Registra went on vacation and didn't mail my transcript!!!!

[emilywantstogetin]

Application is due today. I requested my transcript to be send directly from registra 1 month ago. I was notified that my request went through, and my credit card was charged for the money transcripts cost.

So you can imaging how PISSED I am when I found out from the school I'm applying to TODAY that they are still missing my transcript from this current school, and when I called to ask why they haven't been mailed I was told

"yes, student clearing house handles the request, and yours went throguh and they printed your transcripts long ago. But we do the mailing, and we've been on vacation, so your transcript has been at the registra but we just haven't mailed it yet. Ain't a thing you can do."

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

[NeuroNerd86]

something similar happened to me - however, I was told that as long as my transcript gets to school before Jan 6th when the committee meets, it should be alright. You should definitely contact a school and ask if something like that is possible there.

[modernity]

something similar happened to me - however, I was told that as long as my transcript gets to school before Jan 6th when the committee meets, it should be alright. You should definitely contact a school and ask if something like that is possible there.

I mailed my request a month ago, it's due next week...and they haven't even cashed the associated check yet - which I am pretty sure means, they haven't mailed it.... I will be calling tomorrow. I am hoping its the holidays and they're on it today. I made sure I did everything early this year so I would not have to pay any rush fees...and now they're giving me issues UGH.

[JennyFieldsOriginal]

Maybe see if you can give the school you're applying to an unofficial transcript until the real one is mailed. A lot of my schools wanted a scanned copy or something unofficial, but your acceptance is contingent upon you producing the real deal for them once they've decided they want you.

I'm sorry you have to go through this! Of all the silly things...

[JustChill]

I agree, send them the unofficial PDF copy until they get the real one.

[emilywantstogetin]

Thanks you guys! I ended up doing both-- I emailed a PDF file today, and overnight fedex-ed the extra "just in case" copy of transcript that I requested earlier in the semester. It doesn't have my fabulous 4.0 from Fall 09 but will get there tomorrow morning by 10:30 am.

What really urg-ed me about my school's registra is that they charged my credit card and sent me an email a month ago telling me that they'll be on it. I mean if they could just say "oh yeah we are all going on vacation" then I could've mailed it myself. But oh well. I contacted the school, told them what happened and my solutions, and the response was positive. As in, they didn't say "well you passed the deadline" so I am guessing it's okay.

[BlueSwedeShoes]

Today I got an email from one of the universities I applied to saying that my foreign transcripts are not official (in their eyes) and thus not valid.

This despite that they are as official as I can make them. They are even verifiable through an online system operated by my university! But nooo...they have to be signed by someone! They have to come in an official university envelope! The fact that neither practice is used at my university matter not apparently. Nor does it matter they have "OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT" printed on them, or that they include information on how to verify them at the bottom of each page.

After a few emails back and forth to the lady at the admissions office (who I know is just trying to do her job so no flak in her direction, it's just frustrating when I have done everything according to protocol here but it's not good enough yonder in the States) I am finally directed to email the pdf-files (that I printed and sent hard copy) directly to another office, so that that office can print them and hand them over to the first lady.

...

...

So...the printed hard copy is not ok, but sending the electronic version to another office at your university, have them print it and hand to you is perfectly fine?

Whatever works for you I guess.

[NeuroNerd86]

Waylance, I had a similar issue as well! I have my transcripts from another country in sealed and stamped envelopes + official translations, but one school told me up front that those would not do because "they are not mailed from the university directly". When I tried to explain to them that it's obviously not my fault that my other school does not do international mailing, they said it happens every year and aint nothin they can do. So I ended up not applying there at all:(

[BlueSwedeShoes]

Waylance, I had a similar issue as well! I have my transcripts from another country in sealed and stamped envelopes + official translations, but one school told me up front that those would not do because "they are not mailed from the university directly". When I tried to explain to them that it's obviously not my fault that my other school does not do international mailing, they said it happens every year and aint nothin they can do. So I ended up not applying there at all:(

Wow, that's really bad. I hope that I managed to get my "Look, we say tomato, you say tomato; in the end it's still ok"-point across...

But honestly, that sounds borderline discriminatory and I would probably have kept contacting people higher and higher up the hierarchy. Then again, if they're that particular and hard to work with about something as mundane as a transcript, maybe it's for the best not go to there...

Edited January 6, 2010 by waylance

[biochimie]

@emilywantstogetin,

Well, there is actually something you can do, but likely not of any immediate benefit to you. I would write a series of letters to the chain of responsibility of that office, from the office supervisor straight on down the line to the university president, explaining just how unprofessional and unacceptable it is to have put you in that situation. While some of then will probably scoff at it, university presidents/deans don't like hearing those kinds of things, especially when they involve another school in whose eyes they now look incompetent.

They keep on doing these things, saying nothing you can do about it, and get away with it, until... someone puts a stop to it.

You never know, might or might not do any good anyway, but I'd do it (I'm loathe to let stuff like that slip by, esp. if personally affects me), and then maybe the next applicant won't find themselves in this situation. Just my two cents anyway.

[georgica2]

Thanks you guys! I ended up doing both-- I emailed a PDF file today, and overnight fedex-ed the extra "just in case" copy of transcript that I requested earlier in the semester. It doesn't have my fabulous 4.0 from Fall 09 but will get there tomorrow morning by 10:30 am.

What really urg-ed me about my school's registra is that they charged my credit card and sent me an email a month ago telling me that they'll be on it. I mean if they could just say "oh yeah we are all going on vacation" then I could've mailed it myself. But oh well. I contacted the school, told them what happened and my solutions, and the response was positive. As in, they didn't say "well you passed the deadline" so I am guessing it's okay.

I'm guessing this is something schools deal with ALL the time, especially if their deadlines are over the holidays. I know some schools are absolutely adamant about deadlines, but thus far, I have yet to encounter a program that has refused to accept late supplemental materials, especially if it's totally out of the applicant's control (eg transcripts.) Chances are they're still going to be processing materials for weeks. The 'grace period' is an unwritten rule for most programs (though some, eg Columbia, explicitly state that they'll allow 2 weeks for the receipt of transcripts, GRE scores, recs, etc. -- pretty sure Yale has something similar on their application site.) I wouldn't stress about it too much.