Grading and transcript

[bibiche]

I spoke to an admissions officer the other day who was surprisingly loosey-goosey regarding grading on a homeschool transcript. As in, no big deal if the homeschool classes don’t have grades, even some schools don’t grade, we have a lot of experience with this and can figure it out, don’t sweat it. 
 

I’ve read so many things here saying that it is best to just assign grades for classes that didn’t have them and to do otherwise would hurt the student’s chances. I was trying to figure out a way to do this, because I certainly don’t want to hurt my student’s chances, but now I’m not sure what to do. 
 

We do have a number of grades from outside classes and we have the SAT. Recommendations will come from outside teachers. For the homegrown classes and group classes that don’t have grades do I just list them without grades and then somehow weave that “learning for the sake of learning and not for grades” philosophy into the counselor letter? The AO said some official grades, some non graded homeschool classes are fine and it’s all good. But do I need to provide a GPA (I haven’t opened a Common App account yet, so I don’t know how it works) and if so, how do I do that with a mix of graded and non graded classes?

[EKS]

Despite what the admissions officer said, I would give grades for all classes.  I explained in the school profile that my students worked to mastery.  The high grades were corroborated by grades from outside classes and test scores.  If they hadn't been, I might not have used this approach. 

[kokotg]

I've been told you should always list grades, even for outside classes where the teacher didn't give a grade. And that it's fine to base your grade on successfully completing the class/finishing all assignments/class participation, etc. This particular school may not mind some classes without grades, but that doesn't mean none of them will. 

[bibiche]

2 minutes ago, EKS said:

Despite what the admissions officer said, I would give grades for all classes.  I explained in the school profile that my students worked to mastery.  The high grades were corroborated by grades from outside classes and test scores.  If they hadn't been, I might not have used this approach. 

That was what I had planned to do, because we do work to mastery at home. The homeschool group classes, though, were taught by people ideologically opposed to grading, so it feels wrong to assign a grade. I suppose I could ask them, but they might get mad at me for caving to The Man. 
 

Maybe I should interview a few more admissions officers too…

[bibiche]

1 minute ago, kokotg said:

I've been told you should always list grades, even for outside classes where the teacher didn't give a grade. And that it's fine to base your grade on successfully completing the class/finishing all assignments/class participation, etc. This particular school may not mind some classes without grades, but that doesn't mean none of them will. 

I wonder if the thought is that the homeschool class grades really don’t count much anyway since people probably do just assign A’s.
 

I was very surprised that this school was so easygoing because they are reputed to be not particularly homeschool friendly. They were actually quite positive.

[Arcadia]

47 minutes ago, bibiche said:

I spoke to an admissions officer the other day who was surprisingly loosey-goosey regarding grading on a homeschool transcript. As in, no big deal if the homeschool classes don’t have grades, even some schools don’t grade, we have a lot of experience with this and can figure it out, don’t sweat it. 

For Spring 2020 to Spring 2021, many high schools here did offer a pass/fail option instead of grades due to the pandemic. Current seniors would have pass/fail grades for 9th and 10th grades if that’s their school pandemic policy. Still, I would give grades rather than have an AO figure it out.

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, bibiche said:

I wonder if the thought is that the homeschool class grades really don’t count much anyway since people probably do just assign A’s.
 

I was very surprised that this school was so easygoing because they are reputed to be not particularly homeschool friendly. They were actually quite positive.

Caltech doesn’t count parent assigned grades. I won’t be surprised if some others do the same. But I am still assigning the grades and we have plenty of parent taught courses. So yes, just put a grade on!

[lewelma]

Because we never expected my son to need a transcript to go to an american unviersity, I did not give grades in highschool. I did not even give 'assignments.' So when it came time to make a transcript going back 4 years, I used his scores in related fields to give grades for homeschool classes without scores and without a provider.  This is how I did it:

Math: IMO 3x, 800 SAT, A+ in 2 university courses --> 9 homeschool math classes got an A

Science: Physics SAT 800, NZ national exams 'excellence' in Chem and Physics --> 3 homeschool science classes got an A including Biology 

Music: ABRSM Grade 8 'Distinction', post graduate diploma --> 3 homeschool music classes got an A

English: 780 SAT language, 'excellence' in 11th grade NZ national exam --> 3 homeschool english classes got an A including 12th grade

Humanities/Social science: no scores, so I based these classes on English grades --> 4 homeschool social science classes got an A. Two of these classes were taken in 12th grade (econ and government -each a half credit, so 1 class of the 4 I homeschooled), so I started giving 'assessments' like multichoice tests (which I thought were pretty stupid given my philosophy), so that I felt like I could give him grades with a good conscious given I had no external exams for 'proof' to my own subjective evaluation. 

In my course descriptions, I clearly indicated what work was done (reading, discussion, writing, national exams where they happened). And in my school profile, I clearly indicated how I assigned grades -- based on mastery, (I did not go through the above logic in my documentation). 

