Our college gives placement exams before you ever take a class. (This exam determines if your child is ready for college classes or if they need “remedial” classes to get them up to speed.) I’m grateful for that.
One of the hardest things as a homeschooler is the school comparisons. Maybe it’s just me. . .
Through the years I had heard from others about what their children were taking in school. I recall one year when a mother told me her son was taking pre-calculus, and my son was, at the time, doing Saxon Algebra 1. That one “hurt” because I truly felt like my son was really good in math, and I couldn’t believe that he was “so far behind”. But, we trudged along in his coursework, because I honestly didn’t know what else to do.
Later, I read an article (can’t find it now), that was talking about course names, and something to do with college admissions discovering that the courses they were seeing named on transcripts were not congruent with the abilities of the students. This particular article was talking about math coursework specifically. (I have since read other articles claiming that kids are coming to college completely unprepared, and yet their transcripts list advanced and even honors classes.)
I really should keep track of these articles I read, so I can share them. . .
Many years ago, I spoke with a woman, and as our conversation progressed I found myself getting more and more angry at her. She was a homeschooler, and she was explaining her grading technique to me. Her kids got all A’s in their subjects. They did, because she wrote them that way on the transcript when she decided what courses they were going to take that year. But, to make it “honest”, they had to get the grade, right? She had them take the tests over and over again until they finally made an “A” on it. She was expressing her frustration as one of her children had taken this particular test 7 times and still hadn’t gotten over a “C”.
I wanted to scream! I couldn’t believe that was how she was running her homeschool, and I was frustrated as all get out, because when it comes right down to it, that transcript means something. And her transcript, compared to my transcript (wherein I write the actual grade my children achieved). . .Well, there goes all hope of academic scholarships for us.
I have heard of many other homeschoolers that really don’t do / keep grades, so when it comes time to do the transcript, they don’t have a clue what to put down, so they kind of just “give” the kid an “A” because, “they did the work and learned something”.
Please, just shoot me now!
There are even a number of articles now that call into question the validity of the SAT and ACT. . .and yet, to my knowledge, a number of scholarships still use those scores as a eligibility marker.
*sigh*
But, our local college now makes people, (everyone, not just homeschoolers), take a placement exam.
And, my “B” student placed in their honors program. (So, no scholarships, but, if he maintains “A” coursework the college will reimburse him for the class.)
Core Foundations 