REVIEW: My Home School Grades (homeschool transcript program)

*UPDATE: Since this review originally posted MHSG has grown by leaps and bounds, and in August 2014 will relaunch with a whole bunch of new features including a portfolio creator! The price of lifetime service has increased to reflect these changes, and I still believe that it is worth every single penny! In fact, our MHSG transcript managed to save us almost 50% on my daughter’s car insurance by proving that she is a good student!*

Sometime last year I actually scheduled a few hours to lock myself in the bedroom. I wish I could say I was planning a nap session or a marathon viewing of Kitchen Nightmares, alas, I needed to complete my children’s transcripts.

With no less than 15 websites at the ready, a book on the subject of transcript-creating, and neatly written lists detailing each learning experience my teens have participated in, I thought I was ready. Woah boy was I ever NOT ready.

Creating your child’s transcript shouldn’t be difficult, it shouldn’t take hours and hours and hours. It shouldn’t make you cry, throw your hands in the air and shake a mad fist at the sky. It should be easy and the memories should cause smiles to flow to your face.

It took me nearly two hours to complete a one year transcript for two children. Except that they wouldn’t print without a strange watermarking on them. And then they wouldn’t print out the way they looked on my screen. And then I scrapped the whole thing and started over using another template I found online.

Let me just say it now, I am SO glad that My Home School Grades exists. My Home School Grades cannot be easier to use. The idea behind My Home School Grades is to create a simple system where parents can enter in their child’s information and create a transcript without the tears and frustration. And wow does it ever work!

I was sold on the service with my first login. I managed to create a transcript for two years of education for two students in TWENTY MINUTES. But wait, that’s not all!

In addition to being a powerful transcript creator My Home School Grades also functions as a grade and assignment book. The service lists quite a few popular homeschool publishers (Alpha-Omega, Math-U-See and Teaching Textbooks to name just three) or you can add your own. If you are the sort of person who likes to keep track of assignments and grades this feature takes most of the work out of it for you and will automatically calculate your child’s grade and GPA.

What I LIKE about My Home School Grades:
-I have the option of making a course a pass/fail course, using letter grades or using number grades.

-I am in charge of deciding how much credit my children earn with each class and experience

-I get to decide if we will use a 10 point grade scale, an 8 point grade scale, or if we’ll even assign grades at all!

-A one time fee of $49.99 gets you a lifetime membership for an unlimited amount of children! This program is worth it if you have a graduating child but it’s even more worth it if you have younger children, especially if you’re like me and have a whole gaggle of kids.

What I LOVE about My Home School Grades:
-The website was designed to be simple and easy to use on any browser, including smartphones! I LOVE this so much, it’s so easy to add to their lessons when we’re on the go (meaning, during those long hours I sit in a parking lot while they’re at an activity!)

-My teens are very much into volunteering and theater, and My Home School Grades allows me to document all of their experiences, lessons and performances on their transcript

-The program calculates the GPA and credits for me, just one more thing I don’t have to worry about.

What I’m not crazy about:
Nothing. I love this product so much that I would absolutely buy it again and again (but I don’t have to because it’s a lifetime membership!)

Click on the photos to enlarge

An unlimited lifetime membership to My Home School Grades is just $49.99. You can try the service for free for 14 days, I promise you’ll love it!

Adding a class is as easy as filling out a few forms!

My Home School Grades works just as great on mobile web as it does on a computer!

The end result is a professional quality transcript your child can submit to any college or employer.