, but otherwise, does it matter?

 

There are public schools that will count certain extracurricular team sports as fulfilling the P.E. credit. I don't know if those students also list the sport as extracurricular. If you play volleyball for three years and it counts as P.E. for the one credit requirement, you would still list volleyball as extracurricular, I think. Someone who takes ballet in high school likely isn't taking it for just the one year. So I see no problem giving one P.E. credit while also listing ballet grades 9-12 as extracurricular, along with specific performances, honors, and roles danced.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Thanks Janet!

 

From the linked article:

 

Looking at the Numbers

 
At some colleges admission readers will create a set of numbers that looks like this: 1-5-5-5-6. What does this mean?
 
These numbers indicate how many academic prep classes (what some call academic solids) you are taking in a particular year. If you are hoping to get into a highly selective school then you should to be taking courses in English, Mathematics, Social Science, Lab Sciences and Foreign Language in grades 9-12.
 
Most students actually start in 8th grade with algebra and some are taking other academic solids too—foreign language, for example. Students who do not have these five solids all the way through are often looked at as not having a challenging program. Therefore you should have, in terms of solids 1-5-5-5-5 if at all possible. As I have said before some will end up taking more than 5 solids so the total number may look like this: 2-5-5-6-7.
 
In addition, some schools also track another set of numbers– the number of the highest-level courses taken in grades 8-12. By highest-level I mean courses that are designated as honors, or gifted and talents or AP or IB. Many schools limit the number of honors/AP courses a student can take in grades 8-10 so this calculation might end up looking like this: 1-2-3-4-5.
 
If this set of numbers looks like other top students in the school then this is good news, but if more than a few have this: 1- 2-3-4-5-7 and you still have the 1-2-3-4-5, then your program will be perceived by some as significantly weaker than some of your peers. Some colleges (and secondary schools too) weight the honors/AP courses in calculating the GPA.
 
Accordingly, it seems that total credits, or numbers of credits for non-"solid" courses like PE, are not relevant for competitiveness of a student's academic record for selective college admissions.  (I say numbers because I imagine that elective credits may demonstrate something aside from academic competitiveness, i.e. subject interest.)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I did with PE was to leave it off of the transcript, but mention it in the school profile.  I said that while PE was not an academic subject, our sons lived active lifestyles that included competitive swimming, frequent 5k and 10k races, gym workouts and hiking.  (For subsequent kids, it will mention running more and swimming less or outrigger canoeing instead of swimming, to reflect their personal focus in athletics.)

 

I try to keep in mind that college applications are sometimes simply a matter of displaying that the student is ready for college level work, but that at other times, it is a competitive process where admissions tries to differentiate small differences between applicants.  A big state college may not care about more than a transcript and test scores.  If they have 8000 new freshmen each year, they may not have time to consider much more than the basics.  A selective school may care more about the details and have time to consider and weigh if national level archery competition is of more or less weight than an Eagle Scout rank or if being a competitive swimmer matters more than being student body president.  

 

When I put something on the transcript, I tried to consider if it was somehow diminishing the impact of something else.  I did not put Model United Nations on the transcript, even though one of the local private schools has MUN as a class.  That kid will be using MUN to showcase his leadership and organizational skills.  (He started a team, represents homeschoolers at MUN League meetings, and is on the planning secretariat for a large regional conference.)  He is active in MUN, but it isn't something that he is spending several hours a week on.  It comes and goes in spurts as conference dates come up through the year.  He also already has AP Comparative Politices, a course on Japan, and a course on Korea on his transcript.  These three courses were significant work.  I feel like adding a credit for MUN, which would be based on meeting a minimum number of hours, would diminish the impact of the other courses.

 

On the other hand, if he were a musician, who spent many hours a day on practice, lessons, group practice and performances, I might cheerfully grant credit for a fine arts credit.  One of my friends in public high school was a member of several school music groups.  He had annual credit for both choir and band, as well as a credit for a music theory class.  He also would have listed being a drum major for two years, part of the school swing band and both regular and swing choir as extra curriculars.

