circaeducation When it comes to homeschooling, parents often wonder about the diploma and transcript process for their high school students. Will their child be able to get a diploma? Do they need a diploma to go to college or get a job? How do you ensure that your child’s academic achievements are accurately reflected on their transcript? In this article, we will explore these questions and provide guidance on how to navigate the diploma and transcript process for homeschooled high school students.
Getting a Diploma
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One of the first questions many parents have is whether their homeschooled student can get a diploma. The good news is that most traditionally homeschooled students can obtain a diploma from their parents, which is generally accepted by colleges and universities. However, if your child attends an online homeschool or takes courses through an umbrella school or correspondence school, they will typically receive their diploma from that institution. It is rare for a homeschooled student to receive a diploma from the school district in which they live.
To ensure that your child has the necessary requirements to graduate, it is important to understand your state’s laws and regulations regarding homeschooling. The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) provides state-by-state information on homeschooling laws, guidelines, and regulations. Some states have specific graduation requirements for homeschooled students, while others allow for more flexibility in creating your own requirements based on your child’s abilities, interests, and future career goals.
If your state does not have specific graduation requirements, you have the freedom to create your own. Your requirements should be based on your child’s abilities, interests, and future career goals. Once your student has completed the graduation requirements, they have earned their diploma.
However, if you want your homeschooled student to have an accredited diploma, you could look into an online school or distance learning program. Many colleges and universities actively seek out homeschool graduates and appreciate the non-traditional approach to education. In fact, many homeschooled students are recognized as high-achieving students and are actively recruited by prestigious institutions such as MIT, Harvard, Duke, and Stanford. In these instances, colleges and universities are more interested in what your student knows than a piece of paper indicating that they graduated.
It is also important to note that your homeschool student will not need to get a GED. When students take the GED test, admissions officers, employers, and military recruiters may assume that your student dropped out of high school instead of graduating from a homeschooling environment.
The Importance of a Transcript
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While obtaining a diploma is an important milestone for homeschooled students, it is equally important to have an accurate transcript that reflects your child’s academic achievements. A transcript is a document that shows what courses your student completed and what grades they received in each course. Colleges, employers, the military, trade schools, apprenticeship programs, and scholarship committees may all request a copy of your student’s transcript. Even your insurance company may want a copy of the transcript in order to determine if your student qualifies for a good student discount.
Ideally, you have been keeping track of your child’s courses and grades throughout their schooling. Creating a transcript during their senior year can be a daunting task, so it is important to keep track of grades and courses each year and add them to your child’s transcript document. You may also want to keep a separate document with course descriptions in case it is ever requested by a future employer or university. This document should contain the name of each course as well as the materials used to complete it, including textbooks, websites, online courses, lab materials, internships, and hands-on experiences.
To put together your child’s transcript, you can design and print the document using a template from HSLDA or use a transcript service. HSLDA also has educational consultants who can help you put together your child’s transcript and even check GPA calculations. Your child’s transcript should include the following information:
* Your child’s name, the name of your homeschool, address, and telephone number
* The high school course list in order by year (grades 9-12); include grades 7 and 8 if your child took high school level courses in those grades
* The institution where each course was taken (i.e. homeschool, online school, community college)
* The grading scale used in your homeschool
* The overall GPA
* Credits assigned per course (listed by semester and per year)
* Expected graduation date
* Parent signature with a date
* If your child took classes at a community college or local university, you want to be sure to request copies of those transcripts as well. You can have them sent to the prospective college, employer, or military recruiter who requested the transcripts along with your homeschool transcript.
Navigating the Job and College Application Process
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It is important that your high school graduate understands how to fill out job and college applications when it comes to homeschooling. For instance:
### When They Are Asked “Are You a High School Graduate?”
They should mark “yes.”
### When They Are Asked “Do You Have a High School Diploma?”