Sending transcripts

[unicornsarereal]

I saw someone tweeting about how they had to pay to send their transcripts to schools, which got me thinking—I didn't go through any of my schools to send transcripts. I either uploaded an unofficial pdf, an official pdf, or shared a photo of an official printed one because the school doesn't do electronic ones.

This is totally a last minute panic about transcripts ignited because I saw one school say they'd gotten unofficial but not official ones. Has anyone else not submitted any official transcripts through their schools?

[Sandmaster]

Typically for a school to recognize that the transcripts are "official" they need to arrive either electronically directly from the school, or in a sealed envelope from the school. Just check with your potential school how they determine what they want when they say "official". I have seen some take a scanned copy of an official transcript (meaning it is printed with the fancy paper and school letterhead), but each school is different. My applications wanted either unofficial transcripts uploaded in a .pdf version to their application, or they wanted official transcripts sent directly in the mail to them in a sealed envelope (which costed me quite a bit in money as I had two UG transcripts and one Grad transcript and I had more than one school who wanted these official transcripts).

Edited December 13, 2017 by Sandmaster

[unicornsarereal]

I've double checked mine and they are all official, but are being registered as unofficial. As to mailing them, still going through the list but pretty sure none of my schools wants items mailed, but rather all uploaded to the app. 

This is my anxiety over apps finally kicking in, so please excuse me!!

[khigh]

1 minute ago, unicornsarereal said:

I've double checked mine and they are all official, but are being registered as unofficial. As to mailing them, still going through the list but pretty sure none of my schools wants items mailed, but rather all uploaded to the app. 

This is my anxiety over apps finally kicking in, so please excuse me!!

The program I applied to wanted an unofficial uploaded and then send the original after you are admitted.

[unicornsarereal]

1 minute ago, khigh said:

The program I applied to wanted an unofficial uploaded and then send the original after you are admitted.

Yeah, I'm seeing that as well at my schools. 

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

56 minutes ago, Sandmaster said:

Typically for a school to recognize that the transcripts are "official" they need to arrive either electronically directly from the school, or in a sealed envelope from the school. Just check with your potential school how they determine what they want when they say "official". I have seen some take a scanned copy of an official transcript (meaning it is printed with the fancy paper and school letterhead), but each school is different. My applications wanted either unofficial transcripts uploaded in a .pdf version to their application, or they wanted official transcripts sent directly in the mail to them in a sealed envelope (which costed me quite a bit in money as I had two UG transcripts and one Grad transcript and I had more than one school who wanted these official transcripts).

I agree - for the transcript to be official, it has to be sealed electronically or literally within an envelope and sent directly from the institution to the other institution. FWIW, some of my schools didn't accept any kind of screenshot or advising transcript. For them, the "unofficial" transcript had to be an official one that was a PDF scan that I uploaded myself to the application. So, I had to give them the same exact documents, one sent unofficially from me and one sent officially from my institutions.  

44 minutes ago, unicornsarereal said:

I've double checked mine and they are all official, but are being registered as unofficial. As to mailing them, still going through the list but pretty sure none of my schools wants items mailed, but rather all uploaded to the app. 

This is my anxiety over apps finally kicking in, so please excuse me!!

If the application check list is showing two boxes, one for unofficial (that you're uploading) and one for official, it may be worth it to send a quick email to the department so you can double check what they want and get an electronic or mailing address if they want official ones. A few of my schools (Michigan, Temple, Carnegie Mellon, Lehigh) require both official and unofficial for applicants. Most of these schools gave a a mailing/email address on the application page but one did not - I had to email them directly to get it.

 

 

Edited December 13, 2017 by a_sort_of_fractious_angel
JK - Syracuse may not require official, my bad.

[Warelin]

5 minutes ago, a_sort_of_fractious_angel said:

A few of my schools (Michigan, Syracuse, Temple, Carnegie Mellon, Lehigh) require both official and unofficial for applicants. Most of these schools gave a a mailing/email address on the application page but one did not - I had to email them directly to get it.

 

 

I thought Syracuse only required official transcripts if accepted?

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

17 minutes ago, Warelin said:

I thought Syracuse only required official transcripts if accepted?

It's quite possible I misread that one - I did them all in one fell swoop a few weeks ago in a bit of a panic and recall being kind of confused by their page.

*Having reread the page now, it seems like you can upload directly or send them "officially"*

Apologies for any unintended panic!

Edited December 13, 2017 by a_sort_of_fractious_angel

[Warelin]

8 minutes ago, a_sort_of_fractious_angel said:

It's quite possible I misread that one - I did them all in one fell swoop a few weeks ago in a bit of a panic and recall being kind of confused by their page.

*Having reread the page now, it seems like you can upload directly or send them "officially"*

Apologies for any unintended panic!

Congratulations on being done! I'm sure that it is quite a relief being finished.

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

1 minute ago, Warelin said:

Congratulations on being done! I'm sure that it is quite a relief being finished.

Oh, I'm not done, haha. I mean to say I sent all the transcripts a while back so they could arrive in time (my undergrad only does snail-mail). But by Friday, I'll be mostly done!

I hope your apps went/are going well!

[unicornsarereal]

It turns out ONE of my schools does require them to be sent from my alma maters, which means I'm missing the deadline on those transcripts.