Registrar drops transcript fee to prepare for online requests

The $3 fee the Registrar's office charges for all transcripts will soon become history as the office prepares to launch an automated, Web-based transcript request system this fall.

The fee will be eliminated July 1, Acting Registrar Joseph Greenberg said yesterday. He explained that elimination of the fee "would vastly simplify the goal of having direct, Web-based transcript ordering for students."

Greenberg said making transcripts available free of charge would help ease the process of applying for them. Paying for transcripts can be a hassle for students or alumni abroad, who sometimes experience delays in transcript processing because of slow mail service, he said.

Once in place, transcript ordering on the Web will allow students to request transcripts at any time from anywhere in the world, without having to pay for faxes or wait for a posted letter to arrive at the Office of the Registrar, Greenberg said.

He added that the University hopes the online transcript request system will "encourage participation in the TigerNet system currently available for alumni." By registering for TigerNet, alumni would gain user IDs and passwords that could be used to log on to the Registrar's system.

TigerNet — located at www.tigernet.princeton.edu — is the online version of the University's alumni directory that enables Princeton students past and present to access alumni addresses and phone numbers, engage in Princeton-related discussion groups and enroll in University online courses.

Under the new system, however, students will still have to wait until the next business day to receive their transcripts, Greenberg said. He explained that each transcript order is recorded by a computer, and then a "batch file" is run overnight that prints out the previous day's requested transcripts.

"That's the limitation of the technology that we have in place for now," he said. He declined, however, to speculate on whether the University will eventually move to a fully automated system, where transcripts would be printed immediately after the Web order is placed, stamped with the University's seal and signed by the Registrar in time for the students to pick them up the same day.

Greenberg said the Web-based system will not be launched until October because it requires a secure server setup that will be complex for the office's Web staff to tackle.