Do high school transcripts actually matter?

In reply to Carenthusiast42069 :

yupididit is serving in the USAF and probably has lots of insight that would be helpful for you, but shouldn't necessarily be discussed on an open forum. Send him a pm through this site and it will show up as an email for him.

yupididit said:

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Source? Currently serving in the Air Force. Enlisted back in 2007 and I know they asked for it at least once in my first few years in. 

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Anyway if you'd like, pass him my info. I'd love to talk to him. I love mentoring and being real with fresh young Airmen so they don't fall into some pitfalls and traps that I was not warned about when I joined.

Cherrodover@gmail.com 

Just drawing attention to this..

In reply to WonkoTheSane (Forum Supporter) :

To be clear my comment on emailing was in jest and i emailed him.

Carenthusiast42069 said:

In reply to WonkoTheSane (Forum Supporter) :

To be clear my comment on emailing was in jest and i emailed him.

Copy that, sorry about missing the sarcasm :)

I'd try and get it all done.  While it may seem like you won't need it in the future, it would really suck to get jammed up later because you do really need it

Sounds like a E36 M3ty school to be honest. Tell 'em to pound sand.

Not only that, but if they take state money to do what they do, you might want to look into whether they are following the sorts of policies & guidelines they're supposed to.  (I'm trying to sound as neutral as possible here.)

ProDarwin said:

Sounds like a E36 M3ty situation.

99% chance that no, nobody cares.  But on the off chance that things don't work out in the military or someone does care, it seems to me it would be worth completing that last 20% of the work.

This is true as a life skill regardless of who's looking. I don't care about the school, but if it were my kid we'd be having a close conversation about showing respect by keeping your word and how this whole 'trust' thing works. 

It's ok to quit things if your heart changes. But it's much less OK to quit things that someone else paid for you to do. 

Also, if he's a smart kid, this should be no problem for him to complete. Bet he could do it all tonight if he started right now. 

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

ProDarwin said:

Sounds like a E36 M3ty situation.

99% chance that no, nobody cares.  But on the off chance that things don't work out in the military or someone does care, it seems to me it would be worth completing that last 20% of the work.

This is true as a life skill regardless of who's looking. I don't care about the school, but if it were my kid we'd be having a close conversation about showing respect by keeping your word and how this whole 'trust' thing works. 

It's ok to quit things if your heart changes. But it's much less OK to quit things that someone else paid for you to do. 

Also, if he's a smart kid, this should be no problem for him to complete. Bet he could do it all tonight if he started right now. 

Agree, except "school" "decided" they need more money to do more, after agreeing that he had met the requirements to graduate, and gave him a diploma... Too late in my opinion. After doing well in Air Force, no job or security clearance will care. MAYBE a collage on GI Bill, but I doubt that as well. If he needs anything more, it should not cost anybody but the school any money.

Carenthusiast42069 said:

(Son) This is my first of hopefully very few posts on here. You guys managed to put together a pamphlet of information in barely an hour. To answer some questions you might have: yes i have my diploma, no i cannot complete the work assigned to me as it was taken down, yes im willing and able to acquire my GED, no my recruiter doesnt know this is going on, yes id like to pursue higher education after the air force, no the school isnt willing (currently) to work with me on this

There are cases where a ged is not enough... the HS diploma is worth it. But as I understand, You do have a HS diploma, showing that you did in fact graduate... no one that matters will care about anything else. Congrats and thanks for serving.

My son did well in high school and ranked in the top 3%.   All that mattered was his ACT score.  Then his college transcripts. Then his grad school publications.  
 

Get the next item and put it behind him.  

Last time I used it was in college applications. I would think that the college transcript I’ve had to submit to 3/4 jobs since college would negate any desire for a HS transcript though - for you, it may matter. 

If you want to have fun though, I’d potentially a lawyer who works to draft a letter stating that you need to review ALL of your grading material to ensure they gave you the correct grade. You’re worried they scored you too low because of no intentions of college, and because they’re unable to grade within the appropriate time frame and thus must be untrustworthy at best and unscrupulous at worst - unscrupulous here being that they are doing a last minute cash grab just to see if it sticks. 

In reply to mtn (Forum Supporter) :

Actually I have my lawyer looking into options right now to force their hand.   

In reply to KyAllroad (Jeremy) (Forum Supporter) :

The phrase GED got thrown into this conversation too.  Is your kid looking at a real HS graduation diploma or are they trying to downgrade this to a GED?  

I would avoid the GED if that is what they are offering.  

In reply to John Welsh (Moderate Supporter) :

No, he has the HS diploma already.  The school is just making noises about holding up his transcripts.

