If you're trying to figure out whether Veritas Scholars Academy is the right fit for your family, this is a good place to start. Academic advisor Susan Gemini has spent over a decade helping families navigate homeschool high school, including putting her own four kids through the program. In this webinar, she covers the full picture: what live classes actually look like, how the diploma program works, dual enrollment, transcripts, and what to expect from your academic advisor.

It runs about an hour and covers a lot of ground. If you'd rather go deeper on a specific topic, check out the links below:

I. Live Classes

II. Diploma Program

III. High School Transcripts

IV. Dual Enrollment and AP

V. Clubs, Community, and Student Leadership

About Susan

I'm Susan Gimotty, an academic advisor here at Veritas Scholars Academy. I'm based in Kansas City.

I'm a teacher by trade. I taught at prep schools on the East Coast for over ten years. During that time, my husband and I were trying to start a family, and after almost ten years of infertility, the Lord blessed us with four kids in six years.

I homeschooled them from the ground up. When my oldest, Michael, was in sixth grade, I had a sixth grader, a fourth grader, a second grader, and a kindergartner — and I reached the conclusion that I needed some help. A friend who taught at Veritas thought it would be a good fit, so we enrolled Michael in seventh grade. He had no classical training, no Latin, no logic — none of that — and he did beautifully.

Michael graduated from VSA over five years ago. He completed his undergraduate degree as a pre-med and finance double major and is now in dental school.

My second, Madison, started the program in sixth grade and graduated three years ago. She's an education major with a Spanish minor and is finishing her last year of college.

My third, Nicholas, graduated about a year ago. He's an engineering major and a collegiate golfer.

And then I have one more — Grace — who is a rising senior. So when the title of this webinar says "the nitty gritty of homeschooling," I've been there, done that, and I'm still doing it.

My husband routinely says that enrolling our kids in Veritas twelve years ago was one of the top three best parenting decisions we've ever made.

About Veritas Scholars Academy

Veritas' mission is restoring culture to Christ, one young heart and mind at a time.

VSA is a real school. We have spirit wear, trips, clubs, classes — the full picture. Our students are drawn from all over the world, including nearly every U.S. state and multiple countries. If your student takes live classes with us, their classmates will reflect that diversity.

I remember when Michael was in seventh grade, sitting at the dinner table before dinner, my husband asked for prayer requests. Michael said he wanted to pray for a classmate in Bahrain because bombing sirens were going off regularly and it was frightening for his friend. That's a small window into the kind of community that forms here.

Our graduates go on to universities across the spectrum — from Harvard and Columbia to Hillsdale and Wheaton. We graduate 70 to 80 students a year, and we as academic advisors help those students get into the colleges of their choice.

Live Classes

You can take live classes with us as a full-time or part-time student.

If you're homeschooling your high schooler and you don't want to teach chemistry, you can come to us for just that one class. A full-time student takes five or six classes and is typically pursuing a diploma, a graduation, and a transcript. But the structure of the live classroom is the same whether you're full-time or part-time.

We offer live classes from third through twelfth grade, during the school year and in the summer. We have about 160 expert teachers in our virtual classrooms.

What the Virtual Classroom Looks Like

The teacher is on webcam, just like in this webinar, and students are engaged directly. This isn't passive video watching. A teacher might call on a student by name: "Liz, can you tell me the answer to question five?" or "Sally, what did you think about Shelley's view of education in Frankenstein?" Sally would hop on webcam and mic and answer. In a math class, the teacher might put a problem on the board and ask who can solve it — and students respond in real time through the chat or on mic.

The classroom is genuinely interactive, and the responses are quick.

Schedule: The University Model

Classes meet twice a week for an hour and a half each session — either Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday. There are no live classes on Friday. Friday is for projects, tests, labs, and papers.

A typical class might run from 8:00 to 9:30 a.m. Full-time students usually take five to six classes and will often schedule three in a row or two with a lunch break in between.

When all four of my kids were full-time diploma students — spread across seventh through twelfth grade — there were years we had 25 live courses running between them. It's manageable, even with a large family.

Outside of class, students should expect to spend roughly three to six hours per week per class on homework, projects, quizzes, and papers. Some weeks less, some weeks more.

Participation

Participation is a meaningful part of the grade in every live class. Students will be called on. We also have engagement meters embedded in our classroom software that track how often a student has answered a question or contributed to the chat. If a student goes quiet, their teacher will notice and reach out: "I've called on you a couple of times recently and haven't heard from you — just wanted to check in."

That kind of accountability is part of what makes live classes different from a student watching recorded videos alone.

Course Assignment Sheets

One of the things that sets VSA apart is what we call Course Assignment Sheets — CAS. These are broken down by quarter and show every single assignment a student will have for the term. Teachers commit to these and stick to them.

