What is a Transcript? (Quick and Easy answer)

A transcript is gotten mostly in high schools or colleges. It is a document that includes all your accomplishments and results, whether in high school or college. Also, meaning “academic record” or “High school record” or even “College record”.

It consists of all your coursework, when you took them, what score or result you had in each course work; also whatever honour you have achieved.

The document bears the name of your school, course code of each course you studied, grades, and all the course requirements. In some contexts, especially in high school, the document may contain a student’s class rank.

The types of transcript:

We have two major types:

  • Official transcript
  • Unofficial transcript

Official transcript:

This academic record has a seal of the high school or college on it. This is to ascertain that no one tampers with it or changed anything after the school in question released it. The school in question sends the document to ascertain; there is no change at all.

Unofficial transcript:

 This bears no seal on the envelope or inside the envelope. You can print out this particular transcript on your own. Since it doesn’t bear a seal, it didn’t come directly from your high school or college.

On the other hand, a college’s official electronic transcript, printed out, and rescanned with a scanner is invariably seen as a fake or unofficial document.

Reasons why one might need an Academic Record:

Apart from the question, “What is a Transcript?” one of the questions most students ask is, “Why do we need this document?”. The reason is that they want to know the benefits and opportunities associated with getting the document. Here are some of the reasons:

Application into College:

 When you are done with high school, the college needs your school summary document to contain all they will need. The doc should include a list of your coursework, course grades, achievements, etc. which you must have acquired while in your high school.

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Transfer to College:

Your new school needs it to know your last class and the new one you ought to be in. They will ascertain your grades using the transcript.

Job application:

When you are done with high school or college and need to apply for a job, your transcript will be needed, but that will be because your certificate is yet to issue to you.

What is a Transcript?

Contents of a typical one:

Title of each Coursework:

The title of each course you took while you were in school. This is important because it helps you know if you are qualified for the course you want to take in the college and meet the basic requirements.

The grade of the courses:

The grades include all the scores you got from your first year till your last year. It also includes the extra courses you took to get your degree and the associated scores in it. All these help to ensure that you met the graduation requirements.

Year of study:

It shows the specific year you took a particular course and the reason behind it. It is important to know when the courses were taken and if you skipped any year and continued later.

NB: Any institution can issue this document to their student.

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Transcript or Marksheet? Which is better?

A transcript is a document that includes all your accomplishments and results, whether in high school or college. It includes your coursework, academic strengths, scores, honours, and accomplishments in each academic year.

While a Marksheet as the name implies is a sheet that contains the marks and coursework associated with a student in a specific semester or academic year.

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Obiorah Esther
Obiorah Esther
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