Show HN: High school transcript generator for homeschoolers | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: High school transcript generator for homeschoolers

greatbookshomeschool.com

68 pointsjkurnia30 comments

Hi everyone,

Great Books Homeschool has just released this free tool for generating high school transcripts using the standard American unweighted GPA system. It's available to the public at no cost, and no account creation is required.

These are both resources that would have saved me time as a new homeschooling parent, and I hope they are helpful to others.

Comments and feedback are welcome!

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This is cool! We are thinking about homeschooling and need all the tools we can get.

As an aside, I finished high school homeschooled. A state scholarship requires you to be in the top 10% of your class, so the state added me to a cohort of 120 people I had never met, decided I was 7th in that cohort, and gave me an extra $10k in scholarship money.

So yea, “top 10%” metrics are dumb.

To echo my sibling comment, please do not homeschool your children. Find a good charter school or alternative education institution that meets your the educational goals you have for your children and still allows them daily access to many peers and professional adults.

My siblings and I were homeschooled and we all admit it severely stunted our social development during critical periods. Once a critical period's window of opportunity has passed, you forever miss out on the development it enables.

Unmitigated homeschooling is to social aptitude as a nutritional deficit is to physical stature.

haha i was also homeschooled and the 10% is self-reported in my state, so I just checked yes on all of those.

Please, please do not. Homeschooling damages your social skills in a way few other things can. Homeschooled kids lose out on a lot of "free play" where the other kids are learning appropriate social behaviors.

My brother and I were homeschooled for a couple years and it messed us up for like 3-5 years after. I've worked with people who were homeschooled until college and they are very weird, socially inept, and occasionally inappropriate.

Counterpoint: Perhaps peer socialization, particularly in the form found in typical schools, isn't all that valuable.

I'd argue that what serves one best in life is learning to function at an adult level with other adults. Most homeschoolers I've known spent substantial amounts of time in adult company every day. Mixed-age peer groups (as seen in homeschool co-ops) can also create a natural dynamic and expectation for the student to both be a mentor and be mentored (relationship skills one should know how to cultivate as an adult).

Conforming as an 11 year old to the culture and social behaviors created by other 11 year olds in a space where a few overstretched adults struggle mightily (if with good intentions) to create a positive environment is...not an optimal use of that child's time.

Not that most homeschoolers aren't also hanging out with same-aged peers too. Much time is saved by not having the administrative overhead of a school. Lots of homeschoolers hang out with their friends all the time like any other kids do. Having buddies over and gaming until 3am is just as fun either way.

Fully acknowledging that I'm deep in anecdotal territory here and that these are sample sizes where all outcomes will be well-represented.

I agree with this take. Thanks for your thoughts! Being good at being 11 as measured by other 11 year olds doesn’t seem like it’s a predictor of anything.

I loved being homeschooled for the freedom and lifestyle benefits.

Also your website (from your profile) is legit.

Much appreciated, and thank you for the complement!

I was also homeschooled (and loved it) so my perspective does have a certain tint to it. So much of this comes down to the particular child and parent, which is of course the point. :)

Feel free to reach out if you need another resource or simply to bounce ideas.

I have several friends who were homeschooled for either most or all of their education leading up to college. All are completely fine.

I also know of people who went to public school their whole life and are weird, socially inept, and occasionally inappropriate.

I'm very sorry that you had a bad experience homeschooling, but there's little evidence overall that homeschooling damages children's social skills more than a traditional school environment. Many homeschoolers lead very vibrant, active social lives in inclusive communities.

Again, I'm very sorry you've met some people who were weird and happened to homeschool, but it's unfair to pass judgement on a large group of people, just because you met a few who didn't fit your own standards for normalcy.

I've met hundreds of articulate, friendly, intelligent and confident homeschooling families.

I think the myth that homeschooling leads to lack of socialization is largely untrue and a treat to those families who want to create an education that honors their child's unique academic AND social needs.

I could write a lot more on this and I have, in this blog, if you're curious to learn about the real lives of highly social homeschoolers. https://joinmodulo.substack.com/p/but-what-about-socializati...

I think it depends heavily on the individual parents doing the homeschooling. I had a close friend in college who had serious socialization and anxiety issues stemming from homeschooling. I also know a number of adults who were homeschooled and are very well-adjusted and successful. The parents who homeschool b/c they really have a passion for education seem to do much better than those who homeschool out of fear or peer pressure.

Good luck. Pretty much anyone who "requires" a high school transcript as a prerequisite for anything will only accept them from an accredited school, or maybe from at least a recognized homeschool program.

If you're entirely homeschooling on your own, a transcript that looks like you created it in Microsoft Word is not going to go very far.

I had no problem getting into college after homeschooling using a Microsoft Word based transcript. I'm old enough that back then standardized testing mattered more, so a good score on the SAT or ACT meant that your transcripts were less critical as a signal for future success.