For planners, this is a gift. I've used the CAS to identify a lighter week so we could take a few days for a college visit without the kids falling behind. When your student enters a course, they have access to the entire year's assignment sheets from day one.

Expert Teachers Who Love What They Do

One of my favorite things about live classes is the chance for your student to be mentored by adults other than you.

There comes a time in every homeschooling parent's life when we recognize that other adults can take our children further than we can. It starts small — I'm crafty but I don't like messes, so I hired an art teacher for my kids when they were little — and it becomes more significant in high school when you might dislike math or find history isn't your strength. The last thing you want to do is project that onto your student.

Our teachers love their disciplines. They love history, math, chemistry — and they will light a fire under your student that you probably can't.

They also grade your student's work and offer substantive feedback. I discovered early on that when I marked things wrong on my son Michael's workbook, he would ask me to white out my red X's if he corrected his answers. He was a perfectionist, and he didn't accept correction from me the way he would from a teacher. In subjective areas like writing, this matters even more. When I told my daughter a sentence was awkward, she pushed back. When her teacher told her the same thing, she revised it.

One of my daughter's science teachers messaged me once a quarter just to tell me how well she was doing in a high-level science class and that she had a real mind for science. My daughter had never heard that before. She started considering a science major because of that teacher's encouragement.

Community

The community that forms through live classes is real. One of my daughter's VSA friends is visiting us in Kansas City soon. My kids have connected with Veritas families all over the country. When we're traveling and find out a Veritas family is nearby, we make a point to meet up.

The End of Year Gathering — EOYG — is when this comes together in full. It's a five-day conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where our headquarters is located. We have graduation, a dance, field trips, luncheons, a mom's tea. My family has attended twelve years in a row (minus one year for COVID). Students get to meet their teachers and classmates in person, often for the first time.

The Diploma Program

You can take individual classes at VSA without enrolling in the Diploma Program — and many families do. But if you want to walk across a graduation stage with an accredited diploma and transcript, the Diploma Program is the path.

Here's what the Diploma Program offers that taking individual classes doesn't.

Student Government and Student Connections

Only diploma students have access to student government and Student Connections. Student government is exactly what it sounds like — students can run for class offices. Student Connections are monthly gatherings for tenth and eleventh graders where students within their class year get to know each other through games and community time.

Accredited Transcript

Every year, I help 30 to 40 students get into college. The accredited transcript is worth its weight in gold.

VSA is accredited by the Middle States Association — the same accrediting body that accredits Harvard. This isn't a small Christian school accreditation. It's the real thing, and it appears on every VSA transcript.

One note: we are members of the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS), but our accreditation comes from Middle States. That's comparable to West Coast accreditation or other regional bodies — it's all part of the same national framework and is recognized across state lines.

The transcript itself includes a weighted GPA, which means students can earn above a 4.0. About 90% of VSA courses are honors-level, regardless of whether a student is full-time or part-time. An A in an honors class contributes a 5.0 toward the weighted GPA. The school profile on our website lists which classes carry honors designation.

Note: Only full-time diploma students receive the transcript with the honors (H) designation. Part-time students who take honors courses may designate them as honors on their own homeschool transcript, but acceptance of that designation varies by university. It's consistent when it comes from an accredited school.

Grade Tracking

As advisors, we keep an eye on student grades — not to micromanage, but to catch problems early. If a student misses four assignments in a row, we'll reach out to the family. If a student struggles on an algebra test, we might suggest a tutor. The diploma program means you're not watching grades alone.

Seminar Access

Diploma students have access to advisor-led seminars throughout the year — more than once a month. These cover practical topics: how to use dual enrollment effectively, how to fill out the FAFSA, how to navigate the Common App, how to prepare for college visits. We spend hours on these topics in seminars. The five minutes I spend on dual enrollment in this webinar barely scratches the surface.

Your Academic Advisor

Probably the most valuable thing the Diploma Program provides — beyond the transcript — is a dedicated academic advisor who has your back.

Here's a note I received six days ago from a family I've worked with:

"Thank you, Susan, for always being there for us. You are one of the reasons I have stuck with homeschooling, knowing that you are just an email away with good advice when I have needed it."

I receive messages like that at least every three days. There are about ten of us doing this work as academic advisors, and we take it seriously. Even before I had this job, when I was just a homeschooling parent, I had an advisor who helped me choose my kids' courses and make sure they were on the right track.

One of the things families tell me most often is that they lose sleep worrying they're not doing enough. The advisor relationship is partly practical — making sure your student has the right credits and courses — and partly about reassurance. You're not doing this alone.

