General Questions for Students
- What is Parchment Inc.?
For institutions, Parchment Inc. offers a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, Docufide by Parchment, consisting of two modules Docufide Sender and Docufide Receiver. Parchment.com offers students a way to request high school transcripts, and docufide.com offers the same for college transcripts.
- What is Docufide by Parchment?
Docufide by Parchment is comprised of our institutional offerings (Docufide Sender and Docufide Receiver) and our college request portal.
- I am a high school student – what is the difference between Docufide and Parchment?
- If you are a high school student, current or alumnus, you will order your high school transcripts from parchment.com. College students will order college transcripts through docufide.com.
- Why should I set up an account?
- Parchment puts your credentials to work for you. Parchment allows you to share your transcripts with others, find colleges that you’re interested in and see your chances of being admitted. You can also configure your profile to be searchable for colleges looking for students like you. Using Parchment to order transcripts is simple, secure and available 24x7 and high schools using Docufide Sender are able to receive your transcript requests, take action on it and send it to us for delivery.
- Are transcripts sent by Parchment official?
- Yes. Your high school has signed a legal agreement with Parchment for the Docufide Sender platform allowing us to act as the official “agent” sending transcripts on their behalf. All transcripts are assigned a unique ID number to verify their authenticity and have built in security features to protect against tampering or manipulation. We do offer you the option to post, save or print an unofficial copy of your transcript in the “My Transcript” tab within your account.
- What personal information do you ask for?
- We ask you to enter your full name as it appears on file at your school, your date of birth, gender and years of attendance and in some cases student ID and/or the last four digits of your SSN. The staff member at your high school responsible for processing transcript requests uses this information to match your request to your record in the student information system and we use this information to confirm the records we received from your school match your request and profile.
- How is the personal information I provide used?
- We take your privacy very seriously. Please refer to our Privacy Policy for detailed information about how your information is protected. We allow you to opt in (or out) of being discovered by colleges, scholarship programs and lenders looking for students like you. Once we have your permission, we will make some of the information you provide in your profile available to a variety of colleges and programs. These colleges and programs can then send you information about themselves so you can see if they are a match for your college plans. Colleges cannot find you at Parchment unless you elect to opt in to this feature and opting in does not include displaying your transcript. These options can be managed in your Parchment profile under the “College Discovery Settings”.
- How much does it cost?
- There is no cost to create a Parchment account. There may be fee for requesting transcripts and this varies based on institution, state and on the handling options that you select. Additionally your institution may elect to add a school charge on top of the transcript request fee. These are clearly displayed to you before you are prompted to remit payment.
Establishing an Account
- I received a Registration Code in the mail – what do I do?
- The Registration Code is a unique number generated from a student roster sent to us by your high school. You should use this code when adding your high school to your account.
- I don’t have a Registration Code – can I still set up an account?
- Yes. The Registration Code is not required to establish a Parchment account. We send them because it makes spreading the word about online ordering easier for your high school and it speeds up the student registration process slightly.
- I don’t know my student ID or my Social Security Number, what do I do?
- In rare cases your high school may require student ID or the last four of your SSN. If these fields show as required when you are establishing your account and you don’t have this information, please contact your school office for assistance.
- Can my parent or guardian create an account for me?
If you are under 18, your parents can create an account and request transcripts for you. Parents will need to create a family account which requires information about both the parent and the student.
To create a parent account, select the radio button for "Parent or guardian, creating Parchment account for my minor (under 18)". Complete the registration form with your information. Then, enter the required identifying information for your student. If you have additional children, you can add them once your Parchment account has been created.
- I am a parent with more than one high school student – do I need to create separate parent accounts for each student?
- Not at all. You are able to associate multiple children with a family account. You will need to first register one student. If you would like to add an additional minor child, please sign in to your Parchment parent account. From the “Preferences” menu, select “Parent Profile” and then “Add another child to your Parchment account”. You will need to complete the required identifying information for your additional child.
- Does the “Transcript Authorization Form” act as a student signature and is this required?
