Hopefully, someone from your teen’s high school guidance team has met with all seniors and helped them work on their college applications. Unfortunately, some school teams are overwhelmed. That is why it is important that your family stays on top of things like high school transcripts.
Transcripts are important because they are the primary academic records that show colleges what classes were taken and what grades were received by applicants. Colleges use transcripts to help evaluate a potential student’s academic performance – including the difficulty of their chosen high school curriculum, progress over time and the overall grade point average (GPA).
It’s important to note that GPA is only one part of the transcript. Also, students don’t need to worry about false comparisons due to weighted and unweighted averages. (Weighted averages consider class difficulty when determining the grade.) High schools report both weighted and unweighted averages for each applicant.
High School Transcripts Reminders:
1. Seniors should ask counselors to send their initial transcripts to colleges on their final college list.
2. It is important to give counselors enough time – at least two weeks before the colleges require them – to send the transcripts. Since the deadlines for regular decision college applications are usually around the beginning of January, many high schools need transcript requests by early-to-mid December.
(Transcripts for early admission students should have already been submitted back in October.)
3. Students also need to request that mid-year grade reports are sent to colleges.
4. Once a final college decision has been made, students should ask their high school to send a final transcript to their chosen college.
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