Homeschooling High School

High school brings some new challenges for most homeschool families. Let’s talk about each of them so you can develop a plan for what you want to do that keeps lots of post-high school options open for you kids!

If your family, like ours, uses Classical Conversations curriculum, you might also enjoy my CC Pages: Making the Most of Classical Conversations

Here’s a quick Table of Contents for this page

• 4-year Overview Calendar
• Make a Plan
• Grading
  • My Grading Spreadsheets
• Transcripts
  • What Goes in the Long-Term File?
  • Other Record Keeping
• Career Exploration
  • University vs Community College
• Testing (SAT, ACT, CLT, AP & CLEP)
• College Applications
• Other Resources and Links

4-year Overview Calendar of Key High School Events

Here’s a quick overview of some of the easy-to-forget high school events. I started to label a few as “optional” but then I ended up labeling almost everything as optional, so please know that these are things you CAN do and not necessarily things every student WILLl do.

Freshman Year	Adjust to high school
Summer 1	Brainstorm careers (keep doing this throughout high school!
Sophomore Year	Driver’s Ed Get Driver’s License
Summer 2	Register for an take the CLT10 Study for PSAT Research colleges
Junior Year	1st Semester: Register and Prep for then take PSAT (often October) Holidays: Apply for summer internships 2nd Semester: Register for (and take?) CLT, SAT, and ACT
Summer 3	Visit Colleges (Anytime throughout Junior and Senior year too) Prep for and take CLT, SAT, and ACT Part-time job or internship
Senior Year	1st Semester: Fill out college applications (Early admission deadline for many is Nov 1) Holidays: Apply for summer internships 2nd Semester: Fill out Scholarship applications Plan graduation parties!
Summer 4	Part-time job or internship

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Grading in High School

Whether you’re in a situation that requires grading or not, it’s good to stop and think about some key questions:

• What is your purpose in grading?
• What are the benefits/advantages of grading?
• What are the costs/disadvantages of grading?
• What’s the best way to grade each subject
• What grading scenario will each of your students respond best to?
• What does your state require of you regarding grading?

Once a student is in high school, he/she needs a transcript (more on that later). That means we need a way to grade for each class. However, in middle school, I think it’s great to help students become accustomed to being graded. So, in our family, we have a formal grading system starting in 7th grade. (This corresponds well to Classical Conversations Challenge levels). However, the grading is less intense in 7th and 8th grade than in high school.

Is it logical to expect all As? Yes, I believe so! We “work until mastery” so if either of my students turns in sub-par work, we have them do it again. If their grades are low, they need more practice, so I find them some extra credit work to do. In this way, we’re ensuring they master each subject before we move on.

I also think it’s important to sit down with your students and explain your grading system. I like to emphasize that grades typically do a poor job of measuring actual learning, but they’re required and it’s good to learn how to jump through hoops as we learn the subject material. I have a lot of mixed feelings about grades, but I know they’ll be graded in college, so I might as well start now and help them learn how to navigate it.

Each family has different ways of grading, and I hope you’ll find what works for each child, but here’s how we’ve done it:

• One son needed firm deadlines with clear consequences so I created a spreadsheet for each semester. I posted it in the school room and my son, my husband, and I tried to go over it once a week (or two) to see if he was on track to make all A’s. If any grade have fallen below an A, his fun activities are severely restricted and he has to focus on school until those grades are brought up.
• My other son is pretty hard on himself and needs more encouragement and fewer consequences. We still use the grading spreadsheet to see if he’s on track but he usually just needs a little help brainstorming how to break each assignment up into smaller pieces. Once he’s started and on a roll, he’s good to go.

It’s been beautiful to see each son grow up and take more responsibility for their education. Only time will tell if we’ve prepared them well for college and beyond but I’m really optimistic about it!

My Grading Spreadsheets

I LOVE a pretty spreadsheet! Whether you’re doing CC or not, I think my thought process will be helpful for you!

