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Lee and Matt Binz operate The HomeScholar (http://www.TheHomeScholar.com). Their mission is helping parents homeschool high school. These site is filled with many wonderful resources that will help you through your homeschool high school journey. Many of these resources are free. Lee and Matt homeschooled their two children independently for eight years, from elementary through high school graduation. Both boys earned full-tuition scholarships to their first choice university.

Lee is a homeschool consultant who has worked with thousands of parents from around the world. She has three core beliefs about homeschooling:

- Homeschooling provides the best possible learning environment;
- Every child deserves a college-prep education whether or not they choose to go to college;
- Parents are capable of providing a superior education to their children.

Please visit www.TheHomeScholar.com and get resources for every stage of homeschooling junior high and high school.

- Lee's Total Transcript Solution teaches parents how to create high school transcripts for every homeschooling style.

- Her online Gold Care Club is the world's most convenient high school support group.

- You can get a daily dose of high school wisdom from her homeschool blog, The HomeScholar Helper. (http://www.TheHomeScholar.com/blog/)

Lee can help you homeschool high school with with confidence and joy!

Give Your Homeschooler the Advantage in the High Stakes College Admission Sweepstakes with this new book from The HomeScholar!

Parents thinking about homeschooling their kids through high school are often consumed by insecurity - "Are we ruining their college chances?" Well, worry no more! When it comes to college admissions and scholarships, homeschoolers have just what the colleges are looking for!

"Setting the Records Straight" will provide you the information you need to create homeschool records that will perfectly document your amazing homeschool education in a way that will demand attention. You CAN craft high school transcripts and records that gain choice college admission and win BIG scholarships.

Lee Binz, The HomeScholar, has helped thousands of parents create outstanding homeschool transcripts and records. Her proven system will teach you how to present your child to colleges in the best possible light. You'll learn:

- How to build a winning homeschool transcript, regardless of your homeschool methods or style.

- How to create credible grades and credits, even if you don't give tests

- How to provide the exact records the colleges are looking for.

From Chapter 1: The Love Language of Colleges:

Homeschool transcripts are better than chocolate!* OK, maybe not better than DARK chocolate, but certainly better than milk chocolate. That’s because transcripts are legalized bragging! That’s right – your job is to write down the wonderful things about your child onto a piece of paper – and you get to call it their “permanent record.” What fun! This is the good stuff! Even though it’s just a piece of paper, there is nothing mundane about it!

Some parents fear making a transcript because the process sounds intimidating. This is absolutely not the case. *Creating an impressive homeschool transcript that colleges will love is easy and eminently possible.* In fact, this book will show you exactly how easy and rewarding making a high school transcript can be!

The best thing about transcripts is that *there is really no right or wrong way to do them.* The process is more of an art than a science. There are so many ways you can make a transcript, and each way is OK! There is nothing to fear, and in fact there is a lot of freedom in making your homeschool transcript! In this book you will see the homeschool transcripts I created for both of my sons. I’ll show you our transcripts by subject and by year, so that you will get a general idea of what is possible. But truthfully, my transcripts are nothing particularly fancy. I created them in a Word document on my home computer and printed them on regular printer paper. *I gave it to the colleges – and they LOVED IT!

From Chapter 7: How to Assign Grades

My son thought homeschool grades were bogus. *"Who's going to believe the grades my Mom gives me?"* he would say. Then he took classes at community college. The professors factored in credit for class attendance, participation, discussion, and homework. If the students scored poorly on a test, they were allowed to "drop" it. One teacher declared that the highest grade on each test was the "100%" grade, and all the other students were graded on a sliding scale. My son became convinced: *"You were right, Mom! Your grades were a lot tougher than college!"

Grades are one of the things that scare parents of high school students the most. I want you to feel completely at ease about grades. *Grades are NOT scary, and you don’t have to make any major changes to your homeschool* in order to provide grades for your high school transcript.

There are three steps to giving a grade. First, select a grading scale. Second, figure out how you are already evaluating your children. Third, decide on the grade you will put on their transcript.

From Chapter 12: Course Descriptions Demystified

When I arranged to visit our favorite college for the first time, I asked if they wanted me to bring my homeschool records. I received an enthusiastic reply. “Yes! *Please bring ALL your homeschool records* – that would be great!”

So my husband took the day off work to help me carry in our homeschool records. I had a large three-ring binder for each year of school, and for each child. We brought in six heavy binders. The college admission representative looked at the binders and politely said, “Thank you for bringing in your records.” He didn’t appear to have any plan to look at them, however. After all the energy and effort of making all the course descriptions, I was pretty frustrated. *“Don’t you even want to see them?” I whined.* It seemed like they were more interested in knowing that I actually HAD homeschool records. They seemed less interested in actually reading them!

When we were visiting another college, *I asked the admission staff what kind of records they wanted to see from homeschoolers. * I showed them a sample page from my Comprehensive Record. I was surprised when they told me that they wanted this kind of documentation for every class I taught.

One admission advisor went even further. She said that she wished every applicant would provide this kind of information, even public school students. “The transcript will say English each year, but when they come to our college we find out the student can’t read or write well. I would love to see what they are supposed to be learning in their English class!”

I often think about these events when I talk about writing course descriptions. The variety of responses revealed something significant. Course descriptions are important to write, but you may never know how they will be used. They may be read thoroughly and for detail, or *they may be “viewed” but not read.* While we may stress about the details of our wording and expression, that may not be what is important. Think about these stories when you are writing your course descriptions. Colleges will want to know about the classes, and they will want to know what your child learned. Beyond that, you have freedom.