Frequently Asked Questions
Many new, remote, and/or small education programs offer quality learning but do not have the resources to attain accreditation, but would like to offer an accredited transcript to students who need one for admission to a specific school or program after high school. As a Learning Service Provider, regionally accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (MSA-CESS.org) , NARHS is authorized to review the quality of a non-accredited school’s courses and to verify credits earned for specific students from that school.
No, NARHS is not an accreditation institution. We do not accredit other schools. We verify the legitimacy of the course credit earned by students registered with the partner school program. This practice is an extension of what NARHS does for the traditional homeschool students registered with NARHS. Partner School students are registered with NARHS, but earn their credits from the Partner School.
Partner School student transcripts are created by NARHS, with documentation submitted from the partner school, and unofficial and official copies of each student’s transcript are sent electronically to the assigned staff at the Partner School. The partner school is responsible for archiving all transcripts and for issuing transcript copies to their students. These NARHS transcripts will have your school’s logo and contact info, and your school will be listed as the school where the listed courses were taken.
Courses that are primarily text driven receive credit by the recommendation of the publisher and the amount of the text completed. Credit for courses that use a variety of resources are determined by the number of hours invested in the course, including class time and homework. For those courses 120 hours equals 1 credit.
All courses need to be pre-approved by NARHS before they can be listed on a student transcript. Course descriptions for each course need to be submitted to NARHS for approval. The NARHS review staff will determine if each course is approved and for how much credit. Additional information may be submitted by the Partner School in order to have the course approved. Course descriptions can be sent directly to the NARHS registrar (registrar@narhs.com) or can be submitted through the partner website. See a sample course description here.
Partner Schools can submit new/additional courses for approval at anytime. We recommend reviewing the courses your school has approved each fall and submit any new courses by January of that school year. Courses cannot be added to a transcript without the course being approved.
Yes. NARHS allows a course to be considered Honors in these cases:
- if the course was designated “honors” on another transcript
- if the course utilized a text that was considered ‘honors’ by the publisher
- if the course utilized a college text and completed it entirely
- if the student passes a CLEP, Dantes or AP test after taking the course.
Partner School transcript templates have space for a maximum of 10 course categories. Examples of suggested categories are English, Science, Math, Health, Social Studies, Fine Art, Foreign Language and Elective. Categories can be combined to stay within the 10 category maximum.
See a sample Partner School transcript here.
Documentation for summer classes can be included with a student’s regular school year courses.
A: 100-93 (4.0)
A-: 92-90 (3.67)
B+: 89-87 (3.33)
B: 86-83 (3.0)
B-: 82-80 (2.67)
C+: 79-77 (2.33)
C: 76-73 (2.0)
C-: 72-70 (1.67)
D+: 69-67 (1.33)
D: 66-63 (1.0)
D-: 62-60 (.67)
F: 59 & below (0)
Yes, if those credits came from an accredited school or program. In this situation, the partner school or student must request an official transcript from the outside school and send a copy to NARHS. NARHS can update the student’s transcript with those courses in addition to courses that came from the partner school. The fee for updating with outside courses is the same, $200 per school year. If courses from the partner school and from the outside school fall into the same school year, the fee if still just $200.
No, credits that are added to a Partner School transcript must come either from the approved courses list for the Partner School or from another accredited school or institution. Students who have homeschool credits they would like to be listed on their Partner School transcript must register with NARHS as a traditional homeschool student and follow the year-long process of documenting homeschool courses. Please see our NARHS website, narhs.com, for more information on that process.
The partner school is responsible to process and fill any transcript requests from past and current students.
Diplomas are issued by the partner school, not from NARHS. Partner School students graduated from the partner school, having fulfilled that school’s graduation requirements.
The registration fee for new schools is $350 and the re-registration fee is $200 per year. The fee for updating student transcripts is determined by the number of school years entered. That fee is $200 per school year updated.
The first step is to register your school. Once you are registered you will be contacted with instructions to submit course descriptions and register students. See the “get started” portion of our website for more information.
An apostille is an authentication of documents for use in countries that participate in the Hague Convention. If a student needs an apostille copy of their transcript, the finished, official transcript is sent to Maine to be notarized. It is then sent to Maine’s Dept of Education where the apostille documentation is added. This process certifies the notary and further validates the document. Once the apostille process is completed in Maine’s Dep of Ed, they send it on to the mailing address previously provided by the Partner School. Please note, extra time is needed for this process, but tracking numbers will be available.
We are currently charging $45 for each transcript that is processed in this way. It can be ordered and paid for on the payment page of the Client Portal.
