So I decided that I wanted a Copy of my College Transcript

Why you ask? Who the hell knows? It just popped into my head one day. So I found this website called Parchment who would contact your school, request the transcript and send it wherever you wanted. The second part was easy because I wanted it.

Still, $9.30 sounded like a bargain if they did all the contacting of the college. So I made an account, typed in my information and indicated that I had graduated from Hunter College of the City University of New York in June of 1969.

A day or two later I got an e-mail from Hunter saying that they couldn't locate my records. OK, that was interesting. They wanted to know if my name changed and asked me to verify the dates. Well, the dates were 1965 to 1969. As for my name, well there a couple of possibilities. Was I using my middle name, middle initial or maybe even a Jr?

So I checked my diploma. Oops, much to my surprise my diploma actually said Lehman College, Formerly Hunter College in the Bronx.

Now I always thought I had been the last graduating class from Hunter College at the Bronx campus and my wife had been the first graduating class from Lehman College. Apparently that was not correct.

So I apologized to Hunter and canceled my order with Parchment. They gave me back my $9.30.

I decided the hell with it but that itch reappeared about two weeks later and I added Lehman College to my Parchment account, paid my $9.30, and put in a request from them.

I got crickets. Finally I looked at my Parchment account and it said that Lehman couldn't locate my records either. I did go to college; I have a diploma and everything. The problem was Parchment insisted that I should get an e-mail from Lehman and I hadn't.

I filled out another problem report from Parchment and they sent me an e-mail essentially saying that I should contact Lehman directly. Since the whole idea of going through Parchment was to avoid having to do that, I checked off the option that said I was no longer interested. I figured they could keep the $9.30 this time.

About two weeks later I get an e-mail from Parchment that Lehman had provided my transcript and I had 30 days to download it which I promptly did.

In reviewing the transcript it became apparent that memories aren't always accurate. For instance, I swore that I got an A in Advanced Calculus but I only got a B. There were also a couple of courses that I had absolutely no memory of taking.

The other interesting thing was I clearly remembered having gotten an Artium Baccalaureatus (AB) degree rather than a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree although they are essentially the same. Yet, my diploma clearly said Bachelor of Arts. So were did this AB thing come from?

There on my transcript, in the box that identified my degree, was AB.