Reusable Materials 20: Transcripts in Reusable Master Application

Thursdays we discuss how reusable materials help you WOW committees and save time

Kinsey took a lot of advanced placement courses in high school. She also took three college concurrent enrollment classes. She maintained a 3.9 overall GPA, but a 4.0 in her advanced placement and concurrent enrollment classes. Her master application contained a copy of her high school and college (for the concurrent enrollment courses) transcripts. As a result, her scholarship applications contained excellent details on grades. She earned more than $120,000 in scholarships.

Copy Unofficial Transcripts into Your Master Application

Many high schools and colleges give students and/or parents electronic access to records of classes taken, grades received, and hours credited. Typically access to transcripts requires a username and password. The encryption tries to protect private information from falling into the wrong hands. You should have access to your own records.

The transcript lists the following information:

• Titles of classes you took in the school
• Teachers who taught the classes you took
• Credit hours for the class
• Semester or dates of the classes
• Grade assigned for the class
• GPA cumulative and for each class
• Required classes versus elective courses
• Advanced Placement (AP) or concurrent enrollment classes

You may either use the “block and copy” or “select all and copy” techniques to copy and paste answers into scholarship applications.

Uses of Unofficial Transcripts

The transcript you copied into your master application will not be official. You do not require an official transcript for the purposes we propose. Several questions on a scholarship application may be answered from an unofficial version of the transcript

• “How many hours of math (or other subjects) credits have you taken?”
• “What is your overall GPA? What is your GPA in English (or other subjects)?”
• “How many advanced placement courses have you taken and in what subjects?”
• “What required courses have you taken?”
• “What elective courses have you taken?”
• “How many credits will you have upon graduation?”

You may request an official transcript from the school for business that requires an official transcript.

Saturday we share more cautions about scholarship scams you should avoid