Grading

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.

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:

1. College Prep uses a 4.0 scale maxing out at 4.875
2. Honors uses a 5.0 scale maxing out at 5.375
3. 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.” (see more on this topic in ‘When Honors is a Bad Idea’ expansion box.

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.”

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

WHAT HONORS IS NOT:

1. Honors is not working really hard at a difficult subject.

2. Honors is not doing better than a public school student’s subject load.

a. This is a slippery slope because it seems like these trained educators leading honors classes ought to be a great litmus, and this is true, but parents are wanting to believe that because their student completes more academic work in their college prep class than a public school counterpart does, that it should be honors. Not so. If you want a course to be honors, mindfully create it as such on your own or by following another purely honors course, and not just by doing more in your college prep course than another.

3. Honors is not just completing another 30 hours of bland work on top of a college prep class.

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.

• Latin H is achieved by passing the National Latin Exam or by being taught by a professional instructor
• Spanish H is achieved by passing the National Spanish Exam or by being taught by a professional instructor
• Speech/Debate H is achieved by participating in Teen Pact or competitive debate club such as NCFCA, GoForth, Christos Apologia, etc
• Music with Theory H, Choir H, or Drama H are achieved by participating in a professional group such as Youth Orchestra, UnAm choral group or NarrowWay theatre productions. There are many of these throughout the state and country

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 the opportunity to achieve honors level coursework, or using a text created for honors level. If you are gauging what your student does against a public school class of 25+ students, this can be your litmus, but it seems limited when viewed against our access to 1 on 1 learning, additional time to focus on academics, lack of time restraints, and a 24/7 encouragement team and support staff.

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 hours of study/day for 180 days
• 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

WHEN HONORS CAN BE NEGATIVE

1. When your student knows that they did not work toward the level of honors. Life lessons live longer than a slightly increased GPA.

2. When colleges see honors weight all down the line, but not the academic rigor in the classes taken to line up it is a red flag that mama may be either an easy grader or not grading at all but simply boosting. Transcripts have a ‘read’, and those of us who do this for a living know how to ‘read’ well.

a. Most Ivy League focuses college prep high schools will allow their high flying students to petition to take up to 4 honors classes. For their typical student, the limit is 3.

3. When you lose focus of your student in lieu of their GPA and begin loading their year with honors classes. An ‘A’ in a college prep class is far greater than a ‘C’ in an honors class. And, in our homeschool parent manner, we would begin angsting and pushing and hurting relationship as we slowly ruin the joy of learning for the sake of an increased GPA.

4. When you gauge what you are going to label as honors against another. It is great to talk over ideas, but do not fall for the false belief that you know all that goes into another student’s work without walking a mile in their shoes.

Don’t forget that colleges have one front door but dozens of side and back doors. God has this laid out, and your child can get into ANY school of their choosing. ANY! Yes, I said any. If they are a community college level student who wants to attend Yale, they will call Yale, ask what they need to do to attend, be given a list of expectations, complete the list and attend. I have seen this happen far too many times. On the flip side, if they are a high flying student who does not wish to attend Yale, but all of their Honors and DE and test scores have them accepted there, so why not…. well, most likely they will be back home next semester. I have seen this far too many times as well.

One thing that college admins will tell you is that your student will make college plans beginning when you begin to push them, make a decision junior year, but make their final decision mid-senior year. It can be a roller-coaster, especially with your first, but if you do as you have always done, and follow your student in their academic interests and needed, God will lead you to the right front, side, or back door at the right time. Honors or not.

DUAL ENROLLMENT if 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.  Advanced students can appeal as a younger student to be accepted, or upon Junior status, your child will automatically be eligible to apply to a secondary school (brick and mortar, on line, long distance, or local) and begin earning dual credits. This means that your student can complete their final two years of high school as a full time college student taking dual enrollment courses toward earning an associates degree. Many of these institutions are free! More info here.

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.

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. Unless we are provided the exact numerical grade directly from the college, college or professor, we assign a ‘middle’ grade. For example, an ‘A’ becomes a 95%.

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.

For a deeper dive into DE (dual enrollment) head to this dedicated page, including a growing list of SC colleges offering homeschooled students access to their classes and campus.

