High School Credits

[brightside]

If my son takes high school level classes before becoming the official age of a high school student, can we count the credits? I was thinking this would give him more time down the road for internships, etc. We are doing Latin I through an online school and we are looking at a HS level biology through a local homeschool group.

thanks

Kathy

[JennW in SoCal]

I know there have been other threads on this topic -- you might try the search function and see what you can find.

The consensus I seem to remember is that colleges prefer to count the last 4 years of school work as high school, rather than looking at the level of the courses taken. In other words Latin I and Algebra I are not always high school courses if they are taken early on. Also consider that your ds is going to have to "back up" his transcript with SAT II subject exams or AP exams or community college credits, depending upon what his college choices are. (There is a whole chapter on this in the WTM.) By all means he should take the biology I class if he is interested -- perhaps he can follow up with more advanced biology courses at the community college.

But, you don't have to decide this now. Just keep good records of what his courses have covered, and make the transcript when you finally need it. A couple of friends went about it that way with their dc and it worked out well. I'm am not a lot of help as I homeschool through a charter school, and they deal with the transcript and records and such.

[brightside]

Thank you for the info, I will take a peek around too.

[Karin]

Agreed about the high school credits. Most of the time it's the last 4 years before college. Of course, if your ds were to start college at 12, then that would be the 4 years just before that. There are some people who list all the high school credits without listing when you take them, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

There are so many things to learn, that you really don't need to be worried about this. Honours students in ps regularly take Algebra 1 before high school, so use Geometry-Calculus for their math credits. But there are more math courses out there than that that you could use if you've already covered high school Geometry & more. Or you could benefit from doing a much harder Algebra 1 a second time. It's not uncommon for a student to be ready for Algebra 1 in some ways but not to have the mental maturity for the thinking and theory behind it. You could do it again with something like Gelfand's Algebra or Dolciani. There's a whole lot more to it than just the plugging in of the numbers & the equations. The older Dolciani have cool "Extra for Experts" sections. The American Mathematical Society has a whole page of books for advanced high school students, and some are textbooks that you can make a course from (my dd may take one in Mathematical Ciphers, for example).

Same with history. Plus, there are AP courses, so you could do more of those if you've already done the regular high school classes in those subjects.

Another option is to go deeper. I know someone whose son took 2 years to do the college level Conceptual Phyics in grades 7 and 8, but they did every single thing and did it very thoroughly. And there is so much more that you can do in Biology besides the basic high school course (Marine Biology or some other specialty, AP Biology, etc.)

[8FillTheHeart]

I have been investigating this b/c my 8th grader took alg in 5th grade, a more difficult algebra in 6th, geometry in 7th, and is currently taking both alg 2 and physics.

The option I am planning on using is to not arrange his transcript by yr but by subject so that his math will have alg1-differential equations all listed vs. just listing the last 4. Ditto to the science.

I do know that some states restrict the number of credits you can carry up if you are planning on not having adequate credit hours otherwise. TN restricts the number of carry up credits to either 2 or 3. If you have the appropriate number of high school credits, the carry-ups don't matter other than how you present them on the transcript.

[Pamela H in Texas]

One consideration if you continue with a subject is to simply list: PreCalc in 9th, Calculus in 10th, etc for the high school classes. The assumption is that the ones evaluating the transcript will figure that a student who successfully did PreCalc 9th grade had the necessary pre-reqs before 9th :) Same can be done with Latin, etc.

[merylvdm]

Momof7, the problem with your idea of not listing by year, is that on some of the college applications you need to fill in what subjects you did when. It was 2 years ago when we did my daughter's, but I do remember having to complete tables where we filled in the subjects under the correct year on some of them at least.
If you are under an umbrella school, they may not allow you to carry thru earlier work - ours doesn't. But as Karin said, there are so many credits one can do, it really doesn't matter. I just let me kids go at the speed they are capable of and I let them explore loads of different subjects - and we do every contest imaginable - so it keeps them busy!
And Art of Problem Solving has 2 books (Number Theory and Counting and Probability) that equal 'Discrete Math' - for anyone looking for another math credit.
Meryl

[8FillTheHeart]

Momof7, the problem with your idea of not listing by year, is that on some of the college applications you need to fill in what subjects you did when. It was 2 years ago when we did my daughter's, but I do remember having to complete tables where we filled in the subjects under the correct year on some of them at least.

Meryl

That's interesting. Every college application I have ever seen only requires a transcript and the rest of the application addresses other issues (essays, service hours, accomplishments, references, etc).