I share my Excel files with you on each Challenge page (A, B, 1, 2, 3, & 4). For each of these, I start with the CC guide and go from there. (So, there are a lot of abbreviations that probably won’t make sense until you read the guide.) If you’re using my spreadsheets, please tweak all the numbers to emphasize what you want!

If you aren’t doing CC, then start with the assignments you have and start making up point values. Tweak and change them until the assignments for each class are weighted how you want.

Here’s the framework that I started with:

• I want an A to be challenging but achievable.
• I want to emphasize the big projects my students work extra hard on.
• I like to give all-or-nothing credit for any daily practice-type work they do in subjects like math and Latin.
• I generally don’t give a grade for the student’s blue book exam, especially in the lower levels of Challenge. Instead, we embrace the idea that this is a time to celebrate and show off what they know. Also, I usually just go with whatever the tutor is giving as a blue book exam, so it’s not always what we’ve focused on at home. Sometimes there will be a paper or presentation that is both on their Blue Book and on my grading sheet. In that case, I’m counting it!
• We never actually finish the math book in a school year. Instead, we go at the pace that works for each student. The grade is made up of how many exams we covered, so I have to edit this part of the spreadsheet for each student at the end of each semester.
• I like class participation to be around 10-20% of the overall grade.

What Goes in the Long-Term File?

I try to keep a nice sample of the work the student has done in each class. Here are some examples:

• Math: Tests only
• Latin: Samples of their translation work
• Science: Tests only
• Writing/Exposition: Final copy of each paper written
• Reasoning & Debate: Varies a lot, but things like a transcript of each speeches given, a copy of a 1AC from their debate, A photo of a display board they created…

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High School Transcripts

Talk of grading usually leads to talk of high school transcripts… It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the idea of a transcript, but you can do this, I promise!

We made our own transcripts and had no problem with them being accepted by the colleges my son applied to (University of Arizona, Arizona State, Grand Canyon University).

A high school transcript is simply a record of what classes your student completed in high school. It doesn’t have to be in a specific format or use fancy language. You can find a wide variety of samples online because every school formats their transcripts a little differently. Whether your student is in Challenge all 4 years of high school or not, you can begin with CC’s sample transcript.

If you’re more of an Excel person, you can write up your own transcript there! Here’s a sample you can start with and modify to suit your student. There are quite a few formulas in the Excel file, so if you only change the letter grade it will calculate the GPA for you!

Keep in mind that most people consider 1 credit to be about 120-150 hours of instruction, so typically, one year of a class is one credit.

Excel Sample Transcript – PDF Sample Transcript

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Other Record Keeping

This may be the hardest part!!! (at least for me). At least once a year, as your students make their way through high school, note down all the extra-curricular activities your student is participating in, things like athletics, employment, and community service. Also list out any awards, honors, and leadership activities! My son did need these for his honors college applications and his scholarship applications. Detail out: 

• Activity title
• Activity description 
• Time commitment, 
• School years participated, 
• Position 
• Recognition or awards
• Possible references (people they could ask for a letter of reference)

Each semester, complete your grading sheet and assign a grade for each course. If you haven’t already, write out a course description (there are examples on CC Connected and in the Facebook groups), since colleges will sometimes ask for these (none of ours did). Each year, photocopy the Table of Contents and the ISBN of each textbook so you can always refer back to it.

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Career Exploration in High School

Many high school students have no idea what they want to do with their life! That’s ok! They have plenty of time!

However, with the cost of college, just going to college in order to figure out what you want to do may be a waste of money.

I have found that it can be temping for many homeschoolers to think “college is a scam” and dismiss it without a second thought. I’d like to suggest you think about post-high school education with more nuance than that. The idea that every kids must go to college is false. The idea that a gender studies degree will help you post-high school is also mostly false (I say ‘mostly’ because there are still a few jobs out there that require you to have a degree in anything and don’t care what the degree is in). However, it’s also false to say that college is a scam; if you want to be an engineer, you’ll need an engineering degree. That’s how our world works.

