Grading

9th-11th grade: GRADES DUE BY/BEFORE JUNE 5th each year
SENIOR’S GRADES DUE BY MAY 25th

FOUR YEAR PLAN SAMPLES:

SUMMER SCHOOL is any course taken or completed during the prior summer and will be credited to the upcoming academic year (post June 11th and pre June 9th).

Often a public or home school high schooler will take this time to fit in classes they struggle with in order that they might better focus during the year or to cut down on the number of courses required. A common example is completing PE/Health over the summer when planning to attend traditional high school.

UNWEIGHTED GPA

SC uses the SCUGP (SC Uniform Grading Policy) stated as a 10 point scale, but truly on a 6 point weighted scale. However, many colleges request an unweighted GPA, and, guess what?! Faithful Scholars provides that on each transcript.

WEIGHTED GPA

Faithful Scholars tabulates your child’s cumulative GPA using the South Carolina Grade Conversion Chart commonly referred to as the South Carolina Uniform Grading Policy (SCUGP).

SC uses a weighted (for Honors, AP, DE) scale that is termed a 10-point scale, but which is called a weighted 6-point-scale on college applications.

The three brackets within the SCUGP scale are:

College Prep uses a 4.0 scale maxing out at 4.875
Honors uses a 5.0 scale maxing out at 5.375
Dual Credit/AP uses what is commonly referred to as a 6.0 scale but maxes out at 5.875

COLLEGE PREP is what you would think of as typical course using a textbook or material that is geared toward high school. If you are uncertain you can check the website of or call the textbook publisher and request their opinion. This can be helpful in creating your course description as well. It is a good idea to have this supporting material in your Records Notebook. This will be required if you are transferring 8th grade core subjects to your student’s high school transcript. Homeschoolers typically complete 100% of their subject work while traditional schools aim toward completing a minimum of 80% of the course.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE NOTE: Most four-year colleges and universities like to see, and some require, 2+ years of the same foreign language with sign language not usually accepted. TRANSCRIPT NOTE: Faithful Scholars spends a marked number of hours building each transcript to read ‘strong’ by colleges. During this process we help our members understand the purpose and use of a transcript, how/why we build each transcript to highlight individual student’s strengths and passions, and what to do with items that are not best served by being on a student’s transcript.

COURSE PROGRESSION NOTE: home schooled high schoolers need NOT follow the same course outline as public schooled high schoolers. Examples:

physical science need not precede biology
math can be non traditional (business math, accounting, consumer math, etc)
health is not a must have outside of science
computer can be completed in various manners but needs to be more in depth than keyboarding

HONORS, per the SC State Board of Education, states, “Honors courses, which extend and deepen the scope and sequence of a typical college prep level high school course, are academic in nature and are designed for students exhibiting superior abilities in the particular content area. The honors curriculum places emphasis on critical and analytic thinking, rational decision making, and inductive/deductive reasoning.”

There must be evidence that the honors-level course represents extension, acceleration, and enrichment of a typcial CP course of study. Curriculum should indicate depth in rigor, complexity, challenges, and creativity beyond the CP level course. A good SC resource to compare and guide creating your supporting documentation. It need to be overkill, just enough to submit to colleges as evidence of Honors Level Rigor. Translate: greater rigor.
There must be evidence of appropriate differentiation in instructional practices for advanced learning that will enhance the delivery of instruction while strengthening the components outlined in the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. Translate: beyond the textbook/integrated learning.
There must be evidence that purposeful assessment practices align with the honors level curriculum and instructional best practices include per-assessment, formative assessment, and summative assessment. Translate: harder testing.
One half of a quality point (.5) is added to the College Preparatory (CP) weighting for honors course that meet ALL of the three criteria above.

Faithful Scholars grants honors credit in academic courses beyond core subjects but may require supporting evidence of honors rigor. Supporting documentation is also becoming more commonly required by the colleges.

Honors courses must extend the scope, sequence, and rigor of the subject material meaning that either the text publisher states on paper that the material/class was created as an honors course; or involve the completion of 100% of the textbook/course work; in which case it must be completed along with an in depth project, research paper, mentor-ship, internship, or other of 30 hours. Honors is not a small additional project, nor a subject difficult to your child on which they worked really hard. It should be pre-planned when creating your course outline, or purchasing your curriculum. It should be well supported and clearly documented in your Records Notebook. The aim should be to complete the coursework.

