Wednesday, August 11, 2010

College Diploma and Transcript

It takes a college degree to be an official teacher. That is, if you're going to be paid for being a teacher, then you're probably going to need a college degree. I'm going to assume you have a college degree, and therefore a diploma. Now we're going to talk about how to get a duplicate diploma if you lost yours, and how to retrieve an official academic transcript.

I also just realized that I wrote the previous entry assuming that everyone would know where their diplomas are after they graduated. But if you couldn't get the copy of your diploma notarized and apostilled as suggested in the previous entry, here's some information about how to get a duplicate diploma.

Your college or university registrar takes care of all the information regarding diplomas. They have records involving when you were there, what courses you took and when you graduated, so getting a duplicate should be no problem as long as you pay the fee and fill out the right forms. For everyone who went to my alma mater Umass Amherst, you can contact them through the information to be found here.

The same office also takes care of your transcripts, so this is a one stop shop and you don't have to go far. There's also usually a form involved when requesting transcripts as well. They ask for your name, address, date of birth, student number or social security number, and when you attended school. The transcript request form for Umass Amherst students is here.

It takes about two weeks for them to get copies of your transcript and mail it to you. When you get it in the mail, DO NOT OPEN IT. For the purposes of applying for your teaching program, you may notice that they ask for an official sealed transcript. I made this mistake once - if you open it, the record is no longer valid, and you'll have to send for another one. They probably just want to make sure that you didn't tamper with the courses you took, your GPA or your grades to satisfy their requirements or something.

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