OTOH, some places recognize homeschooling provides a unique perspective on education. For example, I was invited to interview at Yale's biology graduate program at least in part due to my homeschooling background.

My guess is that low end institutions looking for respectability are more sensitive to getting official transcripts, where the high end is looking for more diversity of background.

Low end institutions just want enrollment. They literally do not care about transcripts. As we approach 2008+18 that will intensify. They’re getting desperate and the long dreaded End Times haven’t even arrived…

(Bonus points if you can make it past freshman year, which when I was tutoring was always a huge concern for the newly free homeschool kids, but tbh freshman tuition and room&board is enough)

What’s special about 2008 plus 18 years? 2026?

It's called the "enrollment cliff" and it's a reduction in the number of 18 year olds, i.e. potential college freshmen.

https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/looming-enrollmen...

Fewer and fewer kids and parents interested in paying (and borrowing) tens of thousands per year and 4 years of their youth for an education with a high probability of a low return on investment.

I assume ke88y had their oldest child born in 2008.

2008 was the beginning of the global financial crisis and 18 is the age when one typically goes to college, so 2026 will be the first freshman class to have lived their entire lives in a post-global-financial-crisis world.

We just created a homeschool transcript in Libreoffice, since it was required as part of the application process. Our daughter was admitted to both universities applied to and offered a "full ride" scholarship for one (which is the one she accepted). She was also offered (and accepted) a part time role in the CS dept at a different university.

Not sure what "a recognized homeschool program" is; we used a mixture of materials.

When you start homeschooling, you will begin to meet other parents who are also homeschooling, but it's still your journey and not anyone else's; we've found that different tools work for different kids, even within the same family. Choose the tools that work best for your children and your style of teaching.

> Not sure what "a recognized homeschool program" is

E.g. something like Khan Academy's homeschool curriculum, or CK-12, etc. that is a complete curriculum ostensibly developed by people who know what they are doing, not just some moms making it up as they go.

Also if a kid wants to be involved in sports, that is more complicated for homeschoolers.

Not just sports, either. It ain't like a homeschool's gonna have a band program or a theater class. There are probably non-school-affiliated alternatives for them in one's community, but IME they tend to expect participants to be at least already competent at it. And no, solo tutoring ain't gonna cut it for that; being able to coordinate with dozens (or even multiple hundreds!) of other performers is its own skill, and I don't know of very many good ways to teach it other than practice.

This is what the HSLDA is for.

Colleges have become increasingly comfortable with accepting homeschool high school transcripts both because of their increasing regularity but also because of the actions of the HSLDA. One of the reasons we’ve been members for well over a decade.

My parents joined in 1998 after my school district started to threaten legal action against family friends, and we knew we were next.

It worked, and the school backed off. Might be a good idea for anyone thinking of teaching their kids at home, especially if they're going to be pulled from public schools like I was. Busybodies and troubled administrators are a real mess and aren't always rational, which can be very bad and expensive for parents.

Having been homeschooled for high school myself, there are definitely people who won't accept anything that isn't official, but there are also people who just need to check a "received transcript" box on some form.

My kids were homeschooled and had no problems getting into good universities and community colleges with their homeschool transcript.

Most institutions in the US will accept a homeschool transcript. How much they will value that transcript is another question.

Home schooled two kids, both in college now. My wife did their transcripts in Word. Accepted to North Carolina colleges w/o trouble.

Both of my sons were homeschooled from third grade on. One graduated from the University of Missouri. The other from Roosevelt in Chicago.

Congrats on releasing this high school transcript generator. I believe it's an important tool for homeschooling families. Transcripts are a crucial part of a student's academic record, especially when it comes to college applications and other post-secondary opportunities. A tool like this could be a game-changer for many families navigating the homeschooling world, so thank you.

In the same vein, my spouse and I have developed an app called Logbook. It's a student activity tracker built to simplify homeschooling record keeping and reporting, integrating with Apple iCloud for secure data storage and syncing. It also supports exporting of student reports as PDFs. This simplifies the reporting burden for homeschool educators immensely. If anyone is interested in checking it out, our website is https://logbook-ed.com

I have considered building a transcript generator as part of our tool. We already keep the records and generate reports, but a transcript is pretty different to yearly education audit reports. I'm looking forward to giving this tool a try when the time comes, it may have saved me the trouble of building my own!

Again, thank you for your contribution to the homeschooling community.

At least have the integrity to write your self promotion by hand.

This looks pretty neat! I'm going to link[1] the transcript we used for our homeschool just as another data point / option for those needing this. If we saw this sooner (our kids just graduated in June) though might have used this as the excel spreadsheet we used wasn't the easiest to work with at times. That said it was accepted by a four year state college so it does work at least!

[1] https://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/high-school-beyond/high-sch...

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