The new electronic transcript service, Parchment, which Paly began using this year to send transcripts to colleges, has been working effectively despite early setbacks, according to Assistant Principal Kimberly Diorio.

Earlier this year, many students were having difficulties navigating the Parchment website. After the administration sent out step-by-step directions to seniors, however, the process received many positive reviews.

“It’s going really, really well, and most of the feedback we’ve gotten from students and parents is that it isn’t that hard,” Diorio said. “They [students] appreciate having the directions that we posted that go along with it.” 

There have been isolated cases this year when transcripts have not been received by colleges, but the administration does not believe this is Parchment’s fault.

“I think a lot of that just comes back to the colleges themselves being so inundated with paperwork, and overwhelmed by the volume of people who apply,” Diorio said. “Whenever a college calls us back and says ‘I didn’t get this,’ we have proof that they did — that’s one of the things we liked about Docufied [now called Parchment]. It [Parchment] tracks that it was received by someone in the admissions’ department. But we don’t get into it and argue, we just send them another copy right away.” 

The administration has found the use of electronic transcripts to be much easier than paper transcripts.

“It’s made everyone’s lives a lot easier,” Diorio said. “It’s so much quicker and efficient.”

Inaccuracies with the Works in Progress section of transcripts that appeared earlier on this year have been fixed, according to Diorio.

“It wasn’t so much a problem with Docufied [Parchment],” Diorio said. “It was a problem with Infinite Campus. Courses like Teaching Practicum and Work Experience were the two that were having setup issues, and we have resolved those issues.”

Although the administration began the year searching for alternate electronic transcript services, the administration now believes that Parchment will continue being used for future years, according to Diorio.

“We looked into other providers, and they still just don’t compare or compete with Docufied,” Diorio said. “As frustrated as we’ve been with some of the early glitches, now that we are in full motion, we seem to have some things ironed out a bit better.” 

This year, with the new service, Paly has sent out more college applications than ever before, according to Diorio.

“As of last week, we have had over 2,300 college applications to be sent out,” Diorio said.

The administration assures that accuracy is its first priority when sending transcripts, and that it will continue doing its best to ensure that transcripts properly reflect students’ achievements.

“We want to make sure that whatever we send out is 100 Percent accurate,” Diorio said.