Palo Alto High School seniors applying to college will submit their transcripts exclusively through an online system this year.
The administration fully integrated the system, Parchment — also known as Docufied — this year in order to minimize paperwork, potential errors and to ease the application process for students and colleges, according to assistant principal Kimberly Diorio.
“Going electronic is really a win-win, because you guys [students] will be able to send it [transcript] from any time, any place and then you also get confirmation and [a] receipt from the universities when they receive it,” Diorio said. “A lot of times we had universities telling students that they still hadn’t received their transcripts, although we had mailed it. Now with it being electronic that kind of issue is gone because its more transparent and we’ll know exactly when they’ll receive it, and colleges are preferring to receive it electronically.”
Diorio added that the swtich to online trancsripts also allows students to preview the transcripts beforehand, in case any errors appear. If a student does find any problems, he/she should consult registrar Suzie Brown in the Guidance Office.
“You [students] now have the ability to preview your transcript online,” Diorio said. “They’ll [Parchment will] show you what that looks like. And they still send out the school profile and the supporting information that usually goes in the packet.”
Transcripts will cost $10 each this year, which changed two years ago, when students were given two transcripts for free. The price increase is due to the amount of labor involved in processing and the increase in student applications, according to Diorio.
“Two years ago you [students] could get two free transcripts, and then after that they were $10 a piece,” Diorio said. “Docufied charges half the price — about $5 per transcript. The other $5 goes to the processing and supporting the Guidance Office for all the application materials.”
The official transition to Parchment began at the end of last year when seniors submitted their final transcripts through the system, but was unsuccessful for the college application process because of technical errors and a delayed start. Diorio said students initially used online grade book Infinite Campus to apply to colleges, but because the quality produced was not desirable, the Guidance Office manually processed the transcripts.
“The change started last year, but Infinite Campus wasn’t able to produce a transcript that was acceptable, until we had gone halfway through the application cycle,” Diorio said. “We were really hoping to use it [Parchment] last year for last year’s class, but because of some Infinite Campus bugs and quirks we found, it held up the whole ability to use the Docufied system.”
Diorio predicts this year’s seniors should have little to no errors with the program, because all of the issues that occurred with last year’s class have been fixed.
“The good news is, because we went through last year’s seniors doing their end of year transcripts, we’re all ready to go for this year’s senior class,” Diorio said. “ We ironed out any bugs and kinks we had with the system. This year’s seniors class is gonna be in really good shape. We’ll be able to really take advantage of the service.”
Students may use the service by signing up on the website here, or by using a Personal Identification Number that Parchment sent to students in a letter.