Transcripts: by subject or by year?

[lewelma]

One of the universities I have been in touch with said that a transcript by year would be easier for the admissions people because that is what they are used to seeing. I can certainly make one, but it won't be exactly right date wise.  Not only are we 6 months off, but ds started the correspondence school mid-school year, and has taken 1.5 years to do some classes because of it (the final exams would have been in 4 months so we delayed until the following year). Also, each class has 5 unit assessments that are actually printed with grade and date on the transcript, so it will be clear that he has taken more than a year for some classes.  He also has taken AoPS classes that run in both the NZ summer and the American summer. He has at least 1 class (current events) which is a quarter class over 4 years.  So any by year transcript I write will have to have some footnotes to make sure that it does not appear that I am lying as the dates will not match up exactly with all the transcripts that get sent.  I have seen the transcripts that do both in a grid, but this would be a serious mess if I did that, like 1/3, 2/3rds for many classes, and even more bitsy for physics.  Plus, ds has taken the NZ 12th grade English assessments over 2 years because we are doing other stuff at home. So it might look like he is just only doing a half class of English each year, unless they consider his homeschool work.  Only 1/3rd of his course work is through his official 'school'.

 

So if a school prefers the by-year transcript, is it ok to make one with footnotes?  Or should I make a by subject transcript.

 

Ruth in NZ

[regentrude]

Can you simply award the credit in the year the course was completed?

Or give fractional credits for each year the student worked on the course?

 

We have done some courses across school year breaks and simply listed the course and credit for the year it was done.

We have some courses in which the student earns a cumulative credit over 4 years of hs; I have given 0.25 cr for each year.

 

The best transcript form I have ever seen is by year AND subject. It is sheer genius and many of us here have used the template. It was posted in some earlier thread. I can email you one if you pm me your address.

Edited March 1, 2017 by regentrude

[Luckymama]

D's transcript is only by subject. I didn't even bother using 'year' columns.

[lewelma]

Haha, yours is the one that I have seen!  I've thought about it, but it would be seriously messy with fractional credits all over the place.  Here in NZ each class you take is worth between 18 and 20 credits, where each credit is about 10 hours of work.  Each assessment is worth between 3 and 8 credits depending on how much effort it requires. Each assessment is listed separately on your transcript by date completed.  So we have just picked off the assessments when ds has time.  So in 9th grade ds did 10 credits of physics, in 10th he did 8 more, and in 11th he will do the experiment which is worth 4.  And he may do the writing assignment in 12th grade as a part of what I consider English, but would be listed on his transcript under physics.  It is worth 3.  All of his subjects with the correspondence school are like this.  So to list them by the year he finishes them is not right as he will end up with too many courses in 11th grade for example, if he is just picking off the last 3 and 4 credit units in bunches of subjects. But to list them in the grid by subject and by year is going to be pretty funny with 10/25, 8/25, 4/25, and 3/25ths for physics grades 9 through 12!  Plus a full class is 18-20 credits, so ds is actually doing more than a full course. This has mostly happened because he started at the correspondence school half way through the year so could not get everything done in 4 months.

Edited March 1, 2017 by lewelma

[lewelma]

D's transcript is only by subject. I didn't even bother using 'year' columns.

 

But what if they prefer by year?  Do you just say, sorry can't do it?

[EKS]

We did by subject and no one had a problem with it (he got into four of the five schools he applied to and was waitlisted at the fifth, so I'd call that success!).  I did indicate which courses were done in middle school. 

Edited March 1, 2017 by EKS

[lewelma]

We did by year and no one had a problem with it (he got into four of the five schools he applied to and was waitlisted at the fifth, so I'd call that success!).  I did indicate which courses were done in middle school. 

 

Do you mean by subject?  The first school we talked to preferred by year, but I'm saying if I do it  that way, I'm going to have to smudge it quite a bit to make it fit into the format.  

[swimmermom3]

Can you simply award the credit in the year the course was completed?

Or give fractional credits for each year the student worked on the course?

 

We have done some courses across school year breaks and simply listed the course and credit for the year it was done.

We have some courses in which the student earns a cumulative credit over 4 years of hs; I have given 0.25 cr for each year.