So, instead of joining ‘team-university’ or ‘team-trade-school’ (or ‘team-community-college’) and dying on that hill, encourage your teen to think about what careers they are interested in. Then research that career and see if it will support the lifestyle they expect. After all, there are super cool careers out there where there is a surplus of workers, so many people spend quite a few years volunteering before they can get a paid job. Here are some questions your teen should ask about any career:

• What education and experience is required?
• What’s the entry level, mid-career, and senior level pay? (This is especially important if they are comparing a trade with a white-collar job)
• How many hours/week does this career usually require?
• Bonus: Find someone currently working in this career and ask them how they got to where they are and what’s the day-to-day job really like. (This is a bonus because it’s not always possible, but it’s super valuable if they can find someone!)

I’ve cautioned my kids away from just asking what their favorite subject in school is- The classes and the careers often don’t really reflect each other. Some people look at careers by taking a quiz or inventory to discover what their strengths and interests are. I’ve listed some resources for that below. Other people tend to look at various occupations and just imagine themselves in that career. I think the best way we can help them is by helping them find a wide variety of volunteer and work experiences and then talking with them about what they liked and didn’t like.

• Book/curricula resources:
  • Seven Sisters Career Exploration Workbook
  • Everything Careers Test Book = a book (secular) + student packet resources from Rod & Staff (Christian)
  • Career Exploration for Homeschool Students (by Carol Topp)
• Website resources:
  • CA Career Zone website = must register for a free account take the Interest Profiler assessment, and then use your results in the “Quick Assessment” tool for job matches, and then start exploring those jobs
  • NY Career Zone website: Once you’ve taken an Interest Profile test and know your top 3 of the 6 interest areas, plug in those top 3 interests in the Assess Yourself page, then click “View Occupations” and receive a list of jobs to explore. The more stars next to the occupation, the better the match to your interest areas. Also sorted into job zones 1-5, with zone 1 requiring the least additional post-high school education and training, and zone 5 requiring the most. Then explore those jobs.
  • Occupational Outlook Handbook: Explore by 1 of 25  “occupation groups” (column at left on the home page), or use the search engine options to browse by pay level, entry-level education, on-the-job training, projected # of new jobs, and/or projected growth rate. Then explore various jobs on the website, which provides info about what that job does; what the work environment is like; what education/training is required for the job; what the pay is like; as well as a link to a list to similar occupations.
  • ACT Career Interest Inventory: This was recommended to me by a college admissions officer

University vs Community College

This is another area where people make a lot of assumptions that can cost them later. I encourage you to do your research and make some spreadsheets to really compare!

If your student decides they want to pursue a career that requires a bachelor’s degree (and it’s totally ok if that’s not what they want!), then the next question is usually about community college. Yes, community colleges are generally cheaper than universities, however, many universities offer significantly better scholarships to income freshman than transfer students (see this article and this article), so the 4 year costs might surprise you.

Let’s look at an example with my two home-town schools, since that’s what I’m familiar with. We’ll assume the student is living at home, needs to end up with a 4-year degree for their chosen career, and has good grades. In one example the student goes to the University of Arizona for 4 years with a good scholarship. In the second example, the student goes to Pima Community College for 2 years and transfers into the University of Arizona for 2 years to complete his degree and receives a good scholarship:

	4-Year (U of A)	2+2 (Pima → U of A)
Tuition total for first 2 years	$             24,000	$               6,000
Tuition total for second 2 years	$             24,000	$             24,000
Typical scholarships per year	$               8,000	$               4,000
Total scholarship	$             32,000	$               8,000
Total 4 year cost	$             16,000	$             22,000

It’s also important to note that sometimes the transfer process isn’t seamless and you loose semester, costing you more when it takes more than 4 years to finish your degree.

