You are not holding 2 spots until sept 1, you are holding 2 spots until you can see a school, which in past years was not an issue, or worried about a job loss , ( the premise of this thread IIRC) or seeing what a college will do come the fall semester, and there is no guarantee schools will use their waitlist, as others have mentioned many schools have accepted a higher number of kids. The HS transcript thing is a non issue , you will decide what school to have them send it to, right now I assume colleges will be pretty understanding if dear old high school is behind in sending stuff to the college.