The college experience

[torquill]

I've had an interesting time while I've been attending Diablo Valley College. The Financial Aid office routinely loses paperwork, the Counseling office apparently never sends counseling records down the hill to the Financial Aid office in the first place, despite having computer systems on the same network (I have to sneakernet them), Admissions doesn't look at the transcripts I have on file with them (necessitating a 90-minute wait to enroll in an English class as they dug out the transcripts to check for prereqs), and Financial Aid doesn't talk to Admissions, which is 10 feet directly behind them. Nobody knows who's in charge of what the classrooms get cleaned with. The online registration system has regular nervous breakdowns during scheduled registration times.

These are the joys of community college.

I can add one more to the list: I got a call from the Counseling office today. I have an appointment week after next, and the poor work-study drone was putting together my file for it... except that she said she can't find the official transcripts from UCSC and UPS. She says they were shredded by mistake.

Surprise, surprise.

Add to that the fact that the appointment note said "IGETC review", which is a request to go over my transcripts with a counselor to make sure I'm fulfilling the transfer requirements. 1) I'm not transferring under the IGETC requirements (as a hard-science major, I have my own slate). 2) I don't need to check whether I'm on target for transfer, as I know exactly what classes I still need to take. 3) I asked for an appointment not to make sure I had enough classes, but to see whether I could get rid of some which I've already taken. Ignore them. Sweep them under the rug. I have almost too many credits to be able to get into another school, so I want to find out whether I can exclude the four credits for the Russian course I took in high school in 1993, or drop the unix course I took on a lark in 1999, or get rid of the units from moonlighting in the college Symphonic band while I was in high school.

All this means that I don't have to get my transcripts to the counselor beforehand... but it still means that if I want them to have official transcripts, I have to pay the fees to my two universities to have them mailed. I think last time it was $6 for one, $15 for the other. Plus, if I recall correctly, typing up a snail-mail letter to request it from one of them. Meh.

As for trying to get the college to pay the fees... while I think that might be an adventure, it would most likely be an exercise in futility. So the question remains, should I pay for this, just like I've spent time and energy running around to replace the other paperwork they've lost over the years?

Comments

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, all the units I want to drop are on my DVC transcript... sigh.

We'll see whether DVC can give me a straight answer, and if not, I'll talk to Davis. I still have some time, though applications need to be in by the end of the month. The good news is that even with all this crap on the transcripts, I still have 119 credits -- I can squeak in under the 120-unit cap.

[firestrike.livejournal.com]

Ah, but which transcript? When they changed the computer system, the majority of the old records were never transferred over. I have two complete DVC Transcripts, one from 93-97 and the second (the stuff currently in the active system) from 99-02.

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

oooooOOOOOOoooooo.

What would I do without you? :)

[firestrike.livejournal.com]

It's my job in life to let others learn from my mistakes experiences.

Check the DVC online records. If it doesn't show up there, it probably doesn't exist in your current file. Just be careful when requesting a transcript. If you put dates that require them to go dig into the old files, they'll do it.

If I remember correctly, any files that didn't belong to active students in the 98-99 term weren't transferred over, though I could have the year wrong. And I was told in 2002 that they weren't planning on ever converting the remainder of them over to the current system.

Hope this works out for you.

[firestrike.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I requested them both at the same time. They even came in the same envelope, though by carefully limiting the listed enrollment dates, I could have gotten them in two separate officially-sealed-and-stamped envelopes.