CLEP courses are independent courses of study followed by equivalency examination administered by College Board, which represent the typical amount of knowledge of a college level course. Study guides and tests are available through the College Board. Being awarding college credit will be dependent upon the specific policy of each college, but this is a great way to inexpensively earn college credit! If you child does not pass the Clep exam after a year of studying, you can still count the course weighted as college prep.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT (AP) classes are more and more AP offerings through online/distance sources and even a few local sources, however, ALWAYS check with the College Board to see that not only the course, but also the instructor is College Board 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. Being awarded college credit (from having passed the AP exam) will be dependent upon the specific policy of each college. If you earn a 3, 4, or 5 on an AP exam through a non-College Board approved source, please submit your scores with your end of year grade input.

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

Our end of academic year for seniors is May 25th and for grades 9-11, June 5th in order that students be ranked by our deadline agreement 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 the following academic year.

A Carnegie Unit is a more appropriate method of gauging subject/course completion when a traditional textbook is not involved, however the Carnegie Foundation has begun moving away from this measurement as it does not translate to proficiency in terms of online learning. That being said, it is still valid for our homeschool settings when using in-person, books, or experiential learning.

A Carnegie Unit (credit) consists of a minimum of 120 hours of study in one subject for a college prep high school credit, or 150+ hours of study in one subject to bump that credit to honors. 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. In truth, most of us spend far more hours on a course when you add in the additional learning we weave into all things life and learning. The actual number ranges from 120 hours to 180 hours. For additional information on the Carnegie Foundation.

We love Carnegie units because they help us gauge if our courseload (using books, co ops, or life-learing, BUT NOT to be used to gauge mastery of topic for online learning*) are on track in our children’s day. A college prep 6 credit year should line up with 4 hours of study for 180 days. The math is number of credits times 120 hours divided by 180 days. If you wish for your class to become an honors weighted class, multiply by 150 hours. Our family loves to travel, live simply abroad, and dive deep into the cultures in which we find ourselves. This means that a credit of Cultural Immersion is easily come by without my needing to micro-manage a set of books, papers, etc. Now, I do not assign it honors weight as that just seems overboard, but I do give credit for all that our children learn, journal, note, draw, practice, and do – once, as in or one credit.

*Online learning’s inability to show progression and mastery after 120 hours of completiong is of interest to note as it supports what colleges and professors are telling us. Online learning does not culminate with the gaining nor mastery of the topic, it does not spark creativity, and it reduces the students ability (desire?) to engage meaningfully. Online learning does work for passing through a class for the credit in an area in which concern over the material is low, and sometimes it is the only option for a family/student, so we absolutely support this method, but we want to clearly and fairly share our findings in every area related to home education.

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, you are enough and your seeds of knowledge 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.

Faithful Scholars official graduation date is June 1st, but feel free to celebrate at any time. Most groups hold ceremonies in May due to weather and summer travel, which is legal and fine.

Know that your diploma is an honorary certificate issued by any 3rd party. Our diploma’s are issued by Faithful Scholars according to the completion of our set of graduation requirements. We do not compete with state standards as they tend to limit us to a box, and homeschoolers seem to dislike box-ey things. Faithful Scholars is listed on and approved by the State Board of Education for the purpose of serving and supporting homeschoolers as a legal and recognized Option 3 accountability association as well as our standards and policys approved by the SC Commission on Higher Education for the purposes of ranking and lottery money scholarships.

GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS Faithful Scholars, and all associations are able to create their own set of graduation requirements. On the one hand, this is lovely freedom. On the other hand, WHAT?!!!! We have created our to fit all students because while many are college bound and have no struggle with the sequence of Algebra 1 through PreCal, others do and/or are not college bound and might prefer the ability to dive deep into accounting, finance, and business math. With Faithful Scholars, you can! But, we want you to click into our graduation requirements to be sure that you understand fully. 

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 cap/gown of their color/decoration, creating swag bags, and ending with (as often as possible) a food truck, and (always) a S’mores bar. There will be a keynote speaker, prayer, student accolades announced from the podium, and a congenial atmosphere of lively celebration. It is also a safe experience for those dealing special needs, anxiety or reserved.