To award honors weight, we may request supporting documentation that must include:

Curriculum guide that includes the following
Course description
Key concepts
Expectations of performance
Pacing guides with examples of assignments, time tables and deadlines, assessments rubrics, grading practices
Instructional materials needed to successfully complete the coursework
Materials that could provide evidence of varied texts and/or supplemental materials
Student work samples that demonstrate student-initiated research, project-based learning problem-solving and critical thinking, etc.
Scoring guides
Rubrics for essays, projects, and other non-test assessments.

HONORS NOTE: Assigning honors weight needs to be done with care and diligence. Honors is NOT simply working hard, participating in a co op offering honors level coursework, or using a text created for honors level. It is definitely NOT doing more than public school standards.

Most ivy league traditional schools do not allow their high flyers to take more than 3 to 4 honors classes per year due to time constraints and wanting their students transcripts to indicate a well rounded student who does more than simply study.

Honors IS going beyond the normal academic rigor with a worthy 30+ additional hours of work. If in CC, a good rule of thumg is that your child is in the top 1/3 in that given strand, if it is another co-op offering honors level work or a textbook created to meet honors standards (contact the publisher if uncertain), it means that your child has completed each assignment and test. Nothing less. Be certain to create supporting documentation for all honors weighted classes as colleges are beginning to be leary of all of the honors they see coming out of homeschool.

RULE OF THUMB FOR NUMBER OF HONORS CREDITS TO ASSIGN PER YEAR by hours of daily study required

1 honors class + 6 college prep classes = 4.8 hours of study/day for 180 days
2 honors classes + 5 college prep classes = 5 hours of study/day for 180 days
3 honors classes + 4 college prep classes = 5.2 hours of study/day for 180 days
4 honors classes + 3 college prep classes = 5.3 hours of study/day for 180 days
5 honors classes + 2 college prep classes = 5.5 hours of study/day for 180 days
6 honors classes + 1 college prep class = 5.6
- for each additional CP class, add 120 hours to your total and divide by 180
- for each additional H class, add 150 hours to your total and divide by 180

DUAL ENROLLMENT PERMISSION LETTER: Faithful Scholars automatically generates a Permission Letter for students that are aged 15 and up, or hold Junior or Senior year status, giving them permission to apply and attend a secondary school. The form is found in your member login portal dashboard area. This letter along with an up to date transcript will be requested by the college during your application process.

Earning college credit while in high school is a wonderful way to get a jump on college and possibly even earn an associates degree by the time you graduate high school! A definite savings along with a great GPA bump. After the age of 16 (you can appeal for a younger student to be accepted), or upon Junior status, your child will be eligible to apply to a secondary school (brick and mortar, on line, long distance, or local) and begin earning dual (high school and college) credits.

Advanced Freshmen can consider Clep courses through College Board.

An official transcript for each college course is required in order to assign/weight as dual credit. This can be a snapshot sent to us via e-mail or the ‘old fashioned’ method of snail mail to: Faithful Scholars; 1761 Ballard Lane; Fort Mill, SC 29715

If your child should make a grade that is below par (in a dual enrolled course), we are required by CHE (Commission on Higher Education) to calculate the grade into the GPA in order for our students to remain eligible for SC lottery money scholarships.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT (AP): There are more and more AP offerings through online/distance sources and local sources, however, ALWAYS check with the College Board to see that not only the course, but also the instructor is approved. To do this, you can contact the College Board directly.

If you have studies a subject to the depth of an AP course, DO take the AP exam as passing an AP exam indicates wonderful academic rigor on the part of your student’s. Unfortunately, unless the course and instructor are College Board AP approved, you may not count your course as an AP class nor assign the grade point bump. Being awarded college credit (from having passed the AP exam) will be dependent upon the specific policy of each college.

CLEP courses are basic independent courses of study followed by equivalency examination that represents the typical amount of knowledge for a college level course. Being awarding college credit will be dependent upon the specific policy of each college. Study guides and tests are available through the College Board.

