I'm a procrastinator, and knew I needed some oversight, so I registered our 2 homeschoolers with NARHS (North Atlantic Regional High School), so they'd have an accredited diploma at the end of it all. It's not that expensive, and it was great for my peace of mind. I still had to prepare a portfolio and transcript at the end of each year, and submit the evidence of their having done the work required for each course. This meant that at the end of four years, all that work was there, and credentialed, and the school submitted the information to the Admissions offices of the colleges to which our kids applied. I didn't have to do a portfolio for EACH college application.
Our daughter graduated in 2006, and our youngest son will be graduating this month, and will head off to college in August!
WHEW!
do they need any kind of transcript before enrolling? many of the online schools required a transcript ahead of time.