Would you mind sharing which colleges requested course information not via official transcript?

FWIW......I have spoken to several college admission officers that have suggested the subject format vs. yr format for precisely the reason that advanced students often have more coursework than works in a traditional by-yr format. It is an acceptable alternative.

Here is a link for some answers on transcripts:
http://www.everyday-education.com/tme/index.shtml

I agree with the recommendation that even if they are advanced that they continue with the coursework. You never run out of course material!!

[Karin]

Here is a link for some answers on transcripts:
http://www.everyday-education.com/tme/index.shtml

I agree with the recommendation that even if they are advanced that they continue with the coursework. You never run out of course material!!


Thanks for this link!

[Maryalice]

I graduated my oldest (always homeschooled) from highschool at 15 years old. He then went on to a 4 year private college, graduated summa cum laude in political science and econ (double major). He is now in his last year of law school. My #2 (also always homeschooled) graduated highschool at 16 yo, is now in her last year as a math major at Grove City College and applying to PhD programs.

I have a few "been there, done that" stories, but I will address the whole transcript issue. I made my own transcripts and grouped the courses by category, not years. Not one college had a problem with that method. There is no standard form. The grouping by category worked best for us because it fit our lifestyle. My dc would do a 1 credit course in 3 months, or they would work on something for over 2 years, or they would do a major "dig deep" project over the summer...none of which would fit well on a 4 year, 9 month transcript.

All colleges requested a transcript and were pleased with the transcripts that I made. They also requested applications, SAT scores, essays, recommendations and a check. These were all the same things that they requested from every student.

My dc had advanced classes, college classes, AP, and CLEP on their transcripts. I think of a transcript as a resume. If a course speaks something about the child, put it on. Decide whether it would be extracurricular or course work. Some of those binges from exceptional students could be either. I did include some things that were taken while they were in 8th grade and below. I can remember back when I was in 7-8th grade in a public school (back when the dinosaurs roamed), I got a 1 credit for French on my high school transcript. I think that the grades even played into the GPA. So, it is not unheard of to put advanced courses on a transcript. However, I would be judicious about the credits. Put on those things that really add value to the transcript otherwise you will end up with 80 credits (usual is around 22-25). It is good to look somewhat "normal" for the education folks in college admissions. It is also good to be unusual and let your "homeschool uniqueness" shine through.
Well, I guess I went on too long... sorry to bore you all.:001_smile:

[babysparkler]

I graduated my oldest (always homeschooled) from highschool at 15 years old. He then went on to a 4 year private college, graduated summa cum laude in political science and econ (double major). He is now in his last year of law school. My #2 (also always homeschooled) graduated highschool at 16 yo, is now in her last year as a math major at Grove City College and applying to PhD programs.

I have a few "been there, done that" stories, but I will address the whole transcript issue. I made my own transcripts and grouped the courses by category, not years. Not one college had a problem with that method. There is no standard form. The grouping by category worked best for us because it fit our lifestyle. My dc would do a 1 credit course in 3 months, or they would work on something for over 2 years, or they would do a major "dig deep" project over the summer...none of which would fit well on a 4 year, 9 month transcript.

All colleges requested a transcript and were pleased with the transcripts that I made. They also requested applications, SAT scores, essays, recommendations and a check. These were all the same things that they requested from every student.

My dc had advanced classes, college classes, AP, and CLEP on their transcripts. I think of a transcript as a resume. If a course speaks something about the child, put it on. Decide whether it would be extracurricular or course work. Some of those binges from exceptional students could be either. I did include some things that were taken while they were in 8th grade and below. I can remember back when I was in 7-8th grade in a public school (back when the dinosaurs roamed), I got a 1 credit for French on my high school transcript. I think that the grades even played into the GPA. So, it is not unheard of to put advanced courses on a transcript. However, I would be judicious about the credits. Put on those things that really add value to the transcript otherwise you will end up with 80 credits (usual is around 22-25). It is good to look somewhat "normal" for the education folks in college admissions. It is also good to be unusual and let your "homeschool uniqueness" shine through.
Well, I guess I went on too long... sorry to bore you all.:001_smile:

I pm'd you with more specific ???'s :)

[angela in ohio]

It will depend on the college. The best thing to do, I think, is to keep records as if you may list it and then decide later what to do with that information.

Around here, the high schools go by the guideline that they may earn one HS credit in 7th and tw in 8th. These are only science, math, or foreign lanuage classes, though.

[alexfam]

I would start a transcript and keep track of what you think is high school level work.