Say someone is applying for a job and claims a MS in Quantum Mechanics from Podunk University. Short of asking the applicant for a transcript, can I call the school to verify a degree?
I’ve always been asked for transcripts. If never known a method used by employers other than this. Is there a particular reason you don’t want to ask for one?
I believe the law prohibits colleges from disclosing (or verifying) such information without explicit permission from the student/graduate.
That page says that schools can disclose “directory” information without consent, and I think whether someone has received a degree counts as such. From that webpage:
“Schools may disclose, without consent, ‘directory’ information such as a student’s name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, honors and awards, and dates of attendance. However, schools must tell parents and eligible students about directory information and allow parents and eligible students a reasonable amount of time to request that the school not disclose directory information about them. Schools must notify parents and eligible students annually of their rights under FERPA. The actual means of notification (special letter, inclusion in a PTA bulletin, student handbook, or newspaper article) is left to the discretion of each school.”
Edited to add that thirty years ago in college at the beginning of one semester, I heard that a particular student wasn’t returning to school. So I asked at the registrar’s office. They were legally able to confirm that he was not enrolled that semester.
I’ve never had an employer or a licensure board (e.g. the board that licenses professional engineers) ask for a transcript.
I have had employers and licensure boards ask for a copy of my degree, though. In the case of the licensure board for my P.E. license, the copy of my degree had to be sent to them directly by my university.
My university will apparently verify degrees online, but only for students enrolled since Fall 1999.
They go on to state that The National Student Clearinghouse is their official agent for enrollment and degree verification for all students and alumni. Their website is here:
The schools that participate in this verification service can be found here:
Note that there is a fee to verify a degree.
National Student Clearinghouse sells degree/enrollment verifications for most U.S. colleges/universities.
Haven’t been asked for a copy of my college transcript since my first job in 84. After that they apparently went by your work record. HR departments just called each other and verified dates of employment. Then they started asking job applicants for permission to run a credit check. Then drug testing and formal background checks became popular. Just about every job these days ask your permission for a background check and makes passing a drug test as a requirement as part of the final job offer. It’s more 1984 now than it actually was in 84.
we require transcripts, but we also do a background check that verifies said degrees. Job ads at my place of work indicate that selected candidates must be able to pass a background check, and once offered the position, they sign a release for the background check.
Employment offers are incumbent on clearing that check.
I was never asked for a transcript of any degree, except when applying for a fellowhip, but then the last job I applied for was 48 years ago and things were very informal then. When my wife got a job as a translator for the Quebec Ministry of Education, she was asked to supply transcripts. When her undergraduate degree was in Latin they insisted on an official translation, although it was the same BS as any other diploma. The mind, if any, of a bureaucrat never ceases to amaze me.
Sometimes she was asked to translate a transcript (very different from translating a diploma) and that wasn’t always obvious.
Canadian irony: insisting on a translator in order to hire a translator. 
Do they list honorary degrees along with regular degrees? It’s very common to see jobs that require a PhD to say the degree must be an earned degree. That makes me think honorary degrees would show up in a search.
One of my nephews applied for a job that wanted to see his college diploma. He didn’t yet have it, due to library fines that needed taken care of (that’s what he told me).
So, he bought a phony diploma online, and was hired. He now has his real diploma and is trying to figure out a way to swap the two.
There was a student at my school who was legendary for being weird. (Among other things, he claimed to be able to teleport across campus.) Supposedly he faked a transcript that he sent to a prospective employer out west (Arizona, I think). This was possible because at the time, almost everything at school was printed on the same giant laser printer in the computer lab, from my homework to official transcripts. So we theoretically had access to the same fonts used for transcripts. So he was able to dummy up a document that looked for all the world like a real transcript but actually had good grades. As the story goes, the employer was on the verge of verifying the transcript with the school, which would have exposed his forgery. So instead, he called them to let them know that he was going to take a job with the CIA and they needed to shred his application paperwork to preserve secrecy.
Most places have a raised stamp they put on official transcripts, those are harder to fake.
I’d be surprised if the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) listed honorary degrees. In the unlikely event that honorary degrees were listed, I would expect them to be clearly described as such.
On a related note, I think honorary degrees are a complete farce. The university from which I received my undergraduate degree has never bestowed an honorary degree to any person. The only way to get a degree is to complete a degree program there. Some U.S. universities that do not award honorary degrees include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cornell University, Stanford University, Rice University, and the University of Virginia – more universities should follow their lead, in my opinion.
In all seriousness, I would suggest that he start looking for a new job. There’s no way to swap the real degree for the fake one (other than breaking into the employer’s confidential HR files), and if the employer ever finds out about the subterfuge, he’s almost certainly going to be fired on the spot.
You won’t have to-the applicant’s a fraud. Podunk does Bluegrass, not QM.
Granted the law may be different over here, but in my career as a university administrator, it was axiomatic that the whole point of awarding a degree is so that people can flaunt it, i.e., why on earth should there be any restriction on a university saying, yes, this or that degree was awarded to someone called Charlie Farnsbarns-Golightly, or whatever?
The problem comes with the obverse. I’ve had to give evidence to more than one court, here and in the US, about whether or not someone was ever a student of ours, and while it’s easy to say “No such name in our records”, it’s another matter to discuss why somebody was in the records but didn’t get a degree.
I’m not doubting you, but that’s a bit odd. In my (albeit limited) experience with this, colleges and universities are typically still willing to accommodate alumni in this type of situation b/c the school wants them to be employable so they can pay their bills.
Yeah, honorary degrees are a complete farce.:rolleyes: Look at this total poseur, with no less than seven honorary degrees. And those colleges- all cheap degree mills, too.
I know, right. Patrick Leahy and Whoopi Goldberg both received honorary degrees at my college commencement (UVM, 1997) and I can only imagine how many doors have been open for them since then because nobody bothered to verify that they were “earned” degrees.