For families where money is tight: some students step out of the diploma program for a year and return later, specifically to access the advisor support as they approach graduation and college applications. Even in those cases, it's worth it.

Clubs, Student Leadership, and Community

VSA offers student government, student mentors, moderators, a Teacher Appreciation Committee, and a yearbook staff. Between my four kids, we've done all of it — multiple class presidents, vice presidents, student mentors, a moderator, a committee chair, yearbook.

These are real leadership roles and real community experiences, even in a virtual school.

Beyond formal clubs, community happens through Student Commons (our platform's built-in social space), Student Connections meetings, local VSA family groups, the annual Omnibus study trips to Europe, and missions trips to places like Ecuador.

The Pathway to Graduation and the High School Transcript

Think of the path to graduation not as standing on a dock hoping to jump in the right direction, but as stepping stones — one at a time, starting as early as seventh or eighth grade. Each step might be attending a seminar on dual enrollment, planning for college visits, or choosing the right courses for your student's goals. The Diploma Program is where you get firm footing and a guide alongside you all the way to the finish line.

What Is a Transcript?

A transcript is the official academic record for grades nine through twelve. It's what every college will ask for. If your student isn't in our Diploma Program, you can create your own homeschool transcript — and students do get into college that way. But an accredited transcript from VSA is a meaningful advantage.

What's on the VSA Transcript

The transcript includes:

• Weighted GPA (honors courses can contribute above 4.0, up to a 5.0 per class)
• Honors designations for applicable courses
• Dual enrollment credits — marked DE — for classes taken for simultaneous college credit
• Extracurricular activities
• Standardized test scores (ACT, SAT, AP, CLT)

If a student starts with us in ninth grade, we begin building this transcript from day one and keep adding to it. As students approach senior year, advisors review the transcript carefully, ask students if anything should be added, and prepare it for submission to colleges in the fall.

Dual Enrollment

Dual enrollment means your student takes a high school class and, for an additional fee, also earns college credit for it through our partner institution, Cairn University in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

You do not have to be in the Diploma Program to take a class for dual enrollment credit. The fee is simply higher for non-diploma students. But anyone taking a qualifying course can pursue dual enrollment.

How It Works

VSA courses map to Cairn University courses. Here are two strong examples:

Rhetoric II maps to COM 101 (Speech). Nearly every college degree requires some version of Speech 101 or Oral Communication. If your student takes Rhetoric II with us, pays the dual enrollment fee, and earns the credit, they walk into college with that requirement already done.

Senior Thesis maps to English 101. Find me a degree plan that doesn't require English 101. This is one of the cleanest dual enrollment trades available.

U.S. Government is another strong one. Most colleges require it at some point — better to handle it in high school.

What Families Have Done with It

My three college-age kids each took about 30 to 33 hours of dual enrollment credit, and each used it differently.

Michael wanted to pursue dentistry and also complete a finance major alongside his pre-med coursework. That's two of the hardest majors at a university. The only way to do both in four years was to arrive with a full load of dual enrollment credits already done — no speech, no English 101, no statistics.

Madison is an elementary education major with a Spanish minor. Elementary ed is a packed four-year degree with no room for a minor. Dual enrollment created the space she needed.

Nicholas is an engineering major and a collegiate golfer. His golf coach will tell you he's the first — and hopefully only — engineering student who's also on the golf team. NCAA programs often won't allow STEM majors to compete as athletes. Nicholas made it work because he arrived on campus with enough credits that he carries 12 to 13 credit hours per semester instead of 16. The courses are hard, but there are fewer of them, and he can succeed in both.

A fourth option: some students use dual enrollment to graduate from college in three years. I've seen it done. That's not what my kids did, but it's a real possibility.

How Dual Enrollment Appears on the Transcript

When applying to college as a diploma student, you submit two transcripts: your VSA transcript and your Cairn University transcript. The receiving university merges them. Your student's college transcript will include both their Cairn credits and any new coursework they complete on campus.

For non-diploma students, the process is the same — your own homeschool transcript plus the Cairn transcript.

Does Dual Enrollment Affect College GPA?

Eighty to ninety percent of the time, dual enrollment credits transfer as pass/fail and do not affect the college GPA positively or negatively. However, some universities — like Oklahoma Christian — bring the actual grade in. Nicholas arrived on campus with 39 credits and a strong GPA established before he took a single class there. That's unusual, but it happens. The safe approach: try hard, aim for an A or B, and know that even if the grade doesn't transfer, the credit likely will.

Advanced Placement

AP stands for Advanced Placement. VSA offers four fully audited AP courses.

Why Only Four

An AP course is only as useful as the exam score behind it. If your student doesn't score a 3 or higher on the College Board AP exam — taken independently in May — the course alone doesn't earn college credit. The exam is separate from the class, and it requires its own preparation beyond what we cover in class.

