Do I have to send in all transcripts?

[grangeca]

Hello,

Im gearing up to apply to SLP graduate school and I had a question, Since is it so competitive I want to keep my GPA as high as possible. I was reading online that you have to include all transcripts of all institutes applied to. AFTER i graduated from my undergrad I moved back home and took four classes at a JC in my hometown,  I got C's and B's in those courses and really really dont want to report them. They had nothing to do with my academia relating to SLP or me earning my bachelors. Is this really going to be calculated into my overall GPA? can i somehow not do that? My friend just got into OT school and she didnt report her study abroad classes and nothing happened to her?

 

Please help!

Edited June 7, 2016 by grangeca
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[Crimson Wife]

The National Student Clearinghouse may very well have a record of your attendance and the last thing you want is for the grad school to run your name & find that you left out the transcript. I have to print out my enrollment verification every semester to prove that I'm a student and one time I checked my full record. They had the extension courses I took as a requirement for an old job. I got A's so including the courses helps my GPA but it's annoying that I will have to pay to get those transcripts sent.

[delete-account]

Contact your graduate programs and ask this question directly. Especially since the classes are after graduation and not related to your program, they may say that you don't have to. I believe the general answer is yes, you do have to include all classes. If students did not have to send all transcripts, then theoretically a student could just take a class at 4 different institutions and only report the highest grade they receive. Does this make sense? Not saying that you're doing that, but that's just the reason for the rule, I believe. 

 

[SouthernDrawl]

"I was reading online that you have to include all transcripts of all institutes applied to."

Were you reading this on the webpage of the schools you were applying to? If so, I think you have your very black-and-white answer. CSDCAS doesn't leave wiggle room on this. If your institution doesn't either, there is no chance I would omit required academic records.

[Crimson Wife]

9 hours ago, Pennsatucky said:

If you used financial aid to take those classes, the financial aid office will need a transcript. However, it's my personal belief (one I picked up in East Germany) that your past is nobody's business but your own, so I see no harm in withholding the transcript, especially when it has nothing to do with SLP. But do so at your own risk! 

I have never used financial aid but the National Student Clearinghouse has a record of my attendance just the same. If the college participates in the Federal Student Loan program, they report on ALL students, not just the ones who receive Federal financial aid. There are over 3,600 participating institutions so it would be pretty unlikely if the OP's college is not one of them.

[thespeechblog.com]

If a school asks for all academic transcripts... then they want all academic transcripts. Not including some because the grades are lower could be viewed as dishonest. If the grades were A´s, I bet no one would assume you were hiding anything and it would be chalked up to an honest mistake. If you really want to avoid sending the transcripts, you´ll have to ask each school... but I´m guessing you´re still going to have to send them. 

Sort of a side note rant: I agree that sending transcripts is an expensive and stupid process that could be made much easier. I think the lesson is that when you´re an academic one day maybe working for a university or school, you should advocate to change the policy for a better one. I know I´m never going to forget how terribly inefficient (and even rude at times) ETS was when I was registering for the GRE. If one day I´m in a position to influence admissions policies, I´ll think about our institutionalized faith in ETS and its exams. 

[SouthernDrawl]

?? You don't have to be an authority to express an opinion that the action she specifically asked her peers about on a forum is academically or morally dubious. 

[Jolie717]

1 hour ago, Pennsatucky said:

Your personal slip ups are nobody's business but your own. It's time that academic history is treated like medical history. Unless a person is applying in a field they genuinely failed at, I see no reason why they are morally obligated to reveal unrelated academic history. That's no different than letting applicants submit their best GRE scores. Why isn't it morally dubious keeping that awful set of first scores to yourself? 

I always love an intelligent discussion that challenges the status quo.  

Two very interesting analogies.  First, academic history vs medical history.  Each entity has an interest that your history be pristine.  Medical much more so, I would think.  Particularly as we pay exhorbitant amounts of money for medical care in the US.  I was denied medical insurance through a certain big provider back in my early twenties.  My "sin?"  Mild asthma.  Is that right???  Heck no.  Imagine those with conditions much more severe than mine.

The academic desire for a "perfect history" is quite different, however.  It has much less to do with money and far more to do with prestige, IMO, as most masters level grad students in SLP are funding their education themselves.  So my guess is that a shortage of programs coupled with the desire for higher rankings provides the incentive for schools to require certain academic standards, even if the academic records are unrelated to SLP or - even if related - courses have been retaken with improved grades.  Some SLP grad schools recognize the classes that have been retaken and disregard the "old grades" when calculating the cumulative GPA.  Unfortunately, CSDCAS does NOT do so.  Some SLP schools weigh the "last 60 units" more heavily than the cumulative.  Others do not.  There is no universal "one-size-fits-all" way to admit students to grad school in our field.  That is problematic for many, IMO.  The admissions process is quite clearly not consistent across the board here in the US.  