- The Transcript Authorization Form (TAF) is presented to you when you add a school to your account. You complete this form once for each academic institution associated with your account. The TAF is required under FERPA and is in place solely for your protection. You may withdraw authorization at any time by signing into your Parchment account and going to the "School & Transcript Preferences" page. If you withdraw the form, you will be required to sign a new form before sending your transcript to a destination outside Parchment's verified database of academic destinations and scholarship funds.
- I forgot my password, what do I do?
- Not a problem. Click on “Forgot password” on the sign in page and you will be promoted to either enter the email address associated with your account or answering two security questions. If you choose the first option, we will email you the instructions to reset your password; the latter option lets you reset your password immediately.
Ordering Transcripts
- What do I need to do to request my transcripts online?
- Requesting online is simple and easy. You will need to do three things. Make sure your high school is associated with your Parchment account, know where you want your transcripts sent to and have a credit card available to pay any fees associated with the request. If you are requesting a transcript to be delivered to a destination outside of the Docufide Receiver network of academic destinations, you will need the email or mailing address you want your transcript delivered to. Contact Us
- Where can you deliver transcripts?
- Transcripts can be delivered to any destination you identify. Our vetted network of academic destinations and selected scholarship funds have pre-populated delivery addresses and those who have elected to become Docufide Receivers, default to an electronic receiver as a part of the registration process. You are able to request official transcripts be sent outside of this network to yourself, employers or other third parties.
- What if the mailing address I have for a destination and the one listed in your database don’t match?
While we regularly refresh our database of academic destinations, we do strongly encourage you to confirm the address you have matches what is in our database. If the address you have is different you can do two things.
The first option would be to go to our Contact Us page, select the “Question on transcript destinations” subject line, and then please input the address you would like us to add. Because we verify all changes to academic destinations, it may take us 2-3 business days to complete this request.
Your second option would be to contact the institution and confirm the address to which they wish to receive transcripts. If the address you have is the preference and you need your transcript sent immediately, you can either select "edit the delivery information" link on the "Order Summary" page or place a request using the “Other Destinations” feature.
- I am trying to search for a school, but it is not showing up in the results list. What should I do?
Try entering only part of the school name. For example if you are trying to find Parchment Institute of Design try entering just Par in the search. You will see a list of all colleges and universities with the same three letters. You can also try searching just by state, and the returned results will be displayed alphabetically.
- What do I do if the school I am applying to doesn’t accept electronic transcripts?
- Our database of receivers includes both electronic and print destinations. If the college or university you are applying to is showing as an electronic receiver it is because they actively registered and expressed a preference to receive transcripts and admissions documents electronically. If they are listed as a paper destination, Parchment will print and mail your transcript just like your school office would.
- Can I change the delivery method for a college in your database?
We allow colleges and scholarship funds to select their preferred delivery method. You can edit the delivery information by selecting "edit delivery information" link for the destination on the "Order Summary" page, but we do not recommend editing this information unless.you have been instructed to send your transcript to a specific department at a college or university and the department isn’t listed as an independent receiver.
In this case, you would go to the “Other Destinations” tab and input where – and how – you want your transcript delivered.
- How long does it take to send transcripts after I request delivery?
- Transcripts are queued for delivery as soon as your high school releases them to us. If the destination is electronic then it will be processed immediately and if it is for paper delivery we typically process within 1 business day.
- Can I order transcripts before final grades are posted?
- If you want to request transcripts before grades have been posted, select the “Next Grading Period” option and we will queue your request for approval after your school has posted grades.
- I accidentally placed a request for the next grading period and I need it now, what do I do?
- Don’t worry. Please contact your school office and ask them to process your request immediately rather than waiting until grades are posted. Your school is able to see and take action on transcript requests even if they are listed as next grading period requests. You also have the option to initiate a new request and select “Current” for the grading period.
- Who sees my transcript?