It appears he looked into getting his GED just to simplify things but that isn't a useful direction to go IMO.

I'm going to interject my opinion acknowledging that I don't know the full story,

First off the HS diploma is a wall hanger like a trophy, not for anything other than to show off an accomplishment. I could print one off the internet in minutes to say I did pretty much anything. The actual usable item is his transcript that shows what he actually did. 

Is the school withholding a "passing" transcript? This is the part of the story that I truly would need to know more about. Why did they go back after the fact, and decide that he needed to do more work. Definately negligence on their part not to know this before graduation, and to ask for more money seems sketchy. Again I don't really know the facts.

The bottom line is that he will only need to produce that transcript a couple of times. The military requires at least a GED, and if he wants to go to college. You said he already has 80% of the work done, and I'm guessing you already paid for it. To do the last 20% to put this behind him seems fairly simple. 

Sometimes life gives you a bowl of E36 M3 that you may, or may not have served to yourself. Getting through it can give a sense of accomplishment, or pushing it aside because it's "not my fault" just makes it easier to push aside next time.

Update.

So I let the son unit attempt to work things out on his own (young adult and all that).  It apparently didn't go well and the principal of the school "kicked him out" of her office after a couple of minutes.

So yesterday I gave her a call and she gave me a great deal of song and dance about how his grades "slipped through the cracks" and her school counselor had given my son a green light for graduation.  (Graduating class of six, seriously.)

She refused to budge on the issue of his transcripts.

I contacted the accrediting agency list listed on their website.  Turns out they were listing them fraudulently and are not actually certified by XXXX  body.

I have a feeling that this is going to be a losing battle and at this point a scorched earth policy will be the way to go.  We may not change their position but a mass email to the parents of the school informing them that the degree their kids are working toward isn't guaranteed and is being issued by a fraudulent organization. 

Time to contact your state's secretary of education.  This smells of scam/extortion. I would also pursue exposing their bogus accreditation.  

It also seems you would be entitled to a refund?

6 students in the senior class? 

That school is probably skating on the edge of bankruptcy.   

What the Berk? 

6 students, and he slipped through the cracks? How the berkeley is there a crack with 6 students? Is the guidance counceller on crack? 

And yeah. I'd be suing for a full refund of tuition + Legal fees. berkeley em. 

Lawyer up. 

Instead of a mass email, that will come back directly on you, call the local news station and newspaper AFTER you talk to a lawyer. 

Keep you and the boy as far as berkeley as possible away from the school and anyone who works for it in the mean time. Full radio silence, don't even acknowledge he was a student to anyone who doesn't already know. 

In reply to spitfirebill :

Just did.  Apparently they only have jurisdiction over public schools.  And I reached out to the other "accrediting" body.  They sounded 100% useless and nothing more than a rubber stamp (their phone number is used for 3 different equally toothless organizations) for this fraudulent E36 M3show.

Maybe the State Attorney General's office.  Focus on the failing of the "business of the school."  Like any other financial decision to "do business" with an entity they lured you in under false pretenses (accreditation) and then failed to manage their side of the transaction with improper record keeping on the 6 seniors.  

Is there a religious affiliation for the school?  Could it help to appeal to the higher authorities of that organization? 

Another angle...is it possible that the school is a non-proit organization abusing that protected status?  Is there any leverage from trying to expose this?  This too probably goes through the State Attorny's office.  

If the school gave him a diploma but THEY aren't happy with his performance, then it sounds like the only people who care about it are at that school.  Most higher education institutions look for the diploma.  You graduated HS?  Great.  Requirement fulfilled.

It sounds to me like the school had a budget gap so they called all the borderline students and asked for more money.  Futher education entities look at a diploma because it vaguely indicates a benchmark, but to say that all HS educations are equal is like saying that all cars are a good choice for everyone.  I'm intelligent, but I totally floated through school and got straight C's, but someone else in my class might be dumb as a post and got straight A's because they were motivated by attaining letters and scores.

I say, take the diploma, tell the school to shove it, and let your son be awesome in the Air Force.  I can't imagine any higher education providers to deny a man that I'm sure will be an accommodated, decorated airman from admission because his small private school said he should have one more math class after they already awarded him a diploma six years ago.   Harvard, Stanford, or Brown might dig into it and require a prerequisite or two, but there are thousands of highly-accredited state schools, private universities, and other facilities that just won't care.

When I applied for my Master's, I applied to 6 accredited schools in my field and all they cared about was that I had a bachelor's, and even that was negotiable.

If his aspirations are something like becoming a neurosurgeon with a doctorate from an Ivy league school, worry about it.  If his aspirations are to become a teacher or an executive, don't worry about it.