Universally, I believe that if a student takes a class and fails, they should get a failing grade.  If this student should retake this class and get a higher grade, they have then clearly demonstrated a higher level of mastery, and this should pretty much wipe out the first grade.  The first failing grade is irrelevant at this point.  (Assuming that the level of difficulty of the class is equal to the first class, of course).

Second very interesting point.  Allowing for *hiding* of GRE scores.  Or rather, submission of the *best* score.  I'm in agreement here as well.  If allowed for a standardized test score, why not grades as well???  I also have strong feelings about the bias that is present in standardized testing such as the GRE - (race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc) but that's another topic altogether, I suppose).

[thespeechblog.com]

@Pennsatucky You give a good reminder - none of us are authorities on this and all our advice should be taken with a grain of salt. I think that´s why so often the best advice is, "Call the school and ask." 

It is an interesting comparison the medical vs academic history, but I think there´s a big difference. Your medical history (for the most part) is something you can´t really help, and I don´t believe in judging people based on things they can´t control (skin color, race, eye color, sexual orientation, sex, etc, etc, etc). I think the reason one´s medical history is protected the way it is - to help us avoid making judgements based on it. Your academic progress is something that we generally view as completely within one´s control (though I totally agree many factors are not). Academics have meritorious quality. 

You said "Your personal slip ups are nobody's business but your own" which made me think of this SUPER GREAT podcast episode by RadioLab about when a politicians personal life (and slip ups) become public domain. If you´ve never listened to RadioLab, give it a chance: http://www.radiolab.org/story/i-dont-have-answer/ 

And it´s not dubious to send only your best GRE scores because the schools asked for only your best GRE scores (perhaps not directly, but tacitly by relying on GRE/ETS and knowing how it works). If they asked for all of them and you lied about that, then it would be dubious. Like I mentioned above, admissions policies are broken, but the harsh truth is we have to play by their rules (broken policies) if we want their degrees. Maybe we could start another forum to discuss ways in which the system is broken and needs to be fixed. 

Finally, I would like to re-state and clarify something from my first post, "Not including some because the grades are lower could be viewed as dishonest." I´m not saying it necessarily IS dishonest. What matters is the admissions committee´s perception of if you were trying to deceive them. If an admissions committee (or anyone) feels its been deceived  they´re not going to like it. Think about it - you accept someone to do a highly focused academic job (grad school) and then you find out they have a deliberately unreported, "negative" academic history that is most recent - the quickest and easiest conclusion is intentional deception. It may not be the right conclusion, but there are hundreds of other qualified applicants - they´re not going to take too much time (if any) to investigate. 

[SouthernDrawl]

@mcamp covered most everything I would say. OP knew someone who did this and asked them about it. If that was the authority she sought, she wouldn't have posted here. 

The conflation of HIPPA, ETS policies, and the EU's right to be forgotten laws with personal beliefs about what "counts" in one's academic history is a fallacy. What counts is what they say counts. 

OP, sorry to have spiraled off into public policy debate. Don't forget that your SoP can be a wonderful way to explain any deviations in the academic achievement you are capable of. Many have used this subjective portion of their application to shed light on the objective. Best of luck to you!

[Crimson Wife]

11 hours ago, Pennsatucky said:

Your personal slip ups are nobody's business but your own. It's time that academic history is treated like medical history. Unless a person is applying in a field they genuinely failed at, I see no reason why they are morally obligated to reveal unrelated academic history. That's no different than letting applicants submit their best GRE scores. Why isn't it morally dubious keeping that awful set of first scores to yourself? 

I would definitely recommend every applicant check what enrollment records the National Student Clearinghouse has on him/her because that is extremely easy for the grad school to check. It is specifically exempt from FERPA because all it verifies is that the student attended a particular college for a particular term, not what those grades were. But if the college is listed and the applicant has NOT sent the transcript to the grad school, that is a definite "red flag" and the AdComm is likely to ask. A transcript with good grades probably would be seen as an oversight but one with poor grades looks like a deliberate hiding.

You may not agree with the policy of requiring transcripts for unrelated coursework but telling someone to hide them is bad advice.

[Jolie717]

13 hours ago, SouthernDrawl said:

@mcamp covered most everything I would say. OP knew someone who did this and asked them about it. If that was the authority she sought, she wouldn't have posted here. 

The conflation of HIPPA, ETS policies, and the EU's right to be forgotten laws with personal beliefs about what "counts" in one's academic history is a fallacy. What counts is what they say counts. 

