This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: GPA on the Homeschool Transcript.
GPA on the Homeschool Transcript
Creating your homeschool high schoolers’ transcripts is one of our most stressful but important tasks. That’s why our 7th Sisters often ask about how to handle GPAs on the homeschool transcript. (BTW- There are six of us 7Sisters: Vicki, Kym, Marilyn, Sara, Allison, and Sabrina. So WHO’s the 7th Sister? YOU are!)
So let’s lower the stress levels and talk about how to handle the GPA on the homeschool transcript!
What is the GPA?
The GPA stands for the “grade point average“. It includes the average of your teen’s grades for their credits. Most homeschool transcripts will need to show a GPA at least at the end of senior year. (The GPA may need to be included starting in ninth grade, updating it yearly until the completion of senior year. Many college-bound or military-bound teens will need to include a first-semester senior year GPA on their transcript.)
By the way, 7SistersHomeschool has an editable transcript form along with a how-to guide. It coaches you all the way through the transcript process, including how to determine the GPA.
There’s not ONE right way to handle the GPA
Like all our homeschool high school experiences, there’s not ONE right way to handle the GPA for your teen’s transcript.
To determine the GPA, you will need to give some thought to your teen’s goals based on whether they are college-bound or career-bound. (It is a good idea to write these goals, so you do not forget.) When you know the goals, you can clarify the method of determining the GPA.
GPA for teens who are career-bound
Many of our teens are not college-bound. They might be entering the military, trade school, or the workforce. Calculating their GPA is not as stressful. The transcript will definitely need to be included on the transcript for our military-bound students, and most often, those who are trade-school-bound. However, compared to the intense pressure that teens applying to a competitive college are experiencing, the stress on GPA is reduced.
College-bound teens need to take the GPA seriously
Our college-bound teens need to have a GPA that shows their academic achievement. Many colleges include the GPA as part of their algorithm to determine who will be accepted, and sometimes who is eligible for some scholarships. There is a lot of pressure on us parents as the transcript creators to get the GPA right!
GPA: Weighted or Not?
Parents often ask us whether to have a weighted or a non-weighted GPA. There’s no unified code in the United States for weighting/not-weighting.
A weighted GPA assigns more GPA points to more rigorous courses. Homeschool families (like schools that weigh GPAs) will give more points to higher-level courses. For instance, if a teen is taking an Honors course and they received an A for the course, they might receive a GPA score of 4.5 for that course instead of the traditionally unweighted score of 4.0
So for us, when our teens did, uh, the highest level courses, those level five courses, we call them honors courses, they would have the most rigorous course, a weighted course if they got an A for one of those courses would be a 4.5.
When your teen applies to colleges, the admissions officers know how to compare apples and oranges of weighted vs non-weighted GPAs. Each college finds a way to standardize the GPAs themselves. Some of them simply unweight the weighted GPAs, some have more complicated algorithms.
How to determine GPA
Step 1: Determine which percentage points determine the letter grades
This is important because you need the letter grade to figure the GPA. (Also, college applications often ask this.)
You get to decide this; there is not a standard.
A simple method (This is the method used by the homeschool umbrella school that the 7Sisters’s homeschoolers have attended. It is based on several decades of observing student capabilities and college admissions.):
A more complex method could be:
(I personally don’t recommend allowing a homeschool high schooler any credit for a grade lower than a C-.
There cannot be mastery of a subject with a low grade. I would have the student re-take the course. This, however, is a matter of opinion.)
Step 2: Assign a Grade Point to each course
Again, the simple method (used by the homeschool umbrella school that the 7Sisters’s homeschoolers have attended):
Again, the more complex method could be. (These is no set standard for Grade Points, there are many variations.)
Step 3: Assign the amount of credit earned to each course on the transcript
Use this post to help you determine the number of credits.
Step 4: Figure the GPA
This is simple math. You are simply going to average of the Grade Points. Do this by:
At our umbrella school, we only counted the core courses as part of the GPA. The course courses are:
Here’s an example, Sally’s 9th grade core courses looked like this:
For more on GPAs and transcripts check out our Authoritative Guide to Transcripts post and download our easy, editable transcript with how-tos.
For more on GPA’s check out 3 things to know about GPAs post.
How we 7Sisters handled GPA
Between the six of us 7Sisters, we graduated a LOT of homeschoolers. Each of our kids had different goals for life after graduation. Although their goals were different, we found that the unweighted GPA worked well for them.
However, it was important for our college-bound teens’ transcripts to show the levels of rigor of their courses in their course titles. So, their transcripts include the level of rigor of each core course (and electives that earned credit at rigorous levels). Thus, our teens’ transcripts would show Level 3 (College-Prep), Level 4 (Advanced), or Level 5 (Honors) written along with the title of the course on the transcript.
Remember: There’s not one right way to homeschool high school…or to handle a transcript, or GPA. Handle it in the way that best fits your teens’ goals.
A word of advice
Make sure you save your portfolios or other records for each homeschool high schooler. Once in a while, a homeschool graduate has to prove what they did in high school. It’s rare, but occasionally your teen might need their records.
Have questions? Join our 7SistersHomeschool Facebook group. You can throw questions into the group and get lots of sage advice from all the 7th Sisters there!
Join Vicki for a discussion on how to handle GPA on the homeschool transcript.
Thank you to Seth Tillman for editing!
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