 

The best transcript form I have ever seen is by year AND subject. It is sheer genius and many of us here have used the template. It was posted in some earlier thread. I can email you one if you pm me your address.

 

Ours are listed by subject with the order matched in the course description.

 

A vertical column runs with the subject, for example, "English" running vertically as well.

 

Then, courses are listed chronologically with credit earned, provider, and year completed.

 

Ancient Literature and Composition             9

AP English Language                                10

AP English Literature                                 11

English 12                                                  12

 

 

Math looked like the following:

 

Geometry                                                    9

Honors Algebra II                                      10

AP Statistics                                               11

Honors Precalculus                                               12

 

For us, listing by subject and then in chronological order told ds's story more completely. He didn't have a class ranking or a perfect GPA, so this was the easiest way to show progressive challenge.  It's also much easier for admissions to see that the student has their required number of math, science, English, credits.

Edited March 1, 2017 by swimmermom3

[Julie of KY]

I did mine by subject and listed 12th grade classes as "in progress". It worked fine for both selective and state schools. Some applications required us to break classes down by year and we just did the best we could.

 

If you want to do it by year, you could describe the NZ system and then round to the nearest 1/4 credit per year. That'd make things look a little cleaner.

 

If I were you, I'd play around with both ways and then go with whichever best represents your son (which might be the easiest to read or not).

 

[swimmermom3]

Haha, yours is the one that I have seen!  I've thought about it, but it would be seriously messy with fractional credits all over the place.  Here in NZ each class you take is worth between 18 and 20 credits, where each credit is about 10 hours of work.  Each assessment is worth between 3 and 8 credits depending on how much effort it requires. Each assessment is listed separately on your transcript by date completed.  So we have just picked off the assessments when ds has time.  So in 9th grade ds did 10 credits of physics, in 10th he did 8 more, and in 11th he will do the experiment which is worth 4.  And he may do the writing assignment in 12th grade as a part of what I consider English, but would be listed on his transcript under physics.  It is worth 3.  All of his subjects with the correspondence school are like this.  So to list them by the year he finishes them is not right as he will end up with too many courses in 11th grade for example, if he is just picking off the last 3 and 4 credit units in bunches of subjects. But to list them in the grid by subject and by year is going to be pretty funny with 10/25, 8/25, 4/25, and 3/25ths for physics grades 9 through 12!  Plus a full class is 18-20 credits, so ds is actually doing more than a full course. This has mostly happened because he started at the correspondence school half way through the year so could not get everything done in 4 months.

 

Classes that went across multiple years like "Fine Arts" had an "M" by them - 12M (he finished it in grade 12, but it was multiyear)

 

A summer intensive Spanish course was labeled 10S. He finished it the summer after 10th grade.

 

List the subject and the year. Give both weighted and unweighted GPA and don't sweat it. :D

 

[lewelma]

How would I do a weighted GPA?  Unweighted is 4.0 for all classes taken through NZ system, Royal School of Music, University, and AoPS. These vendors give him 16 courses I think, maybe more. I have no idea how I would grade any homeschool classes.

Edited March 1, 2017 by lewelma

[EKS]

Do you mean by subject?  The first school we talked to preferred by year, but I'm saying if I do it  that way, I'm going to have to smudge it quite a bit to make it fit into the format.  

 

My goodness, yes, I did mean by subject...I'll go fix that now!

[Luckymama]

But what if they prefer by year? Do you just say, sorry can't do it?

Only one school asked for years, but D had to use their own form online (which is such a pain). We just assigned coursework to the year during which she did the majority of the work. One course was done over 3 years. I chose a year with fewer credits for that course.

[Joules]

Just like a regular high school student, ds had one official transcript that I sent to every university.  I did not alter it for each school based on their needs.  I did provide a second document of whatever they wanted...cover sheet of portfolio, list of courses by year, weird core-course forms, etc, but I didn't consider that the transcript.  It was more, "This is an extra thing for your university."  

 

It took some pressure off having to make multiple types of transcripts all look good.  Having worked in high schools and universities, every school has a different format and somehow the universities manage that.  You are being nice to provide all the additional stuff they need.  I'd just type up an official letter with what they want and attach the official transcript to it.

 

(But then again I got less and less tolerant with the process as time went on.)

