*We received one year access to the homeschool transcripts maker, Homeschool Records, and a small fee in exchange for this review of the product. However, the opinions expressed are solely our own.*
Homeschooling high school can seem daunting in many ways. One concern many families have is how to create official homeschool transcripts and submit them to colleges or other post-graduate training programs.
Since we are just starting on this phase of homeschooling ourselves, I was excited to get a chance to review Homeschool Records, which helps you create homeschool transcripts that you can send officially to colleges as well as track attendance, create a student resume and more.
Here are my quick pros and cons and then check out the rest of the review below for details:
Pros:
- The application is very easy to use and there are tutorials that explain each area.
- Flexible…can create your own course categories and titles.
- Can keep a variety of records.
- Meets NCAA requirements and allows for honors, AP, and dual enrollment classes.
- Designer is open to modifying it to meet families needs.
- Reasonably priced.
Possible Cons:
- Homeschool Records was created for making high school transcripts so it starts at 8th grade. I can see some families wanting to add younger siblings into the records, especially if you live in state that requires strict record keeping.’
- Would be great if you could track grades for assignments and exams and the application calculated the grade throughout the year.
- I found a few small glitches as I was adding my son’s courses and let the owner know. She responded within a couple hours that she had her developer working on it. So the program is still new and has some kinks to work out, but the owner is very committed to resolving issues quickly.
Who created Homeschool Records?
Homeschool Records was created by retired homeschool mom, Joan Girkins. Her goal is to make it easy for families to learn how to design a transcript and give them the tools to do so.
Who is Homeschool Records for?
Homeschool Records is for families that homeschool 8th-12th graders who want an easy way to maintain records and create and send official homeschool transcripts. This includes families with students that might take online classes or classes outside of the home or students who are doing dual enrollment or AP classes. Each of these scenarios is easily captured on the homeschool transcript through Homeschool Records and unweighted and weighted GPAs can be calculated to reflect these higher level courses.
What records can you keep?
Within the homeschool transcript itself, there are places to note what materials were used for the class, a description of the course, and assessments used during the course.
In addition to creating a transcript, you can also keep attendance including hours of instruction, track books read with a reading log, and write a student resume. The resume feature is a great place to record volunteer hours, extracurricular activities and work experience. I was excited to see this report as we are planning on doing lots of volunteering and other citizenship activities this upcoming school year and this will be a great place to capture those.
How to make a homeschool transcript…
Before you start to make your transcript, you need to decide which courses your student will be taking. If you are not sure where to start, you can google your state name and “high school graduation requirements” to give you an idea what a traditional high school schedule would look like.
This article from HSLDA gives you some different options for calculating credits for your high school courses. It would be good to read over first to determine how many credits each of your courses will be. The article includes different ways to calculate the credits as well as the difference between a standard class and an honors class. It also notes five states that calculate credits differently than the norm so make sure to check and see if you live in one of those states.
Once you have a list of the courses your child will be taking for the upcoming year, you can start adding them to Homeschool Records.
In this video, I show you how I added a course to my son’s plan for this upcoming school year. It takes less than a minute to add each course. There are several fields where you can make notes to yourself, too.
Sign-up for a FREE trial
If Homeschool Records sounds interesting to you, you can sign-up for a 7-day free trial and check it out for yourself. I would love to hear what you think!
