5 Things Your High Schooler’s Transcript Must Include (and a Free Template)

Creating a high school transcript for your homeschooler is easy — if you know what is needed. Save the $$ and DIY the transcript.

Homeschooling high school is a lot of work. But creating a high school transcript? Easy. Keeping up with the transcript during the high school years? Even easier.

I used Google Sheets to create a transcript for my oldest kiddo. (And I made one just for you, too!) I tweaked the formatting several times over the years, but the basic format stayed the same.

Once it was created, I only had to update her grades each semester. Easy peasy.

(Really, you don’t need to contract this out to a homeschool transcript service. As long as you have the important details on it — and you will after you finish reading this post! — then you have the details that a college wants. Everything else — the grades, the courses — aren’t things a transcript service can do for you!)

What is a high school transcript?

And why do I need it?

Transcripts are a summary of your student’s grades & courses — think of it like a condensed report card. This one-page document includes your teen’s personal details, course titles along with credits & grades earned, plus their yearly & cumulative grade point average (GPA).

High school transcripts can prove their graduation status, serve as a replacement for a diploma in some circumstances, and are necessary for acceptance into further educational institutes.

Bottom line — every high schooler needs a transcript. And you can totally create your own high school transcript.

What does NOT go on the transcript?

Before we dive into the details of what you need to put on your student’s transcripts, let’s quickly review things that will not go on here.

• Test scores for individual courses (those are your own records)
• Curriculum you used (pop that into course descriptions)
• Name of anywhere your homeschool student took a dual enrollment or online course (course descriptions for these, too)
• Extracurricular activities, volunteer work, jobs
• Standardized test scores, including SAT or ACT

1. Personal Details (at the top)

• Name
• Date of Birth
• Social Security Number
• Address
• Date of Enrollment in High School (month & year)
• Expected Graduation (month & year)

2. Next Up: Course Names & Grades

• Titles should match the course names in your course descriptions for easy reference
• Organize by subject or by school year
  Note: When my daughter applied in 2021, nearly all of the colleges wanted them organized by school year. I love the idea of separating them by subject, so I’ve included both ways in the free template.
• Include credits earned per course & total credits earned per year

3. What’s your student’s GPA?

• List it for each school year
• Include a cumulative GPA (average of all their years) at the bottom.
• If you give a weighted GPA, include an unweighted one, too.

4. Were any classes advanced level?

If your kiddo took an honors course, dual enrollment at the community college or a slew of AP courses, you should make a note of that. These courses show a higher level of rigor that you want to show off to those college admissions officers who may be reviewing your kiddo’s transcript. Dual Enrollment, especially, demonstrates how your student handled college-level work.

I marked my daughter’s transcript with an (H) or (DE) next to the course title. For example, Public Speaking 231 (DE), British Literature (Honors), or Pre-Calculus Algebra 171 (DE).

At the bottom of the transcript, I included a key. (When she submitted her applications, this is also how I designated which courses were in progress.)

5. Statement & Signature (at the bottom)

I looked at several transcripts & they all had some variation of this statement.

“I do hereby self-certify and affirm that this is the official transcript and record of (insert student’s full name) in the academic studies of (the years of their high school).”

Some colleges may require you to physically sign the transcript and/or notarize it. The schools my daughter applied to — a variety of private & state schools — did not.

Double Check These!

• Do the course titles on your transcript match the titles on your course descriptions?
• Double-check that the GPA totals are correct
• Update it every semester (as needed) and end of the school year
• Did you assign the correct number of credits for each course?