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Purdue requesting ORIGINAL Diplomas?


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I got this email from Purdue College of Education graduate program, that contained the following paragraph:

"An official diploma of all degrees granted from all universities attended outside of the U.S. (must provide original diplomas as follows: ONE in original language and ONE in English translation). If you completed your studies, but will not receive your diploma for a period of time, you may be conditionally admitted pending the submission of your diploma. Please let our office know if you are unable to submit your diploma at this time."

The email is very nice and informative, I have nothing against that and I'm happy that they are so quick to respond after the online application is done, but I don't want to send them my ORIGINAL Diplomas.

What do you think I should do? But more importantly is that common? I have never seen ANYONE ask for my original diplomas before. So I'm a bit confused.

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I received some strange requests as well, from another university, saying that they did not accept my official (foreign) transcripts as official because, essentially, they did not follow the American standard of "official" (i.e. signed by a registrar and sent in official school envelope).

So I contacted them and together with the lady working on my admission package we worked out a deal that hopefully will fly (I have to send official electronic copies to another office at that university, they will print them and hand them to her and that will magically make everything work again).

That said, I would not send any original documents but rather contact them and ask what exactly they mean by "original". They might simply not want a xeroxed printout but an "original" as in provided by some official at the foreign institution.

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Wow, I love graduate admissions people. They respond so quickly and they all seem very nice.

Well Purdue sorted this problem out right away, saying that I could send photocopies and show them the originals if I get accepted and actually go there.

the "official" transcript issues are understandable though when it comes to schools abroad because they can't be as easily assured of its authenticity. But they're note bureaucrats, so if you explain, as in waylance's example above, they do their best to clarify. I know I seem to have a very positive attitude about all graduate admission offices, but they're not trying to lock people out. I read somewhere that some people got acceptances although one or two of their reference letters were missing. So the useful advice is: ALWAYS talk to the people, explain your situation, more often than not there is a way to solve it.

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I got this email from Purdue College of Education graduate program, that contained the following paragraph:

The email is very nice and informative, I have nothing against that and I'm happy that they are so quick to respond after the online application is done, but I don't want to send them my ORIGINAL Diplomas.

What do you think I should do? But more importantly is that common? I have never seen ANYONE ask for my original diplomas before. So I'm a bit confused.

I don't know if this is common, but this is also a requirement for one of the schools that I am applying to in Europe. I emailed the AdComm there and they said that I could substitute certification/verification letters from my schools for the originals of my diplomas. Certification/verification letters can be obtained from registrars of the schools you attended, and they basically provide information on your enrollment and degree(s) earned. And in most cases, registrars issue certifications for free (or at least at a lower price than transcripts). You might want to contact the AdComm at Purdue and see if they will accept certifications instead of original diplomas.

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I used to work at an admissions office at a university (not Purdue). We never wanted the students to send in the original documents, technically once we received and checked in documents the documents became university property and could not be returned.

The hardest part of the application to get fulfilled for international applicants was submitting the official transcripts in the proper format. The school I worked at would only accept the documents in the following way (with few, special exceptions):

-Live Signatures and Stamps from appropriate school officials (Registrar, Controller of Exams, etc. We could not accept faculty or departmental signatures or stamps)

-Original Language (You only had to submit an English translation if the transcripts issued by the school was not in English. The translation had to be done by a third party.)

-The school required Individual Marksheets, we could not accept Consolidated Marksheets or Transcripts from Indian schools.

The transcript could be a photocopy as long as it followed the above rules. It would be best to contact the school (the graduate admissions or school admissions office, most likely the department may not know how to answer the question correctly, it is even better if the school has an international admissions office) to see how they specifically require the transcript to be submitted.

I do not know how other schools handle it but we could not accept transcripts without the proper school stamps and signatures on the sealed envelope lip. If it was unsealed, even with the stamps and signatures on the document and envelope lip.

If you have issues getting your transcripts in the correct format from your international school the US school you are applying to might have a transcript request form that details how the school wants the transcript submitted.

(that is a long post, with way too much information, but I hope it helps in some way)

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