Are these scholarship numbers reasonable?

Yes I think they are, based on my own research and our experience with our oldest son. One thing affecting these averages is that incoming freshman scholarships are often based on high school GPA, while transfer student scholarships are usually based on college GPA. If you homeschool, you have the opportunity to work with your students and keep working with them until they earn all As. You don’t have that opportunity once they are in community college.

I think some homeschool families assume their student won’t get the high scholarships because they homeschool, but that has not been our experience! Colleges recognize homeschooling as legitimate and successful, even if your aunt doesn’t.

Do these numbers reflect the total cost of a degree?

No, absolutely not. Every college has fees and books, and then there are living expenses! Make yourself a nice spreadsheet to compare! If your student wants to live on campus, compare the cost of dorms! For example, Arizona State University’s room and board is $19,000 per year while the private Grand Canyon University’s room and board is $7,000 per year. This makes a much bigger impact than tuition!

What about trade school?

Trade school is a great option for students who want to pursue a trade. That’s not the route my oldest went so I don’t know much about it. If our youngest goes that direction, I’ll have some more info for you and update this page!

Testing in High School

This section about college entrance exams and credit-by-exam tests kept getting longer and longer, so I moved it to it’s own page:

High School Testing for Homeschoolers

College Applications

Each college has it’s own application and most of them have you digitally add your student’s course work into their system, one class at a time. This can take a LOT of time, so “Common App” was created. If you don’t want to have to enter the same information over and over, create an account on Common App and fill it all out there. Then click which schools you want to apply for and Ta-Da! Of course, not all colleges accept Common App Applications and some of them have you go to their website and add a bit of info after you’ve submitted the application from common app, but it’s still a time saver!

Whether you use Common App or not, save all your student’s work in a separate file. Not only are many college and scholarship essay prompts similar, but all the work your student does crafting a short blurb about each activity they participate in can later be used to create a resume! Your student will need a resume when applying to most internships/jobs in the future and it’s easier to tweak an old one than start from scratch.

Each college will also have its own admissions requirements, so you’ll want to read over everything fully. It’s a lot of work, so plan on helping your student navigate the process. We had a patten of my student writing essays and blurbs while I managed deadlines and similar logistics. Also, remember that you can contact the academic advisors and admissions staff at a college and ask questions!

Many colleges’ early application deadline is Nov 1st for the next fall. Submitting applications by the early application deadline is the best way to get admitted and get top scholarships.

Other Resources for Homeschooling High School

Keep learning! Here are some of my favorite resources! I’m no expert here, having no high school graduates until 2026, but I’ve read and researched the subject a lot. Here are some of my favorite resources:

• Dual Enrollment- AZTransfer.com website can help determine what will transfer in Arizona.
• CLEP and AP tests (CC has an article about CLEP vs AP.) If you know what college your student will attend, look up which CLEP tests will give them the credits they need!
• Possibly the best resource is HSLDA. They have so many helpful resources about high school and beyond, including info on testing, transcripts, college, and careers.
• CC usually has several articles about transcripts and homeschooling through high school. I believe they also recommend their AcademicRecords.net service.
• The 7 Sisters are fun and have great recourses, including a blog and podcast, where they often help you get a feel for the whole homeschooling high school thing!
• I’ve heard great things about Transcripts Made Easy by Janice Campbell, but I haven’t read it myself.
• Kathryn Graunke gave an excellent breakout at the 2022 Arizona homeschool convention titled “College Bound: Tips for Arizona Students.” If you’re local, I highly recommend it! I believe you can purchase it for $5 here (#65)
• Check out my Math in Challenge page to help you create a math plan through high school.
• Sometimes we’ll need to outsource a class. This Schole Sisters podcast episode (#131) is an excellent resource on how to make this decision! 
• Seven Sisters has a great post showing you a full timeline for all the important high school stuff that will prepare you for college: College Planning Timeline for Homeschool High School.

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