- During the fulfillment process your transcript will likely be viewed by the campus administrator processing transcripts, the receiving institution and the Parchment staff responsible for transcript fulfillment. Your transcript data is transmitted in a secure environment both from the sending campus and the receiving institution, if registered to receive transcripts electronically. If you are sending a transcript to a third-party destination, the Transcript Authorization Form (TAF) you signed when adding your school authorizes Parchment to deliver to a destination we have not validated. If you withdrew that authorization, you will be required to sign a new TAF when you submit your request. Paper transcripts are delivered in an envelope that states “IMPORTANT: Transcript Enclosed” on the outside.
- What is the difference between requesting my transcript into my Parchment account and delivering it to a college or other destination?
- The unofficial transcript posted to your Parchment account is yours to manage. You can store multiple versions of your transcript, view, print and share your transcript. When you need an official transcript delivered to a college or other destination, use the “My Transcripts” tab to initiate the order process.
- How many transcripts can I order at once?
- There is no limit to the number of transcripts you can request in a single session nor is there a limit to the number of times you can access your Parchment account.
- What do I do after I request delivery of my transcript?
- As soon as you place your order you will start to receive email updates from Parchment. We will notify you when your transcript request has been approved, if it has been placed on hold, when it’s processed and when it’s queued for delivery. You are also able to sign in to your account 24x7 to check the status of your order.
- What do I do if my transcript request was placed on hold?
- We will notify you if your delivery request was placed on hold by your high school. There are a variety of reasons your school may elect to put your request on hold. You are encouraged to contact the school office if you receive this notification to clear the hold as soon as possible. Once the hold is cleared, your school will release the transcript to us and we will queue it for delivery.
- I received an email saying that someone requested a transcript on my behalf, what does this mean?
- This means that an authorized administrator at your high school or at a college or university has requested your transcript. If you have any questions about this request please contact your high school or check the “College Discovery” settings in your Parchment profile.
- How will I know if my transcript was received?
- We send you email notifications at every stage of the order process including when we have delivered it electronically and when we have stamped and mailed your paper transcript.
- The transcript I ordered never arrived, what do I do now?
- Depending on the time of year it could take colleges 4-6 weeks to process your transcripts and acknowledge receipt to you directly. If you choose to contact the receiving destination to follow up, make sure to ask how long it takes them to process so you can gauge if enough time has passed since you received the last confirmation from us. If this amount of time has passed our support, please complete a support request on our Contact Us page.
- Does Parchment offer financial assistance for those who cannot afford to pay for a transcript?
- Yes we do. If you qualified for a fee waiver from The College Board or ACT then please notify your school counselor who associates a waiver against your account. We will notify you via email when the waiver has posted and then you can sign in and complete the request process.
Parchment and the Common Application
- I am applying to colleges using the Common Application. How can I request delivery of my transcript to the Common App?
- To get started you need to create an account at www.commonapp.org and make a note of your Common Application ID. Then use the school forms section of Common App online to invite your counselor to be a recommender. Doing this will let Common App know they need to send an email to your counselor with the instructions about how to opt in and complete the forms online or opt out and send the forms via mail to the individual colleges.
- I checked with my counselor and s/he received the email and is opting in to online School Forms, what do I do now?
Sign in to your Parchment account, click on “Deliver” and then select the “Common Application” tab. Enter your Common App ID and verify that your name and counselors name are correct. You will be able to see if your counselor has accepted your invitation and if s/he has started your School Form. If your invitation has not been accepted and/or your School Form has not been started, please contact your counselor directly.
You will not be able to request delivery to the Common App until your counselor has started a school form.
- I checked with my counselor and s/he has received the email from Common App and is opting out of completing the School Forms online and will be sending them in the mail. What do I do now?
- If your counselor is electing to use an offline process to submit School Forms you will need to place a transcript request for each individual college you are applying to and have your transcript sent directly to that institution.
- My counselor has accepted my invitation and has either started or completed my School Form, what else do I need to do?
- You are now ready to request delivery of your transcript to the Common App through your Parchment account. Your transcript will be sent directly to the Common Application Online system where it will be matched to the school forms initiated by your counselor. Your counselor will submit the school form and transcript to the Common App, and they will be made available to all of the colleges you apply to using the Common Application Online at www.commonapp.org.
