Can I just get a fucking TRANSCRIPT, people???

The BBQ Pit
1

I briefly attended a certain two-year school in southern California from about 1994 to 1996. Several years after that, I moved to Georgia. There, I decided to go to a local four-year college. I sent in a transcript request. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Finally I find out that if they got said request, they lost it. This pushed my admission back an entire semester. I sent another request, they actually processed it and sent it out. Amazing.

Fast-forward to today. I am now in the middle of applying to a local university. This is, on the whole, a Very Good Thing. Unfortunately, this also means that I have to try to get another transcript out of the incompetent school in California. So I go to their website, I go through their computerized request forms. I get an instant email back that they can’t process it because of, I quote, a “positive fee imbalance.” They did at least give a phone number, so I call.

The slightly rude woman on the phone asks me for a student number. I do not have it, I explain, I haven’t been at your school since 1996. How can I know said number if I do not have my transcript? How did I get through the computerized request form, she asks rudely. It gave me the option of a social security number OR a student number, I tell her, so I gave it my SSN. Idiot bitch. She takes my name and puts me on hold for a few minutes. When she comes back, she tells me that I owe them THREE FUCKING DOLLARS. Some sort of “health fee.” I have, apparently, owed this since 19-fucking-96. They can’t release my records until I pay.

I don’t ask her how the HELL they managed to release a transcript for me back in 1999 while I owed what I fully believe to be an imaginary fee. It’s not worth getting into, I figure.

So it’s going to be weeks until the school I’m applying to gets a transcript, and that’s if I’m fucking lucky. Tomorrow I will go get a fucking money order (I don’t have any checks right now) and send them their three dollars. Assuming a week (damn optimistic, I expect it’ll be longer) for them to get it and admit it, then I re-request a transcript. That will take several days for them to dig up, and several more to mail. Fortunately, the four-year school records have the classes I took in California on them. Hopefully, in the worst-case scenario, this will be enough for them to at least let me in provisionally until they get the fucking California transcript.

FUCK. I just want to go to school. I’ve put in too much time to school to not finish a degree. And they screw me over TWICE. Assholes.

2

Did this noble institution have the initials GCC by any chance? Because let me tell you, the amount of time and money I spent trying to shake loose enough transcripts from them to apply to seven grad schools this year was fucking insane.

When I was still going there they also pulled the “We think you owe us money but we won’t tell you that, instead you have to notice that you’re not getting any grades or transcripts and come humbly ask ys why” stunt.

3

Nope…it’s SMC. I didn’t know other schools pulled this crap, or at least not repeatedly. I should have known.

I mean, if I’d been the woman on the phone, and somebody like me from halfway across the country and who last attended eight years ago came up with a lousy three dollar fee, I’d have just paid it for them myself and called it even. It’s not much money. Especially after EIGHT YEARS.

The transcript is going to run me five bucks anyway, three bucks plus a shipping charge. (Do not ask me why they add that, but they do.)

At least the school in Georgia provides free, quick transcript service. Unfortunately, I lost the one I requested from them months ago so I had to send off for another. It should be here in a few days at most.

I know this isn’t much of a gripe, but it is fucking annoying to have the same school fuck me over twice.

4

I hope this post doesn’t show up twice…Anyway, having been an employee of such places for many years, I’m not surprised. They seem to go out of their way to collect a few bucks to reduce the state’s debt and make life more difficult for you at the same time. How expedient of them.

5

Five bucks? That’s it? Jeez, I went to the wrong community college!

At GCC you pay $7.50 – $12.50 if you want it to be available in twenty-four hours – and pray. Compare this to the University I’m about to graduate from, where I can drop six bucks and have an official transcript in my hot little hand in about thirty seconds at the registrar’s window.

My plan is to wait until I have some spare cash, then order a stack of transcripts from GCC and keep them somewhere safe so I won’t ever have to rely on their crappy service again. They damn near got my admission to grad school delayed.

6

grins smugly University of Pittsburgh gives out transcripts (official or un) for free. 30 seconds if you are physically there, one day turnaround if you fax/mail/phone in a request.

7

Crud - hit submit too soon. My school rocks.

I’m sorry your school’s administration sucks. Is there anyway you can get someone local to go stand at the desk and get your transcript face to face?

8

I had a similar problem, but I ended up just taking the few classes over again. Community College here in California is very cheap, and I took those classes so long ago that I decided I needed to take them again anyway because I didn’t remember didly squat from them. Sure it slows me down a bit, but I’m in no hurry to get to the end of the game of life.

9

Unfortunately, no, I don’t know ANYBODY there anymore. I lost touch with everybody after high school, and then I’ve made two major and several minor moves inbetween. And they really don’t want people doing that; without looking, I admit, I’m pretty sure the person in question would have to go twice. Once to drop off the request and my authorization, and again a couple of weeks or so later to pick the thing up.

They really don’t want anybody to have their records! Bastards.

10

SMC withheld my transcript for years on the basis of library fines. My roommate had swiped my library card and used it to check out several books, which I believe were sold, because I never saw them around the house. They finally either changed computer systems or gave amnesty, because I was finally able to get my transcript.

All that for one measly class.

Robin

11

Glory halleluia! I’m not the only one!

Sorry, Ms. Robyn. It’s just that I’m not alone…

I think we’re talking four transferable classes for me. Arrrgh.