Published: October 28, 2009 09:40 pm      

Bringing college applications to the 21st century

to fill out a counselor form, detailing student activities, school details and more for each transcript. With this new system, she only has to fill it out once for each student, even if the student applied to multiple schools at once.

High school students juggling jobs, homework, sports, clubs and more can take one thing off their to-do lists — mailing in transcripts for college admission.

Indiana is now offering a free service allowing students to send those electronically, taking away the paperwork and questioning of whether the college received it or not.

After signing up for their account, students can click each college of their choice and to send multiple transcripts at once. It then goes to the high school officials, who send the official transcript on its way, often on the same day, according to Laura McGuirk, senior counselor at New Albany High School.

McGuirk said she has to fill out a counselor form, detailing student activities, school details and more for each transcript. With this new system, she only has to fill it out once for each student, even if the student applied to multiple schools at once.

The system did take some prep work before getting started. Rhonda Maynard, principal’s secretary at NAHS, had to input all the transcript information on the computer.

“It takes a little time upfront, but once it’s there, it’s there forever,” Maynard said.

McGuirk and Maynard both admit to having their reservations before this started earlier this school year.

“We were used to doing it the old way and it worked that way. I was worried that we’d have to send it twice, but we don’t,” Maynard said.

Maynard said this way is safer, with less opportunity for people to tamper with the transcript.

McGuirk said students are taking to the new form, already sending out 168 this year to colleges across the nation, including in Hawaii, military academies and more.

Seniors Evan Greenwell and Alexis Laporte are two of those students who are taking advantage of the change. Greenwell has sent out transcripts to seven colleges. Laporte has sent out six.

“I heard back in a week that I was accepted after using [e-transcript system],” Laporte said. “It was a lot easier than having a lot of paperwork.”

“They let you follow it every step of the way. It makes it a lot easier and you don’t have to worry about it getting there,” Greenwell said. “It’s like the 21st century way to apply to college.”

McGuirk said the system is not required, but being highly recommended by colleges, so she is asking students to utilize it so that their transcripts don’t look different than other applicants.

Now, McGuirk and Maynard are happy with the change, saying there’s been very few issues at all. McGuirk said she believes it’s encouraging students to apply to more schools as well. This also alleviates the workload for the two, they said.

Already 138,311 transcripts have been sent using the state service, according to Elizabeth Crouch with Learn More Indiana.