I’m seeking advice on presenting my DD’s unusual academic record for college applications.
We live in TX, but she attended boarding school in MA for 9th-10th grade. After moving back home for family reasons, she joined the IB program in 11th grade, which didn’t go well (poor grades, social isolation, and even physical harm from a teacher).
For 12th grade, she homeschooled, excelling in 8 community college classes and a Johns Hopkins CTY writing course —getting all A’s.
To further strengthen her profile, she’s currently doing a PG year at the local public school, taking 2 AP classes, some fun electives, and 2 TX-mandated classes. However, some 12th-grade credits (e.g., Macro/Microeconomics, Calculus) didn’t transfer properly, and her school denied her the chance to take AP Chinese, so she’s doing that with an external provider.
Alongside school, she’s taking a Machine Learning class, a research class on China (as part of a selective program), and an MIT Micromasters course.
As the homeschool administrator, I would appreciate some advice on how I can effectively present all her external academic work alongside the school’s limited transcript for college applications. Thanks!
Is she applying to colleges now? You should send a transcript from each school (at least to the colleges that take transcripts.) Sending the school profiles would be helpful too.
For schools that require students to enter all their course and grade info (SRAR, common app course and grades et al) she should have all her transcripts by her side and enter the info exactly as on each transcript.
All the ‘extra’ non-core/elective classes should be included but they won’t move the needle at many schools.
This doesn’t matter if you send transcripts from all schools. So make sure the college see the transcript that accurately shows these courses.
I reallly appreciate you taking the trouble to share your insights.
Is she applying to colleges now? You should send a transcript from each school (at least to the colleges that take transcripts.) Sending the school profiles would be helpful too.
Yes, she’s applying to college and I am glad you brought this up. The current school counsellor is actually sending a school report but I worry that DD would be judged as not having fully taken advantage of the available rigor at the school, if admissions judge her based on the submitted school profile. Do you think I could submit something to provide the additional context or would simply adding the external transcripts suffice?
We have actually considered presenting her as a hybrid-homeschool student because she’s probably doing more challenging things at home than at school but that seems overwrought, and common app wouldn’t accommodate that designation, anyway.
All the ‘extra’ non-core/elective classes should be included but they won’t move the needle at many schools.
I am not surprised to hear this. Just thought it curious that if she was fully homeschooled, this would be considered as challenging opportunities beyond what’s offered in high school. Fascinating
Your D can write something in Addt’l Info that communicates all prior coursework wasn’t accepted and/or prevented accessing highest rigor courses in new school(s). The counselor should send the school reports from your D’s previous schools…but you are going to have to track those down for them. Then the counselor can upload those as well. If the counselor doesn’t want to do that, your D can email the previous school profiles to her AO at each school and/or upload thru the portals after she applies.
Core courses taken outside of the HS at accredited institutions could be valuable, I was just speaking to the non-core courses. Non-core activities/courses can show fit to major so that could be valuable, at schools where one applies to a major…but not so valuable from an academic perspective.