<p>Every time my kids bring home their transcripts I am distressed, because they are full of odd abbreviations and are generally difficult to read. I know that admissions officers at schools where our students typically apply must be used to them, but I worry about schools that don’t receive very many apps from our HS. </p>
<p>Since the classes are all input into the computer (some secretary doesn’t have to keep typing the same words over and over again), why can’t the transcript list “Global Studies” instead of GBLSTU? The most distressing to me is Computer Programming…it’s something like TAPS (I assume that stands for “technical applications”?). Seems like it would be very easy for a typist to input the entire name of the class.</p>
<p>My daughter is on JV drill team and it’s a double blocked class. Drill team is merely identified as a PE class, so by her senior year it will just show up as 8 periods of PE…I guess the same happens for football, basketball, etc. How is a school supposed to tell whether a kid was on the varsity soccer team all 4 years, or just took a ton of PE?</p>
<p>Is asking for a “plain English” form of transcript a battle worth fighting, or are admissions officers more in the know than I think?</p>
<p>Ask the school to show you what does a transcript that gets sent to colleges look like. It could be very different from the grade report printouts that you get…</p>
<p>my hs transcript is the same way and it’s getting me mad. Here are some of the abbreviations:
MWH= modern world history
AP Eu Hi= AP European History
Survey Amer= Survey of America in the 20th Century
Alg 2= Algebra 2
Chld Dv 1= Child Development 1
and then there’s all the classes with “phy” in the name…
Phy Sc= physical science
Phys E= physical education
Physic= Physics</p>
<p>In a rather immature vein, for years my public school system abbreviated the Honors version of Algebra 2, “Algebra 2 with Analysis”, on student’s schedules as:</p>
<p>“Algebra 2 w/ Anal”</p>
<p>It took them many years to realize why students kept giggling…</p>
<p>My school has some weird ones too. For example, my Advanced Physics Principles and Robotics class came up as Adv Phy Rob. I know the title is long, but who would know what phy rob is?</p>
<p>Also, the people who type them are lazy. I took Calculus II and Calculus III through distance learning, and they came up as “Calculus II” and “Calc3”, respectively. I mean, come on.</p>
<p>I’ll ask whether what they send to colleges is different, but I think it’s the same as what the kids bring home twice a year. It says “Official Transcript” at the top and has a place for an official signature (although the copies the kids bring home are unsigned.)</p>
<p>I wrote my son’s too. He takes classes in a couple different places, and isn’t a full time student anywhere, so I just wrote up his transcript integrating all his work, complete with grades received. I then requested “official” transcripts from the schools to verify what was on the more complete one I wrote. That way you can also write out what the classes are actually called, and the college admissions officers can just use your transcript to help decipher the confusing institutional transcript. Son and I submitted his application that way, and he was accepted. I just sent in his mid-year report the same way.</p>
<p>So you’re saying that when you submit your college apps, you type up your own transcript, and attach it to the “Official” one, to make it easier for the admissions folks to interpret? Do you think they read your version?</p>
<p>That’s pretty typical for homeschoolers. My son will have, if I remember correctly, five different official transcripts from secondary and postsecondary schools attached to his homeschooling transcript. I won’t make any attempt to weight grades or calculate a grade average, but I will make sure all the courses are described understandably.</p>
<p>Missypie, I didn’t attach the transcript I wrote up to the official transcripts from the schools because those were sent directly from the schools themselves. I sent in his complete transcript (i.e., the one I wrote) along with the activities resume (he wrote).</p>
<p>I read many transcripts every year as a scholarship competition judge. Most are full of the incomprehensible abbreviations described above. There is one high school is our region that uses the full course title, in a big, clear font…those transcripts are so much easier to read!
That said, you do learn after a while what the abbreviations are and some high schools attach a page explaining them.</p>
<p>The computer programs that store the information have limited field lengths. Also, you are probably only seeing a unique identifying code for each subject, instead of the descriptive class name.</p>
<p>Our high school just changed computer systems. Our old transcripts would list Intro to Theatre Arts as FA913 (fine arts, 9th-12th grade class, third selection) on the transcript, and the new one will list it as 00251001 (or something really obscure) and THEA next to it. </p>
<p>When schools send the transcripts, they are supposed to send the school profile, which should provide a key to the course codes.</p>
<p><tokenadult> That is SO '60s. Nobody enters data on punched cards anymore. Computer memory has negligible expense these days.</></tokenadult></p>
<p>Yes, it is so 60’s. Actually the program in use was written in the 80’s, and the price of these programs is so expensive, my school is just upgrading this year. Once we get the bugs out of the new system, then we have to start transferring all the information over. So far, there is no way to get it to flawlessly transfer over in an automated fashion, so we might end up having to type it in manually (oh, joy!)</p>