- What if the college I am applying to is a Common Application member college but also accepts transcripts using another application. What do I do?
- That decision is up to you. We recommend that whatever you elect to do you use the same process from beginning to end.
My Colleges
- How does the College Recommendations tool work?
- The College Recommendations tool takes a novel, implicit approach to searching for colleges. You’re not actually searching for colleges: you’re searching for peers. These peers metaphorically cast a vote for every college that they applied to. We show you the colleges that got the most votes. For example, which colleges interest students with high math scores? People with SAT Math scores above 750 tend to apply to the Columbia Fu School, Caltech, MIT, Olin, and Harvey Mudd. Bear in mind that we didn’t ask anyone to pick colleges that are good for high achievers in math. We just looked at where such students applied, and the data told us the rest. We can use the same approach to recommend colleges to you based on the city you’re from, or based on your GPA and test scores, the majors you’re interested in, your ethnic background, and even the other colleges that interest you.
- How do you rank colleges?
- At Parchment, we use a statistical approach to ranking colleges. Imagine that the colleges are playing chess against one another. They all start off with the same amount of “points” because at the beginning, we have no idea which is the better player. Every time two colleges admit the same student, we look to see which one that student chose to attend; that college earns points, and the other college loses points. When a high-ranked college beats a low-ranked college, it earns fewer points, because we already expected that to happen. When a low-ranked college beats a high-ranked college, we give it extra points because it was unexpected. Once we’re done, we rank the colleges by the number of points they have accumulated. In this way, the rankings totally reflect the decisions made by the students. We think this makes sense, because students and their parents have up to $200,000 worth of incentive to choose the best from among the various colleges to which they’ve been admitted.
- How does the College Matchup tool work?
- The College Matchup tool simply asks, When students get into 2 colleges, which one are they more likely to attend? We find all students who were admitted to both colleges and then we identify the fraction that chose to attend one vs the other. We then place confidence intervals around these estimates to account for the fact that when the schools are preferred nearly equally, or when there is little data, we may be uncertain if there truly is a preference for one college over the other.
- Are you making my transcript data public?
- No. We never use your information without your authorization. To use the My Chances and My Colleges functionality, we ask you to volunteer to fill out an additional survey, which contains enough information for us to make predictions about your chances. You can then choose to have a public profile or a private profile. With a public profile, people can see your profile, review your list of colleges, and rate your chances of admission. With a private profile, you can enjoy all of our functionality in private.
My Chances
- How do you predict my chances of admission to college?
- We do math to predict your chances of getting into college based on test scores, demographics, and other information about you. The prediction is not based on any published data from guidebooks; rather, we look at the results of real live human beings (whose results we call 'the data') and we generate statistical models from that data. We then apply those models to your data to see what we think your chances are.
- When I look at my chances, what does the percentage mean?
- Your chances are presented as probabilities which range from 0% to 100%. At 0%, the model estimates that you will almost certainly be rejected, while at 100% the model estimates that you will almost certainly be admitted. At 50%, the model cannot decide which is more likely. It is perhaps useful to compare the data-driven chances that we provide with a college's acceptance rate. If your prediction is equal to the acceptance rate, then we think you have average chances; otherwise, we think your chances are above or below average. We try to calibrate our models correctly so that the probabilities are meaningful. For example, 60% of the time, applicants with a 60% chance should be admitted; 40% of the time, they should be rejected. 10% of the time, applicants with a 10% chance should be admitted; 90% of the time, they should be rejected.
- How do I earn points playing the Admissions Game?
- When playing the Admissions Game, we'll show you the profile of a student, and the profile of a college that they applied to. We know whether the student got in or not, but you have to decide, just like an admissions officer, if you think this student got into that college or not. Guess correctly and you'll get up to 50 points. Guess incorrectly and you'll lose up to 50 points. We rank the best players each day, week, and month.
