Here is the situation...after reading this board for a while, I have come to the conclusion that there is a certain degree of chance that many of the fine instituions that are talked about here may not be here in 20-30 years. With that being said, what happens about transcripts??? IN other words, how would you "send off" for a transcipt in that case. My wife will graduate later this year from a Dantes approved, not RA. I guess I should order about 5 extra transcripts and put them in a vault??? Any one have any suggestions.
Protect your investment! Getting a number of sealed transcripts and securing them is a great approach. Make sure they remain sealed and certified by the institution. Once opened, they lose some luster. (Even then I would hope that reasonable minds would prevail.) Sooner or later, all institutions 'die'. Hopefully, it will be long after we do. Barry Foster
I am not sure of the details or the accuracy, but I seem to recall reading that defunct regionally accredited schools turn over their student records to the state education department. Perhaps that would be where one would be able to obtain a copy of their transcripts from. Perhaps you should pose your question to both the state education department and the regional accreditation agency. Let us know what they say. Jeffrey
Here's another possibility. Before getting out of the service, I was told it was a good idea to take a copy of my DD214 to the county courthouse and have it placed on file there. This way, if I should lose my copy, or the original gets burned in a fire in St. Louis, I will always be able to get a certified copy of it. It seems like it should also work with educational institutions. It's just a guess though. Ted
Unfortunately there is no standard procedure, so the advice given thus far is indeed usefuland relevant. Between 10 and 20 regionally-accredited schools 'go out of business' each year. The problem, generally, is not that they have failed to deposit their archives somewhere, but finding out where. In the Catholic world (roughly half the schools that go away are Catholic), often the archives are deposited at another nearby Catholic college or university. While the state education department should be, and often is, notified, that information, too, is not always easy to come by. Finally, in this vein, often when a school cannot be located years later, it is the case that either it has changed its name, or has been merged into another school. From the mail I've gotten over the years, it seems that (a) the problem is indeed common, and (b) often the various credential evaluation services or AACRAO, the Americxan Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, will have information on what happened to a certain school, and its records. Many years ago, someone sent me a printed form they had received when requesting such information from a college in London. The form had boxes to check, saying ( ) Records have been found and will be sent. ( ) Records could not be located. ( ) Records from this period destroyed by Nazi bombs. John Bear
For certain degree programs, there is another way to protect your records. The National Council of Examineers for Engineering and Surveying (http://www.ncees.org) has a records program where you may "deposit" transcripts, letters of recommendation, licenses from various states, etc, and later have the record sent to any new state where you want to apply for a license. It's possible other professions may have similar programs. (Of course, there is a fee for this.) ------------------ Gerry Ashton
This is from a page on the SACS website at <http://www.sacscoc.org/pdf/closing.pdf>: Arrangements should be made with the state board for higher education or another appropriate agency for filing of student records. If there is no state agency which can receive records, arrangements should be made with a state university, with the state archives, or with a private organization to preserve the records. Notification should be sent to every current and past student indicating where the records are being stored and what the accessibility to those records will be. Where possible, a copy of a student's record should also be forwarded to the individual student. The institution should notify the Commission regarding the final filing of student records. Cheers, Michael