If a student takes AP Physics with us, they'll receive rigorous content. But they'll also need to work through an AP exam prep book on their own to be ready for the test.

Scores run from 1 to 5. A 3 is typically the minimum for credit, though some schools require a 4.

AP vs. Dual Enrollment vs. CLEP

Dual enrollment offers guaranteed credit — if you pass the class, you earn the college credit. The question is only whether the receiving institution will accept it.

AP is not guaranteed. The credit depends entirely on the exam score. The upside: a 4 or 5 on an AP exam is a strong signal of rigor to selective colleges, including highly competitive universities.

CLEP works similarly to AP — you study independently and take an exam. Scores run up to 80, with cutoffs typically around 50 depending on the subject and school. Like AP, it requires separate test prep.

My own kids chose dual enrollment over AP because I wanted the guarantee. But for families targeting highly selective colleges, AP scores — particularly 4s and 5s — carry weight that dual enrollment doesn't.

Both AP and dual enrollment send the same underlying message to colleges: your student is ready for college-level work.

Summer Classes

If you're curious about VSA but not ready to commit to a full school year, summer classes are a natural starting point. Summer B courses are six weeks long, meet Monday through Thursday, and are a low-stakes way to see how your student responds to the live classroom model.

Summer offerings include all Omnibus courses (which combine history, literature, and theology) as well as electives like Film and Worldview, Folklore and Fairy Tales, Science Fiction, Shakespearean Literature, and Business Math. These are real courses with real teachers — and once most students finish one, they come back for more.

A Note from a VSA Family

One of my son's classmate's mothers shared this after receiving the school yearbook:

"We received our yearbook and I was amazed to realize that we have had 41 different teachers during our four short years at Veritas. From my graduate, Elizabeth, down to my fourth grader, words cannot express what these 41 humans have meant to us. They have walked with us through a life-altering medical diagnosis, offered advice and insight about significant learning challenges, fostered our love of the arts, encouraged us to continue pursuing our goals past the point when many quit, and most of all, pointed us to Christ at every turn."

Q&A

Can students in Southeast Asia or other distant time zones take live classes?

Yes. We work creatively to find class times that fit students' schedules. We also offer Omnibus 1, 2, and 3 as self-paced courses — students can log in anytime, including multiple sessions on a Saturday. And in certain program tracks, we have six courses approved as You-Teach style classes for families who prefer a more traditional homeschool structure. That said, the large majority of VSA courses are live.

Do AP courses at VSA work for NCAA eligibility?

Yes. Any class taken at VSA — part-time or full-time — is submitted to the NCAA and automatically approved. This applies to all high school credit courses, including Omnibus.

Can Omnibus count for high school credit?

Yes. Omnibus 1 through 6, both Primary and Secondary, can count toward the high school diploma. High school credit applies to work done in ninth through twelfth grade. Classes taken in seventh or eighth grade will not appear on the high school transcript.

How many classes does a typical diploma student take per year?

About five to six on average, depending on the graduation track. Some tracks run four to five; others run six to seven. A full-time diploma schedule is typically six to seven credits, which means five to six classes.

Does the diploma path show on the transcript?

No. The words "associate" and "standard" — which are internal tracking designations advisors use to monitor graduation requirements — do not appear anywhere on the transcript. Colleges see only the coursework and credentials.

Are honors courses accessible to part-time students?

Yes. Part-time students take the same honors courses as full-time students. The distinction is that only full-time diploma students receive an official transcript with the honors (H) designation. Part-time students may reflect honors on their own homeschool transcript, but university acceptance of that designation varies — it's more consistently recognized when coming from an accredited institution.

Can a student join the diploma program in tenth grade?

Yes. Students can enroll in the diploma program starting in tenth grade. However, there are placement and credit transfer questions that an advisor will work through with you — what transfers, what tests may be required, what coursework needs to happen. Ninth grade is the cleanest starting point, but tenth grade entry is workable with good planning.

Can students run for student government if they join in tenth grade?

Yes. Students who join in tenth grade should be prepared to campaign when government offices open in April of their first year, so they can run for their office of choice.

Does VSA offer support for students with learning disabilities?

Yes. Advisors can connect families with appropriate resources to help students work through specific challenges.

What about standardized test prep — SAT, ACT, CLT?

VSA offers test prep that integrates SAT, ACT, and CLT preparation together. Students get exposure to all three through a combined approach.

Is VSA accredited through ACCS?

We are members of ACCS but not accredited through them. Our accreditation is through the Middle States Association, which is a regional accrediting body recognized across the country. It's the same tier of accreditation as West Coast Accreditation and other regional bodies — all part of the same national framework and recognized from state to state.