Transcripts 101: Let's Define Our Terms

I’ve had a lot of requests for information on transcripts so I thought I’d write a few posts on that. Here’s some basic transcript info.

What’s there to know about transcripts?

You might already know everything there is to know about transcripts. But I’ve been surprised at some of the questions I’ve received, so we will start with the very basic info and then build on that.

transcripts are a necessary part of graduation — What is a transcript?

First of all, your student must have one when they complete high school. Even if they are not going to college, it’s quite possible future employers will ask for one to see they graduated high school.

Let’s define our terms.

Define Diploma:

A diploma is a certificate that can be given by the high school (whether public, private, or homeschooled.) It says you graduated. However, it doesn’t have any of the basic facts about what courses you took, what your grades were, or your cumulative GPA. You'd be surprised how many people confuse this word with the word 'transcript.' Click To Tweet I doubt most future employers or colleges will ask to see your diploma. But they may ask for a transcript. If you’re a homeschooler and not affiliated with a school that is handing out diplomas, you can create and order your own diploma here, when your student graduates.

Define Transcript:

Now, let’s define the term: transcript. A transcript is a list of all the courses your student took in high school, the grades received, the amount of credit given (1.0 for a full year, 0.5 for a semester course), and cumulative GPA. It can have notes on it if you took courses at various places and you want to identify where the courses were taken.

If you are a public, private, or accredited homeschooler in Georgia, it will also have the HOPE course numbers for each course so that Georgia colleges can see that you took the correct courses and GaFutures can use your transcript to create your HOPE transcript, which is how you get the HOPE/Zell Miller scholarship.

How do you get a transcript?

If you are a public or private school student, obviously, you’ll receive your transcript from the guidance counselor’s office at your school.

But homeschoolers don’t necessarily have guidance counselors! We are our own guidance counselors. For me, this meant tons of research as I tried to understand what it would take to guide my girls through high school and into college. It is totally doable! (I do help other people with these tasks, so if you’re in the North Atlanta area and need help, contact me.)

How do I make a transcript if I’m homeschooled?

There are many places where you can go online to either create your transcript (like with Excel or Google Sheets) or download a template that you can fill out on your computer. This is called an unaccredited transcript when you do it this way.

In Georgia, homeschoolers have the option of either creating their own transcript or going to a service that will review their work and then create a transcript for you. This second method is called accreditation. If your transcript is accredited, it will have two distinct differences from an unaccredited transcript. It will have a stamp from the Georgia Accrediting Commission showing it matched up with their requirements. It will also have the HOPE course numbers added to the transcript.

Either method is fine to choose. There are pros and cons for both sides. I will post on that topic and how to choose high school classes to put on your transcript in future posts.

Links for Creating an Unaccredited Transcript

This list is not exhaustive! But here are a few places to look into

Links for Going the Accredited Route in the North Atlanta area

This list is not exhaustive! But here are a few places to look into.

ACA West: Sandy Cole and myself. www.acawest.org, located in Cumming, but we do much of the work digitally online.
Augustine Classical Academy www.augustineclassicalacademy.com, Andrea Nelson. Suwanee, GA area.
Independent Study Academy Sheryl Robertson (Alpharetta) www.independentstudyacademy.com
NIPA Northeast Independent Preparatory Academy (they are in Gwinnett/ Duluth/Lawrenceville) Angela Paul — also does SAT/ACT prep courses and hosts AP exams. http://nipa-ga.com/
Noah Webster Accreditation; Allen Wood http://www.noahwebstercenter.com/

Resources:

Maybe you’re like me and you want a book you can hold in your hand to help you with college planning and transcripts. I have two recommendations. I used both of these to help me understand the process and research the things I didn’t know.

The first one is called Transcripts Made Easy. I noticed that she has rereleased this book so I’m guessing it’s updated. I still refer to my older version.