9th-11th grade: GRADES DUE BY/BEFORE JUNE 5th each year
SENIOR’S GRADES DUE BY MAY 25th

Our academic year for seniors is May 25th and for grades 9-11, June 5th in order that students be ranked by our deadline with CHE and colleges.

Should your student not have his/her work completed and submitted by May 25th or June 5th, an extension will be granted, the courses/grades input, but the student will not be ranked with the class. If classes are completed after July 1st, it will be counted as under the following academic year/transcript as summer school requiring renewal for that academic year.

CREDITS by CARNEGIE UNITS

A Carnegie Unit is a more appropriate method of gauging subject/course completion when a traditional textbook is not involved. It consists of a minimum of 120 hours of study in one subject. This is set by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. All schools have the option of expanding the number of required hours, so do not be surprised if your local school states one Carnegie Unit to be 150-180 hours of study per course. The actual number ranges from 120 hours to 180 hours. The first would be College Prep while the latter would be Honors.

TRANSCRIPTS

—if you are graduating a student, please read below and mark your calendar for May 25th

Faithful Scholars requires all high school students to annually submit numerical grades via your Member Login portal by specifid dates in order that we might rank our students and keep them eligible for the lottery money scholarships (Palmetto Fellows, Life, Hope). This requirement does not apply only to those who will seek those scholarships; it applies to ALL of our high school students.

Submit numerical grades through your Member Log In > High School Transcript Input button in order for our registrar to build and maintain your student’s transcript. *

*DUAL CREDIT: In order to confirm your student’s DE (dual enrollment) credit, we require a copy, screenshot, or photo of your student’s transcript to be emailed. If you want the exact grade, please take a screenshot of the final numerical grade in your student’s college portal or forward an email from their professor.
*AP weight can only be assigned with College Board’s approval of both the course and the instructor approved (by College Board) submitted to Faithful Scholars via email, or the score of having passed the AP exam.

Faithful Scholars builds each student’s transcript to be as strong as possible and adequate for college admissions, sports participation, entry to public school, insurance discounts, and more. Faithful Scholars is on a list of approved South Carolina high schools which validates the integrity or your student’s transcript and ensures colleges, and other third parties, that you are represented by a legal, honorable, and accepted SC academic governing body.

submit courses/grades through your Member Log In > High School Transcript Input button
requires a minimum of 21 days to process *expedite option available for a 48 hour, 2 business day turn aroun

MAILED TRANSCRIPTS: If a third party is requesting your transcript, in most cases they will want it to come directly from our offices using the request form located in your member login portal. Before inputting your request, please check with the college/entity for their physical (admissions) address or electronic email address as to which method is preferable to be included with your request for mailed/emailed transcripts. If there is a student ID or particular registrar assigned, please include those details.

If your student is a currently homeschooling, this service is free for up to 5 (five) requests
Beyond 5, we require a $10 fee per additional request
If your student is a post high school graduate, there is a $10 fee.

GRADUATION

Graduating your first child is like entering homeschool for the first time- unknown and wrought with worries of inadequacy on all fronts. Pray, breathe, believe. You have poured yourself into your child, you are powered by a Higher Power, you have been enough, and your seeds are deeply planted to grow forth when He sees fit to expose the fruits of your labors. If things go astray for a bit, they will return. Trust. You have deposited righteousness and righteousness will return.

GRADUATION CEREMONY: We have created a fun, student focused ceremony that allows your child to participate by selecting a walk up song, displaying high school highlights, wearing a cap/gown of their color/choosing, creating swag bags and ending with a S’mores bar.

RANKING

Ranking is based upon student’s numerical grades, course weight (College Prep, Honors, AP/Dual Credit) using the South Carolina Uniform Grading Policy (SCUGP), and number of student body.

Numerical grades, credits earned, and weight MUST BE submitted to Faithful Scholars by the parent-teacher NO LATER THAN May 25th for seniors and June 5th for grades 9-11 of each academic year. If any courses are dual credit or AP we also require supporting documentation in the form of screenshots or forwarded emails.

9th-11th grade: GRADES DUE BY/BEFORE JUNE 5th each year
SENIOR’S GRADES DUE BY MAY 25th

Faithful Scholars is a trusted, experienced, and legal option to homeschool in SC as recognized by the SC State Board of Education with a passion to meet you where you are and grow you forward through your home school moments.

ADA COMPLIANCE