Cheryl Seligman, Features Editor
Completing applications is often painfully time consuming, but the most effortless step in the process is requesting a transcript. As mindless as the action is, the transcript is an extremely important, revealing piece of information. So important, in fact, that they are usually a mandatory component of applications.
For UR students filling out a transcript request form, the online process through the Office of the University Registrar could not be more straightforward: Log in with your NetID and password, fill in the generic blanks and press submit. Afterward, an automated confirmation message containing the entered information is sent to you by email.
The transcript request notification email indicates that you have “submitted a University Transcript Request Form on the website,” but that “submission of this document does not guarantee your form has been accepted.” With admissions, scholarships and employment on the line, a guarantee is imperative.
UR’s current policy is that if you don’t hear otherwise, your transcript request was accepted and sent to the appropriate address, but this confirmation email does not ensure that anyone actually followed through and sent the transcript or prepared it for pickup. UR should have the decency to tell students when their transcripts have actually been sent.
The U.S. Postal Service has its own set of complications, and sometimes your transcript will get lost in the mail. Transcripts should not, however, be lost or forgotten before they even leave UR. Yet, under the current system, students have no way of knowing whether their transcripts were sent unless they visit the Registrar’s office themselves. The package store tells you when your package has arrived. Shouldn’t the Registrar send confirmation emails too?
An email stating that transcripts were sent would keep students from worrying about the status of their requests. There’s already enough anxiety that stems from waiting for application, scholarship and employment decisions, in addition to the stressful lives that many UR students lead. Such an email would also prove useful for those requesting transcripts for pickup, as students would know, instead of guessing, whether or not their transcripts are awaiting pickup in Lattimore 312. A transcript’s importance absolutely warrants the need for confirmation that UR has done its part in the application process.
