Some years ago, the home in which I was living suffered some significant flood damage and many of my possessions were lost, including my high school diploma. On the list of destroyed items, this was pretty low on my priorities and I never really thought much about it. I was much more annoyed by losing my cardboard cut-out of Tim Curry as Dr. Frankenfurter.
Last week, for unrelated reason, I was in my old home town with some time to kill so I dropped by the high school to see if a replacement could be issued. They declined, "It’s against policy."I dropped by the main offices of the school district and got the same answer. It wasn’t a matter of proving my identity. I had two photo IDs with me and one of the members of the clerical staff at the school actually recognized me. They just don’t issue replacement diplomas. They were more than happy to provide an official transcript of my coursework so I can prove that I actually graduated but the nice, official looking diploma, well, that’s just my too bad.
Is this a common policy? Have you ever tried to replace a diploma?
I’ve never needed a duplicate. I’m willing to wager that manufacturing a single real diploma is either impossible or so expensive it just isn’t done. Impossible because the school may contract with some company to make a large number at a time and the company won’t make a single unit. And if the company did, it would be expensive.
I’m not sure about my high school diploma, because I have no idea where it is, but my bachelors and masters diplomas are signed by the dean of my college and the university president. As I understand it, if the university replaces a diploma they charge a hefty fee and it will be printed (with all the original info on it, dates, dean/pres names, your name at time of grad, etc) at the same time as the spring diplomas are printed, so you might have to wait.
Maybe it’s too big a pain in the butt for your high school to figure out whose sigs were on diplomas in your graduation year, find signatures for them, submit them to their printer as a special order, etc
My HS didn’t even issue diplomas*, but any of the universities I attended (tertiary and graduate education) will issue replacement diplomas. People buy them for all kinds of reasons: lost, damaged, want to have one framed and an unframed one you can produce if requested, want to put one on your wall but your Mom really loves looking at the first one where it hangs on her wall…
It will take between weeks and months to arrive, though: those things don’t just get printed on the laser printer, very often they use some sort of special paper; the replacement diplomas will generally added onto the next regular run.
While there were no diplomas, I can ask for a replacement “final grade certificate” from the University District to which my school belongs. In fact, if I ever decide to go back to uni at the tertiary level in Spain, I’ll have to do exactly that: I’ve got no idea where the hell the original went off to, and tertiary or quaternary diplomas aren’t considered acceptable for tertiary level. I can sign up for a PhD or Masters program with any of my Masters, the Postgrad or the Ingeniería, but not for the equivalent of a Bachelors. Gotta love procedures and the people who make a living off them.
I feel like if you offer enough money they’ll do it next graduation season when they bulk order. You could also ask for some sort of official letterhead saying you graduated end of story, if you don’t want to show every potential employer your high school transcript. You could also write your own statement, bring it to a public notary along with your transcript, and have the notary sign it.
I received two high school diplomas when I graduated: the standard one (which I have no idea as to its whereabouts) and a wallet-sized laminated card (currently in one of my wallets).
I think the relevant legal document is really the final transcript. I imagine that they are able to issue those more often (though with changing computer systems, I can also imagine a situation where it’s impossible.)
Yes. Cost depends on the school so I don’t know what it will cost you.
For me, as one work place I was at required both the transcript and diploma sent to their centralized HR, from the school itself, it was $50 including shipping for my BS and MS diplomas/transcripts.
I can also get my HS diploma and records from the 90s, have to go to a centralalized place for that and it’s on microfiche.
For either place the transcripts were in sealed envelopes that were signed.
Dunno why they wanted both the transcript and diplomas for the BS and MS.
I know where the joke comes from, but it would be a bit difficult given that no such diplomas existed. Ever. Neither BUP nor COU came with any kind of degrees or diplomas. I can provide full transcripts of my grades, which unlike those of way too many Spanish politicians actually make sense.
All colleges will supply official transcripts for a fee. Even if they were pre-computer, they’ve all been digitized.
You can sometimes even get unofficial transcripts for free. They can’t be used for applying for a job or college, but you can see what courses you took.
It’s not that important to me and I certainly have no interest in spending that much time and effort. I’m 30 years post high school and hardly need the document. More than anything else, I was just curious to see if the school could have replaced it.
I needed my university degree to prove that I had graduated for a job (twice, I was hired the second time). Getting a transcript is easy, getting a degree wasn’t quite so easy.
Naturally I lost it the first time. Needless to say, the second time I scanned the degree and it’s permanently on my computer (and backup hard drive).
Not quite the same thing as a high school diploma. If I need proof that I graduated from high school, I would have to show my degree instead.
I have an anecdote of one that says that it is done (after a fashion).
I went to graduate business school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the late 1980s. I didn’t attend the commencement ceremony (where they just handed out diploma covers, anyway), since the school said that they’d mail the actual diploma later on. I moved, I started a job, and I forgot about the fact that I’d never received it.
Go forward 25 years, and I was applying for a job, in which they did an extensive background check. HR contacted me: “there’s a red flag on your academic history.” Several hours of panicked phone calls with the UW later, I discovered that, due to a paperwork snafu back in 1989 (of which I was unaware), the school had never actually awarded me the MBA which I thought I had gotten in 1989. :eek:
One of the senior officials in the business school then looked over my transcript, determined that I had, in fact, met what the school had required for an MBA in the late 1980s. A few days later, the school contacted me, “congratulated” me on having earned an MBA, and a few days after that, I got a diploma from them via FedEx, back-dated to 1989.
Hey, cut out the middleman and order your own!
You don’t need no crummy school to get graduated, just place your order and custom design your own diploma!
You can graduate from any school or district you want!
My alma mater will replace its fancy written-in-Latin diplomas for $40, which seems like a reasonable price to me, and as it happens I could use a new one.
Heh. One of my nephews followed that route. He had graduated college with honors, but his diploma was being held hostage while he argued over some fees that they said he owed. He had a very good job offer; all they needed was a copy of his diploma, so he bought one.
He eventually got his real diploma, and he was trying to figure out a way to switch the forgery for the real thing that didn’t involve the Impossible Mission crew coming through a skylight. After a year at the job he got a better offer and was relieved to have the diploma situation behind him.
I had kind of a similar situation with one of my Master’s. Long-distance institution and, after doing all the work, passing the exam, etc. some genius decides that my original diploma isn’t legit because “it’s from 1994, says Universitat Raimon Llull and, since URL was only founded in 1992, it’s not possible that anybody graduated from it in '94.” The uni had indeed been founded in '92 but by a bunch of pre-existing colleges: my own was founded in 1915, which is certainly more than enough time to start churning own graduates and even to have multi-generational legacies.
Attempts at explaining received no response.
Years later, my mother received a diploma tube. The institution where I’d done the Masters had been absorbed by a different school, which had reviewed the paperwork for anybody who wasn’t marked as having graduated, determined I did indeed have a legit degree and sent the diploma dated to when I had taken the final exam for the Masters. It only took 12 years!