 

What I try not to do is to take a rather minor outside activity (for example the living history volunteering that one kid did at a historic farm 1-2 times a month) and mark it as both an academic credit and an extracurricular activity.  In my head that slides into double dipping, because it was a much smaller amount of time and would only barely come up to being worth an academic credit.  (This is my assessment of what my kid did, without adding more related reading and output.)  

 

Sometimes I hear homeschoolers (especially at conferences) advocate for taking anything the kid does and counting it as a credit.  I am for out of the box learning and recognizing that we may be more prone to lifestyle learning than schools are able to manage (even if they wanted to).  I am considering a credit in botany in a year or two for my garden loving son.  But I'm not sure that just learning to knit should count as a full credit.  Maybe as part of an arts and crafts credit, maybe as part of home ec, but not knitting a couple beginner projects and marking that as a credit.  (I'm trying to draw an extreme example, not knocking knitting - which I do- or home ec on transcripts - which I think can be worthy.)

 

And that brings me back to the competitive nature of college apps.  If my kid lists MUN as an academic credit and five other courses, but the kid at the school downtown has five similar rigorous academics plus a sixth academic subject plus MUN as an extracurricular, will an admissions officer look at the other kid and perceive that he accomplished more and is more worthy?  I don't know.  Nor do I know what impression it makes if my kid has seven academic subjects (including MUN) and another kid has six academic subjects with MUN as an extracurricular.  Does one look better than the other?  Does one seem like padding?  [No one seems to talk about public school kids padding their transcript, because they don't control the transcript or gpa process, but there can definitely be some strategic thinking in course selection or deciding between being a member of this very active club or an officer of that smaller club.]

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[No one seems to talk about public school kids padding their transcript, because they don't control the transcript or gpa process, but there can definitely be some strategic thinking in course selection or deciding between being a member of this very active club or an officer of that smaller club.]

 

I definitely agree with this. One of the complaints I had about the high school my oldest went to was that they seemed to willy-nilly push the kids to take up any opportunity that came along: job shadow for a job you have no interest whatsoever in doing? Do it! It'll look good on your resume! Community service project that's just a one-off event and not something you show any inclination to become involved in? Do it! It'll look good on your resume! Club that focuses on something you find insanely boring? Do it! It'll look good on your resume! The school was so focused on creating opportunities that kids could stuff onto their resumes that the kids started to become neurotic about it. My daughter would agonize for hours over whether to pick this or that specific activity to attend because they were both at the same time and she couldn't figure out what would look best on her resume. It was ridiculous. Kids shouldn't have to have resumes in the first place.

 

When she did finalize her resume senior year, I urged her to drop from it anything that was a one-shot deal or was something she only did to make her resume look good. What she was left with were the things that showed who she really was: a year-long internship with a former governor of our state, varsity and pre-professional soccer, student coaching, a summer medical internship at a local university, and four years of community service at our temple. As she received well over 30k in scholarships, I don't think it mattered that she left off the 4-hour job shadow at a collections agency, for example.

 

(I always encouraged her not to do these uninteresting and pointless activities to begin with, but the school had frightened her into thinking they were vital. What they actually were were time-wasters.)

 

No, schooled students have no say over their transcript, but these days, it's not good enough to just go to classes and do well in them. You practically have to hire an image consultant to help you craft your high school years into some sort of marketing ploy. It's awful, and I won't allow that to happen to the kids I homeschool.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The advantage of listing something like ballet as an extracurricular is that it gives the student something to put in that big ol' "extracurricular" box that is on most applications (for colleges, scholarships, whatever) and elaborate on it a bit (such as listing leadership positions, awards, and such.)

 

If you are in a situation where the transcript is required to have certain elements (we were part of a public charter program for homeschoolers, so we did have to list specific credits for graduation), then perhaps for a semester or whatever you could use the ballet as PE or fine arts. FWIW, the colleges themselves are unlikely to care if you have PE or fine arts credits specifically, though they will be looking at the overall quality of the courses (basing that on my own experience with two applicants and observing their peers' college app process.)

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...