Basically, I unschooled my older boy, but he was highly skilled and hard working in all fields. He needed his transcript to look like a school transcript, so I did the best I could to assigned grades that felt fair in my mind.

And interestingly, the area that I was most concerned about (social science/humanities) was the area that he won top scholar in at MIT in his sophomore year for his work in philosophy and ethics. So my subjective evaluation of his skill in that field was fair. Don't downplay your own knowledge about your kid's accomplishments. 

Edited August 10, 2022 by lewelma

[bibiche]

@lewelma Thanks, this is very helpful!

[EKS]

3 hours ago, lewelma said:

Don't downplay your own knowledge about your kid's accomplishments.

I was talking to some teachers who were part of a hybrid homeschool-public school program once.  These were people who saw lots of work from homeschoolers.  They told me that most of the time, parents were much harsher critics of their children's work than teachers were.  I didn't believe them until my kids attended b&m schools and I saw it first hand, particularly with writing assignments.  Routinely, things I would give a C to would come back with As.

[lewelma]

44 minutes ago, EKS said:

I was talking to some teachers who were part of a hybrid homeschool-public school program once.  These were people who saw lots of work from homeschoolers.  They told me that most of the time, parents were much harsher critics of their children's work than teachers were.  I didn't believe them until my kids attended b&m schools and I saw it first hand, particularly with writing assignments.  Routinely, things I would give a C to would come back with As.

Yup. I thought my ds was woefully unprepared for the 8 humanities/Social Science/Arts classes he was required to take, and he got top grades and raving praise.  I never thought we did enough throughout middle and high school. We never finished my plans, not ever. I was always disappointed with what we could accomplish. Only to find out, that he was better prepared than almost anyone else there. Quite a shocker. Clearly, my standards were TOO HIGH!  LOL

 

[Malam]

On 8/10/2022 at 3:49 PM, lewelma said:

9 homeschool math classes got an A

Can you explain the schedule for these 9 classes? Were they done one after another or two/three at a time?

[lewelma]

I see you are new here, so you don't know my ds's path. He represented New Zealand in the international math olympiad starting at the age of 15, so his path is very unusual. From memory his classes went something like this:

8th grade: algebra 2, intro number theory, intro combinatorics

9th grade: precalculus, calculus, advanced number theory

10th grade: advanced combinatorics, linear algebra

11th grade: Foundations of analysis, Advanced geometry

12th grade: Analysis, Differential equations

I think that is it. Some were done by studying continuously over three years - like combinatorics, number theory, and geometry (these are olympiad subjects so he just worked on them all the time). Some were done in just a term like precalculus, linear algebra, and foundations of analysis. Some were full year studies like calculus (he used 2 separate books - one theoretical and one practical) and Analysis (he self studied Baby Rudin which is a tough book!). Although I've laid them out in grade years, they really didn't fall like that, but I needed to make his studies look like school, so I did the best I could and wrote something like "courses were listed in the year that the majority of the work was completed". That statement gave me a lot of flexibility to make the transcript look normal. His studies were quite advanced, so he walked into graduate level math classes at MIT his freshman year. He was self taught as I am not a mathematician. 

I learned while working with lots of folk here that the point of the transcript is to make a child's studies understandable to admissions. It is not about making a perfect representation of the reality of the learning schedule.

HTH

Edited August 12, 2022 by lewelma

[ieta_cassiopeia]

On 8/10/2022 at 7:06 PM, bibiche said:

That was what I had planned to do, because we do work to mastery at home. The homeschool group classes, though, were taught by people ideologically opposed to grading, so it feels wrong to assign a grade. I suppose I could ask them, but they might get mad at me for caving to The Man. 
 

Maybe I should interview a few more admissions officers too…

If the outside course truly is opposed to grades based on work done in the class, it seems fair to grade based on your perceptions of the student's effort and participation. Think of it like treating it as a pass/fail class, except that in this case "passing" warrants an A.

[BusyMom5]

On 8/10/2022 at 1:06 PM, bibiche said:

That was what I had planned to do, because we do work to mastery at home. The homeschool group classes, though, were taught by people ideologically opposed to grading, so it feels wrong to assign a grade. I suppose I could ask them, but they might get mad at me for caving to The Man. 
 

Maybe I should interview a few more admissions officers too…

I teach classes at our co-op, but there are no grades involved.  I offer the class, teach, give homework, but parents assign the grade or decide how to incorporate my class into their coursework.  My current class could be worth either a half-credit, or parents can add to it at home to earn a full credit.  I'm guessing most will just put a whole credit of A on the transcript regardless.  If someone asked me to give a grade, I would be happy to give more feedback!  

[Farrar]

I just want to affirm that a transcript without grades, or even a narrative transcript, a mastery transcript... a transcript that's missing all kinds of key information like the graduation date... seriously, many schools actually will be fine with all of that. But also... some won't be. So that's sort of why you do it.