Transcripts

For a college to accept a transcript there are certain things it must contain. First it must include all 4 years of high school coursework, the grades, and credits assigned to each. If you do not know how much credit a course earns, you can follow the typical guidelines of 1 semester equals half a credit. A course that requires a full school year to complete is the equivalent of 1 credit. This approximates to 130 hours of school work.

A course that requires more time and demonstrates more rigor, usually about 180 hours of course work, is considered an honors course. While this does not merit any additional credits, it does equate to an additional .5 in their GPA. This is called a “weighted” GPA. Most colleges want an unweighted GPA on the transcript, but will accept a note that the course is considered an honors class. If you are unsure if a course is considered an honors course, google it or go to the publisher’s website. They will give you the stats on the coursework and how to record it.

Below is a sample transcript.

The header of the transcript lists the student’s full name and the last four digits of their social security number. This is to differentiate in the event more than one student has the same name. Underneath that is the title of the document. Below the title is the educating body information. For homeschoolers this is their home address and your contact info. In Mississippi there are only two designations of education; public and non-public. Listing your student as privately educated is entirely accurate and much more official sounding than homeschooled, although there are laws against discrimination of either.

Note each of the four years of high school are outlined with a summarizing grade, the credit it earned, and it’s GPA value. Underneath each list is an average grade for the year, the total number of credits, and the average GPA. It is also necessary to outline what your grading scale is and the total number of credits received by graduation. You may also list other activities that you think will be of interest to the admission board. The thing that colleges will not accept is a transcript without a graduation date and a transcript before the graduation date. Be sure to include that in an easy to read/find location and font.

Finally the transcript must be notarized. It is required that there be a place for a notary to complete their information and place their seal on any document to be notarized. Including that text means your notary will not tell you to go home and redo it with space for them to notarize it and they will appreciate not having to write so much on the bottom of the page.

There are plenty of transcript services out there but very few that include notary services. You may receive both here. Complete the below form to request info on using our transcript, notary, and/or diploma services.