Physics GRE Discussion Forums

WARNING: The following post is quite pointless, consisting mainly of my self-pity and swear words.

Aarrgh I hate this ***.

My primary university allows me to send as many transcripts as required as long I pay the postal fees. Cool.

However, I have taken ONE course in another university. It's not related to anything I'm going to study (I took it for fun), and I got the perfect grade. And the university in question requires a payment of FIVE *** EUROS (about 7 USD) per transcript. And I, of course, require two transcripts per university I'm applying to, one in my native language and one in English.

So, for this one stupid shitty course I have to pay over 200 USD, or risk being considered a cheater for not providing all the transcripts. I mean, where the *** the 200 USD comes from? The postal fees are approximately 30 USD total....so they take 170 frigging USD for printing the transcripts, stamping them, putting them into envelopes and taking them to mail office, which can not take more than 20 minutes of active work time, because I'll provide the address labels. Nice hourly pay.

*** *** ***. That's two universities more I could be applying to.

I'm so sick of being an international bitch. Paying assloads of money (about $450) for a formality like TOEFL, and then this ***. In the next life (which will happen quite soon at this rate) I'll only apply to my local universities, no matter how shitty they are.

Try converting USD to Indian rupees and savor the fact that at least yours are in EUROS!!

satyad18 wrote:Try converting USD to Indian rupees and savor the fact that at least yours are in EUROS!!

I don't understand your point. 1 USD is about 44 Indian rupees. Now what?

schwiss wrote:I don't understand your point. 1 USD is about 44 Indian rupees. Now what?

See, I'm not here for a fight., but I think spending in Indian rupees is far costlier than to spend in Euros! So cheer up!

schwiss wrote:I'm so sick of being an international bitch.

Lmfao.

-Riley

WhoaNonstop wrote:

schwiss wrote:I'm so sick of being an international bitch.

Lmfao.

-Riley

satyad18 wrote:

schwiss wrote:I don't understand your point. 1 USD is about 44 Indian rupees. Now what?

See, I'm not here for a fight., but I think spending in Indian rupees is far costlier than to spend in Euros! So cheer up!

I apologize, my blood sugar was pretty low and it has been raining the whole day. I had no reason to be angry at you.

I believe you meant that comparing the income levels of Indians and [nationality withheld]s, the conversion rate of rupees to USD is worse than the conversion rate of euros to USD. I believe that's correct, and it should be pretty easy to check. How much is a typical research assistant salary there? My salary after tax is approximately 11.7 USD per hour. Sucks ass here, but luckily the conversion rate is good.

schwiss wrote:WARNING: The following post is quite pointless, consisting mainly of my self-pity and swear words.

Aarrgh I hate this ***.

My primary university allows me to send as many transcripts as required as long I pay the postal fees. Cool.

However, I have taken ONE course in another university. It's not related to anything I'm going to study (I took it for fun), and I got the perfect grade. And the university in question requires a payment of FIVE *** EUROS (about 7 USD) per transcript. And I, of course, require two transcripts per university I'm applying to, one in my native language and one in English.

So, for this one stupid shitty course I have to pay over 200 USD, or risk being considered a cheater for not providing all the transcripts. I mean, where the *** the 200 USD comes from? The postal fees are approximately 30 USD total....so they take 170 frigging USD for printing the transcripts, stamping them, putting them into envelopes and taking them to mail office, which can not take more than 20 minutes of active work time, because I'll provide the address labels. Nice hourly pay.

*** *** ***. That's two universities more I could be applying to.

I'm so sick of being an international bitch. Paying assloads of money (about $450) for a formality like TOEFL, and then this ***. In the next life (which will happen quite soon at this rate) I'll only apply to my local universities, no matter how shitty they are.

Schwiss, provide the universities with an unofficial transcript (download it online), and a note saying that if they care about this course you will send them an official transcript upon request, but doing so to every university would cost you $200. If it's one single unrelated course, they probably won't care and it's ridiculous to have to pay $200 to do that.

Grae, does that really work? Most of the schools specifically ask with a very strict wording for official transcript from every institute where credits were gained, and I fear that by doing what's sensible I'd only give them excuses to drop me from consideration. Then again, I believe most members of admissions committees are humans, therefore maybe understanding my problem. I mean, $200 is quite a lot, but I'd pay it any second if I knew it made the difference between being admitted and not being admitted. Luckily, now that I've begun to review the transcript requirements carefully, it seems that I don't have to send it to every place after all.

Edit: Because my writing does not seem to be very positive today, I want to explicitly add that I thank you for the advice - I surely will do that as soon as I know if it is really okay or not.

Schwiss... I have a similar situation. I have a transcript that needs to be sent to many schools as well, although it only costs me $10 to send it to one school. As you have noticed, many of the schools don't seem to need this transcript, especially if you read everything carefully, I'd say around half of the schools just want official transcripts from schools you will or have received a degree in.

-Riley

schwiss wrote:Grae, does that really work? Most of the schools specifically ask with a very strict wording for official transcript from every institute where credits were gained, and I fear that by doing what's sensible I'd only give them excuses to drop me from consideration. Then again, I believe most members of admissions committees are humans, therefore maybe understanding my problem. I mean, $200 is quite a lot, but I'd pay it any second if I knew it made the difference between being admitted and not being admitted. Luckily, now that I've begun to review the transcript requirements carefully, it seems that I don't have to send it to every place after all.

Edit: Because my writing does not seem to be very positive today, I want to explicitly add that I thank you for the advice - I surely will do that as soon as I know if it is really okay or not.

If you are unsure, email the admissions secretary, tell them the course title and very briefly explain the circumstances. Ask them if it's OK to send an unofficial transcript for this one completely unrelated course and that you would provide an official transcript upon request and mention the cost to you if you were to just send official transcripts to everyone. Some may say to send the official transcript, but I bet a bunch say the unofficial one is fine for now, especially if the course if completely unrelated.

WhoaNonStop, $10, $14, no big difference. The magnitude is same, after all.

Luckily, as you said, after contacting the programs I'm applying to, it really does seem like they do not need the official transcript from the Greedy University. Not all have answered yet, but my $200 has shrunk to approximately $56, which is much much better.

Lastly, thanks everyone for your support during my childish outburst.

It's okay. You were sick of being an international bitch. I can relate because I'm sick of being a regular bitch.

I just had a surreal conversation with the registrar at my alma mater, New Mexico Tech. They charge $15 for your first transcript per academic year and the rest are free (sent to you already sealed and ready for you to send on to the correct school).

I wanted 12 transcripts. I wanted to send them a check for $15 + 3 x $12 = $51 but she wasn't taking it. She kept insisting it was free after the first $15.

So hooo-rah, my NMT transcripts are going to cost $15 plus the cost of postage.