<p>Hi!
I am an international and I want to ask my counselor to submit the reports via Common App next week.
She's going to attach my high school transcript in PDF. to School Report.
I was wondering whether we should print my transcript, have it notarized, then scan it and attach to my application?
Or will it be enough just to write it on the computer, print it, have it signed by her, scan and submit?;) (or even attach a file directly from a computer)
Also, can my teacher write my transcript in English if she knows the language or should she write it in our native language and have it officially translated as she's not a certified translator? </p>
<p>Common App is rather uncommon for my school so I want to know beforehand if transcript is something really o f f i c i a l or can we just fill it in according to some template from the Internet?;)</p>
<p>Thank you @achele!
As you say, I’ll ask for my school’s stamp and have a transcript signed by a principal and a counselor so that it looks more or less official :)</p>
<p>Hi karolin,
as far as I know, most colleges require an “official” translation, i.e. one that comes from an actual certified translator. I’m afraid translating your transcripts yourself would not be sufficient. I am also an international student, so I am in the same situation as you are. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to speak to somebody in the undergraduate admissions office at Columbia University in person, and he told me to
Get the transcripts translated by a certified translator
Bring the official translation back to your counselor
Ask the counselor to submit those documents.
Also, they told me to submit ONLY the English translation, not the original; this, however, might vary between the individual schools, so you might have to ask each one of them if they want the document in both the original language AND English or not.</p>
<p>Also, may I ask what country you’re from? (I read on other posts that you are European and also need full financial aid, which is exactly my situation. Since I feel like there are few people applying from Europe, it would just be interesting to know )</p>
<p>Hi @littlebird95!
Thank you for your response!
Actually, we’re neighbors - I see you’re from Germany I’m from Poland </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s common for my school to issue something like ‘‘official’’ transcript and I believe there’s no template to write one.
That’s why I decided to prepare a template for my transcript - I wrote down all my courses in English and made space for my HS officials to enter the grades and GPA. Then my counselor had my grades entered by an official and my transcript stamped and signed by a principal. Do you think colleges may question the validity of such transcript? The only thing they can be unsure of it’s whether my school is authorized to issue transcript in English, not in Polish. But it’s not like it’s written somewhere and should I really obtain official translation if my HS is able to issue a transcript in English? So I hope they’ll accept such transcript if it has all the stamps and autographs needed and if it’s submitted by my counselor ;)</p>
<p>Good luck with your application! May I ask where you want to apply the most and how you application process is going?:))</p>
<p>If your school doesn’t have such thing as an official transcript, I think the way you’re doing it will be fine; the people who review your applications will know about the Polish school system so I think they’ll understand. Also, if your high school counselor can issue a transcript in English and send it directly to the colleges, that should be enough. :D</p>
<p>I’ve read some of your other posts and I saw that you’re applying to a crazy amount of schools; I’m not doing that because of the application fees (do you know if internationals are eligible for fee waivers?), so I’m applying to UChicago, Columbia, Barnard and University of Southern California (the last of which doesn’t give need based aid, but I think trying for a merit scholarship is worth a shot since it’s my dream school).
I’m taking the SAT in October (I already got 2100 in June, which is decent, but I’ll try again to get a better chance with scholarships). Besides that, I’m kinda stressing out about all the essays and supplements and whatever else you have to do :eek: Have you taken any SAT Subject Tests yet? And what do you want to study?
Good luck to you, too I’m honestly so glad about every other student from Europe that I meet on this forum… I don’t think there are many of us :D</p>
<p>Thank you, I hope universities will accept my transcript :D</p>
<p>Yes, I have 20+ colleges on my preliminary list, and eventually I will have to decide which ones to apply to. As you probably read in my posts, I thought that applying to a big number of universities would raise my chances to get into one of them.</p>
<p>Application fees are burden for me as well. However, I hope I’ll be able to waive the highest fees especially for need-blind colleges (as they don’t consider our financial situation anyway). Otherwise, applying to so many colleges will cost me a great deal of money and I’m not sure if I would able to afford it </p>
<p>Yes, some colleges can waive app fees for internationals (such as Amherst, Harvard + they’re also need-blind :)). Some colleges that are on my list have 0$ application fee or application fee waived for internationals. These are Bates College, Colgate University, Wellesley College, Bryn Mawr College, Gettysburg College and Smith College Oberlin has quite low (comparing to others) application fee - 35$.
I sent e-mails to ask about the possibility to waive a fee to Cornell and Dartmouth as I couldn’t find information on their websites. So all in all, I hope the cost of application fees won’t be so high.</p>
<p>Congratulations on your amazing score! I took SAT in June and I’m taking SAT II (Biology and Chemistry) in October I’m keeping my fingers crossed so that you’re admitted to your dream school!
If I stayed in Europe, I’d love to study Scandinavian Studies (Swedish). However, in US it’s not a popular major so I’d probably go into linguistics + foreign languages such as German (sadly I’ve never studied it yet but I love the sound of it! Germanic languages are beautiful!) or Italian. So basically - languages And what are your plans concerning a major?:)</p>
<p>I’m stressing out about the application too! There are so many essays to write and not enough time. But we’ll manage :D</p>
<p>I can’t edit my post so just a short note:
I got an e-mail from Cornell - they offer application fee waiver for international students as well :)</p>
<p>Your plans sound pretty cool, I’m kinda interested in learning one or two more foreign languages as well, but I don’t think I’ll major in them. If I stay in Germany, I’ll probably study English though. If I get into a US College, I’d like to do Art, Journalism and English Literature.
I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so the few schools I apply to are all schools that I’d really LOVE to attend. Others might be good, too, but I really want to be in a city, so I’m exclusively applying to schools in NY, LA and Chicago. Also, I think all the the supplements would be a little too much with more schools…
Good luck with your SAT Subject Tests. I think I’ll do Biology and English Literature in November, and then I might also do French :)</p>
<p>That’s really interesting!
I’d love to be in a big city too but for now I want to apply to some more colleges. We’ll see how things go
I’m a little bit worried about the supplements, though some people said they’re pretty similar for all colleges. I haven’t started writing them yet so I don’t really know.
Thank you and good luck with yours!:D</p>
So I hope they’ll accept such transcript if it has all the stamps and autographs needed and if it’s submitted by my counselor ;)</p>
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