Homeschool Testing – How Much Weight?

How much weight should you give to a homeschool test?  As much as you like!

I really learned tons from your seminar.  I especially used your “example” transcript – that was valuable for reasons I wouldn’t of thought of until I was in the middle of creating one for our oldest.  Is 25% of the grade weighted to tests (math, science) appropriate?
~ Carla in Washington

Dear Carla,

Here is my homeschool transcript online.  Here is a sample of my homeschool grading criteria online.

I think weighting 25% is fine.  Homeschoolers have a LOT of flexibility.  I decided to weight mine in thirds for most subject; 1/3 what I made them do, 1/3 what they did, and 1/3 tests.  Truthfully, I think I did it that way because I only had room for three columns!  For science, I weighted mine 50% test and 50% labs.   I did it that way because we used Apologia, and there were SO many labs and SO many tests that it seemed like plenty of evaluation to me.

Lots of teachers will have very complicated grading criteria with formulas, points, and scales of all different sorts.  When I talk to homeschoolers, I’m struck by one thing.  A homeschooler’s gut instinct about the grade for their child is always right on, no matter how complicated their grading process.  For that reason, I’m a big fan of simplifying.  So yes, demonstrating how you arrived at a grade can be very helpful, but I don’t think you have to be overly complicated.

Learn a LOT more about how to translate all those great homeschool high school classes into the words and numbers that colleges will understand –  The HomeScholar Total Transcript Solution.

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