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Sample Transcript for College Admissionby Alison McKee The following is a partial, non-sequential excerpt from the insightful book “From Homeschool to College and Work” 3rd edition, by Alison McKee, published by Bittersweet House, Copyright 1997, 1998, 2004. Used by permission. Available from Bittersweet House, POB 5211, Madison, WI 53705-5211. Alison McKee’s homeschooled son, Christian, applied to various colleges using a narrative transcript, portions of which are excerpted here. To see the entire transcript and obtain other pertinent advice, please see From Homeschool to College and Work. As McKee mentions in the book, although Christian included a query letter, after all was said and done, he felt that it was unnecessary; indeed, Alison feels that as homeschooling has become more commonplace than it was when he was applying, it is now so widely accepted that such letters are unnecessary or even counter-productive. Incidentally, Christian was accepted at a number of schools, including the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire; and University of Wisconsin, Madison. He ultimately attended Kalamazoo College (his first choice) on a nearly full scholarship. (For more about Transcripts, please refer to Lists 5.1 and 5 .2.) From the introduction of “From Homeschool, etc.” . . . Another admissions officer praised the thoroughness with which we documented Christian’s unusual learning exploits and mentioned that if other homeschoolers were as thorough in their work, the process of considering homeschooled applicants would be much less cumbersome for their admissions committees. This narrative transcript is an effort to document Christian’s life in terms that are relevant to traditional academic categories or subject areas. We have drawn primarily on the records of his work that have been kept by him and by us over the last 18 years. It describes a wide range of experiences at home, in the community and in traditional classroom settings. (From Homeschool to College and Work, Introduction) ENGLISHThe study of English, including reading, writing, speech and attendance at a wide variety of theatrical performances, has always been a natural part of Christian’s life. Christian is widely read. Not only has he read for his own personal enjoyment but he has also read aloud to large live audiences and on the radio. Christian’s writing experiences are many and varied. They include: Writing articles for various magazines, keeping a journal, letter and e-mail correspondence, writing research papers and writing radio copy. Christian has had public speaking experience. His experiences include speaking before the Wisconsin state legislature’s Education Committee (at age 11), participation in many panel discussions, being an interviewee for both radio and T.V. reporters, speaking about education in University of Wisconsin teacher education classes, and as a teacher of both fly tying and German. As a young man with a wide variety of interests Christian has attended theatrical productions ranging from comedy to drama and musical productions. Shakespearean ExperiencesThe Taming of the Shrew Macbeth A Sampling of Christian’s Reading as it Related to the Study of EnglishBrent, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl N. Maclean, A River Runs Through It Garland, The Return of a Private Poe, Telltale Heart Guare, Six Degrees of Separation Stoker, Hart, Dracula, the screen play Beowulf Eliot, Four Quartets Orwell, Politics and the English Language WRITINGSamples of other types of writing Christian has engaged in are as follows: Writing copy for live news broadcasts. MacNeil, The Story of English GermanAs a young boy, singing in the Madison (Wis) Boy Choir, Christian went on many singing tours. In the summer of 1990 the Madison Boy Choir was invited to sing in Germany. To help keep costs for such a trip to a minimum, the boys stayed in German homes. As Christian’s parents, we decided that Christian should learn some basic German so that he might be able to greet his hosts. Neither of us spoke German so in the summer of 1989 we enrolled him in the language immersion program offered by Concordia College of Moorhead, MN: Concordia Language Villages. [Note: For more on these, see List 3.6] That two-week program was the beginning of Christian’s study of German. 1989-1992 (age 11-14) Concordia Language Villages German two-week camp program 1994 (age 16) Concordia Language Villages Credit Abroad Program. Christian studied andworked in Germany for three weeks. He lived with a family in Wolffegg and commuted to Bad Waldsee by train for directed language study and work in a nursing home. 1989-1991 Private instruction 1991-1992 High School German 3 class 1994 Honors Introduction to Literature 284 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison SCIENCE(NOTE: Many people are concerned about homeschoolers not being able to get into college without access to science lab classes. Since Christian had no lab course work, and especially since a dean of college admissions at a small liberal arts college was so impressed with this particular aspect of Christian’s portfolio, I’ve decided to include the entire contents of this part of his portfolio. I hope that this will encourage other homeschoolers to let go of their worries about traditional course work and simply enjoy learning. Christian’s first lab class came later on, it was a college course, and he managed to get an A without much difficulty.) One of the philosophies that has guided our homeschooling has been that children are better able to learn when immersed in studies which have particular interest to them. As a result of our belief in this child-directed, rather than curriculum-directed approach to learning, Christian has not studied the sciences in a traditional manner. For example, as an eight-year-old, he was interested in dissection and thus dissected a frog, worm, crayfish, mussel and fetal pig . . . as a ten-year-old, he was fascinated with the nature preserve that is at our back door . . . he conducted an extensive habitat study of a particular portion of the park [that] included graphing temperature changes, recording numbers of particular species of birds present and recording and measuring the growth of particular grasses, trees and shrubs. . . he became acutely aware of the changes that took place in “his habitat.” . . . his interests shifted to chemistry, so [he] took chemistry enrichment courses offered through . . . the University of Wisconsin and the Madison Public Schools. All of these studies were undertaken because of Christian’s interest in the subject matter. His most intense scientific study, though, centered around trout fishing and fly tying and was carried out over a four-year period. EntomologyClarke & Goddard, The Trout and The Fly Swischer & Richards Emergers Swischer & Richards, Tying Hatch Simulator Flies LaFontaine, Caddisflies Swischer, Strategies for Selective Trout Schwiebert, Nymphs Whitlock, Fly Tiers Almanac Schweibert, Trout Schweibert, Matching the Hatch Whitlock, Dave Whitlock’s Guide to Aquatic Trout Foods Social StudiesWorld HistoryGonick, Cartoon History of the Universe I, II Schweibert, Trout Castle: PBS documentary Killing Fields I, Claudius: Masterpiece Theatre Production Schindler’s List American HistoryBrent, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X History of Rock n’ Roll: PBS documentary Malcolm X: Making It Plain 1992 and 1993 Participated in YMCA Youth in Government program 1994 Lived in Germany for three weeks with a German family 1996 Campaign volunteer for Dane County Board candidate, Ben Manske VOLUNTEER WORKRADIO WORK1992 – 1994 Volunteer at WORT – a listener-sponsored, volunteer run, community radio station engineers taped shows (age 14-16) Pre-production work including pre- programming satellite de-modulators and taping carts for public service announcements. 1996 Elected to the Board of Directors, Badger Fly Fishers 1992 Campaign volunteer for U.S. Congressional candidate Ada Deer (Attached to these pages of Christian’s portfolio was a letter of recommendation for a study abroad program written by one of Christian’s volunteer supervisors.) By this point, the reader will notice that some of the book titles in Christian’s transcript were used for more than one entry and that some of the entries were relatively sparse. In other words, overkill was not necessary. For the complete format the McKees used, please see Alison’s book, which includes the title page with contact information and a brief Background and Philosophy preceding the actual transcript; these quickly enabled admissions officers to understand where the McKees were coming from in educating their son. Having outside verification of studies helps in the transcript creation and letters of recommendation, particularly when supporting a coinciding detailed entry, are also very helpful to college admissions officers.  
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