OP, sorry to have spiraled off into public policy debate. Don't forget that your SoP can be a wonderful way to explain any deviations in the academic achievement you are capable of. Many have used this subjective portion of their application to shed light on the objective. Best of luck to you!

Last paragraph - so true.  (And yes, apologies to OP for the tangent...)  I know someone who wrote a personal statement that very gracefully addressed their having had to retake a few CD major classes due to personal reasons, in two sentences.  And this SOP was, by far, the best I've ever read and probably the best I will ever read.

[selbstverteidigung]

On 6.7.2016 at 3:04 AM, Jolie717 said:

I always love an intelligent discussion that challenges the status quo.  

Two very interesting analogies.  First, academic history vs medical history.  Each entity has an interest that your history be pristine.  Medical much more so, I would think.  Particularly as we pay exhorbitant amounts of money for medical care in the US.  I was denied medical insurance through a certain big provider back in my early twenties.  My "sin?"  Mild asthma.  Is that right???  Heck no.  Imagine those with conditions much more severe than mine.

The academic desire for a "perfect history" is quite different, however.  It has much less to do with money and far more to do with prestige, IMO, as most masters level grad students in SLP are funding their education themselves.  So my guess is that a shortage of programs coupled with the desire for higher rankings provides the incentive for schools to require certain academic standards, even if the academic records are unrelated to SLP or - even if related - courses have been retaken with improved grades.  Some SLP grad schools recognize the classes that have been retaken and disregard the "old grades" when calculating the cumulative GPA.  Unfortunately, CSDCAS does NOT do so.  Some SLP schools weigh the "last 60 units" more heavily than the cumulative.  Others do not.  There is no universal "one-size-fits-all" way to admit students to grad school in our field.  That is problematic for many, IMO.  The admissions process is quite clearly not consistent across the board here in the US.  

Universally, I believe that if a student takes a class and fails, they should get a failing grade.  If this student should retake this class and get a higher grade, they have then clearly demonstrated a higher level of mastery, and this should pretty much wipe out the first grade.  The first failing grade is irrelevant at this point.  (Assuming that the level of difficulty of the class is equal to the first class, of course).

Second very interesting point.  Allowing for *hiding* of GRE scores.  Or rather, submission of the *best* score.  I'm in agreement here as well.  If allowed for a standardized test score, why not grades as well???  I also have strong feelings about the bias that is present in standardized testing such as the GRE - (race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc) but that's another topic altogether, I suppose).

Nice to see someone in this field who thinks outside of the box. 

[mr479]

On 6.7.2016 at 3:04 AM, Jolie717 said:

I always love an intelligent discussion that challenges the status quo.  

Two very interesting analogies.  First, academic history vs medical history.  Each entity has an interest that your history be pristine.  Medical much more so, I would think.  Particularly as we pay exhorbitant amounts of money for medical care in the US.  I was denied medical insurance through a certain big provider back in my early twenties.  My "sin?"  Mild asthma.  Is that right???  Heck no.  Imagine those with conditions much more severe than mine.

The academic desire for a "perfect history" is quite different, however.  It has much less to do with money and far more to do with prestige, IMO, as most masters level grad students in SLP are funding their education themselves.  So my guess is that a shortage of programs coupled with the desire for higher rankings provides the incentive for schools to require certain academic standards, even if the academic records are unrelated to SLP or - even if related - courses have been retaken with improved grades.  Some SLP grad schools recognize the classes that have been retaken and disregard the "old grades" when calculating the cumulative GPA.  Unfortunately, CSDCAS does NOT do so.  Some SLP schools weigh the "last 60 units" more heavily than the cumulative.  Others do not.  There is no universal "one-size-fits-all" way to admit students to grad school in our field.  That is problematic for many, IMO.  The admissions process is quite clearly not consistent across the board here in the US.  

Universally, I believe that if a student takes a class and fails, they should get a failing grade.  If this student should retake this class and get a higher grade, they have then clearly demonstrated a higher level of mastery, and this should pretty much wipe out the first grade.  The first failing grade is irrelevant at this point.  (Assuming that the level of difficulty of the class is equal to the first class, of course).

Second very interesting point.  Allowing for *hiding* of GRE scores.  Or rather, submission of the *best* score.  I'm in agreement here as well.  If allowed for a standardized test score, why not grades as well???  I also have strong feelings about the bias that is present in standardized testing such as the GRE - (race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc) but that's another topic altogether, I suppose).

Nice to see someone in this field who thinks outside the box. 

[edardi1]

I just saw this post and was wondering what happened to you? 

[grangeca]

I confirmed I had to send it in. It sucked, and I wrote about it in my SOP. But its better to be honest in the end, and their system is pretty air tight.

[edardi1]

I see.  Well good luck to you!  I'm sure you'll be fine!