 

[MerryAtHope]

I did it by year, but I listed courses either in the year they were finished, or the year when the bulk of the work was done--so I avoided the multi-year issue that way. (We didn't have too many courses that were that way though).

[Job121]

I had both- by year and by subject. I ended up using the transcript by subject. Since my DS had credits quite evenly among math, science, language art, social science and electives, his transcript looked nicer by subject.  But if he were a math guy, so had many credits in math than other subjects, I might go with by year format. Just not to point out uneven credits among subjects and emphasize that he is advanced in math. 

 

Just to keep my sanity, I used unweighted GPA. I know many people use weighted GPA to give their student an edge, but for my understanding, each high school's grading system and standard are different. Some school's honor courses might not be so "honor" compare to other school's. I'd rather show the rigor of student's coursework through the course descriptions. 

[swimmermom3]

I had both- by year and by subject. I ended up using the transcript by subject. Since my DS had credits quite evenly among math, science, language art, social science and electives, his transcript looked nicer by subject.  But if he were a math guy, so had many credits in math than other subjects, I might go with by year format. Just not to point out uneven credits among subjects and emphasize that he is advanced in math. 

 

Just to keep my sanity, I used unweighted GPA. I know many people use weighted GPA to give their student an edge, but for my understanding, each high school's grading system and standard are different. Some school's honor courses might not be so "honor" compare to other school's. I'd rather show the rigor of student's coursework through the course descriptions. 

 

It takes very little room to show weighted and unweighted and eliminates anxiety as to which way you should go. I only weighted AP classes that had an exam that backed them up or they were taken from an outside provider.

 

[JanetC]

Like MerryAtHope, I went by year and said in my school profile that courses which started or stopped on a nontraditional calendar were recorded in the school year in which the majority of the work was done.

 

I didn't worry about documenting exact start and stop dates in my paperwork.

[lewelma]

Like MerryAtHope, I went by year and said in my school profile that courses which started or stopped on a nontraditional calendar were recorded in the school year in which the majority of the work was done.

 

I didn't worry about documenting exact start and stop dates in my paperwork.

 

This sounds like a good plan. Hadn't thought of it!

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

For those classes that overlapped years I just picked the year of completion and listed it there.  However, I would pick whichever format shows your student to their best advantage.  If you go by subject then I would pick an order of courses and keep it consistent.  By this I mean final year or first year course listed first and so on...so for a grade 12 student in maths I might put the following:

 

Calculus (in progress)  A

PreCalculus  A

Algebra II  A

Geometry A

 

or in complete reverse order

 

Geometry A

Algebra II A

PreCalculus A

Calculus (in progress) A

 

You could develop a notation system or extra column to show year completed or year credit granted.   As other posters have mentioned you have an opportunity to discuss non-traditional school years, southern hemisphere differences, etc. in your school profile or counselor's letter.  Take full advantage of these to offer any explanation necessary.  For some schools the GPA and test scores is all that is needed to get through the first gate, others will appreciate your taking the time to explain everything so that they have a clear picture of the applicants academic program.  While that clearer picture may not initially impact an admissions decision, I do think it helps with scholarships and other honors/awards decided at the time of admissions.

[snowbeltmom]

College admission offices are used to seeing a wide variety of types of transcripts.  I really don't think it matters which format you use.  Like others have said, I would choose the format that you feel showcases your son the best.  Fwiw, for my kids, I feel arranging the transcript by subject rather than by year, works best.

[Bristayl]

Since there is at least one college on dd's list that specifically says they want to see the years, my transcript lists the courses by subject but I put the year before each course title, for example 2014/2015 Algebra I. I actually got that format from the state education agency website, so it should be a format in-state colleges are used to seeing.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I would say not to tie yourself in knots trying to show every college exactly what they want. Not to diminish the need to give them the info they need, but if school A wants courses by year but school B needs to clearly see accomplishments in math and science you may end up not having a clear transcript in an attempt to please both.

 

Colleges do get all kinds of different transcripts. There are many gpa weighting schemes. In most cases they will see a 1-2 page transcript with course titles, grade/year completed and a course grade. They might also get a school profile and a counselor recommendation. They might not get much more from the school.

 

I think you decide what to show them, tell them what they are seeing (via the profile) and let the transcript be the executive summary document.