What is Parchment? An Overview for School Counselors
What’s Covered:
- What is Parchment?
- How Can You Send Transcripts to Colleges with Parchment?
- 3 Parchment Tools for School Counselors
- How CollegeVine Can Help Your Students Get Into College
There are countless tools out there for high school counselors and students looking for help, one of which is Parchment. Maybe your school district already uses Parchment, or maybe you’ve never heard of it. Either way, you might be wondering, what is Parchment?
In this post we will provide the answer to that question and more you might have surrounding the platform. We’ll specifically cover the benefits and ways you can use Parchment to your advantage if your school already uses the platform.
What is Parchment?
Parchment is an educational data management platform used by K-12 schools and colleges. High schools that sign up for Parchment can give accounts to students, teachers, and school counselors. School counselors can use Parchment to send transcripts to colleges, keep records of grades and attendance, and more.
Parchment’s platform is able to handle an array of student documents with ease, so you can spend less time worrying about paperwork and more time with your students. The secure, central database for digital school records makes it easy to manage everything with student records, from storage to verification to transfers.
The platform takes data security very seriously. Student information is protected by end-to-end encryption, ensuring only those with granted access can see digital files. Data is indexed with key data points, allowing counselors to search by student name, date of birth, student ID number, graduation year, and social security number.
Another valuable aspect of the Parchment platform is that student profiles last forever. This means that alumni will be able to access their high school documents after they have graduated with ease. Not only does this save you the headache of digging through old records that are hidden or destroyed, but it makes life easier for your students as well.
Finally, Parchment makes the process of sending documents, most notably high school transcripts, easy and efficient. With SENDedu, students can request their transcripts to be sent to a college, counselors upload the documents, and colleges receive the transcripts attached to the student’s application. It’s that simple!
How Can You Send Transcripts to Colleges with Parchment?
As mentioned above, one of the best features for students and counselors to take advantage of is the ability to effortlessly send transcripts to colleges. How exactly does that work though?
The first step in the process is for students to complete a school’s application and request their transcripts be sent to that college on their SENDedu account. Once they have done that, counselors will be notified about a transcript request.
Counselors can click “Process This Order” in the email informing them about the request, where they will see the student’s name, identifying information, and the destination of the document (the college). On the order details page, there is a button to “Select File” where you will be able to locate the student’s document and upload it. Parchment allows you to preview your uploads before sending them to ensure you picked the right transcript.
The college your student applied to will receive delivery updates about the status of the transcript, and once it has been processed and sent, the admissions committee will receive the transcript attached to the student’s application—ensuring everything is together in one place.
Students are able to request more than just transcripts through Parchment. Other documents, like recommendation letters, can also be requested and sent through Parchment. The process of filling a request is the same, regardless of the type of document you are sending. Parchment also allows you to add another user, like a teacher or advisor, to upload supplemental documents like a rec letter.
3 Parchment Tools for School Counselors
1. Send Transcripts and School Reports Digitally
As the previous section detailed, Parchment streamlines the process of sending transcripts and student documents to colleges. SENDedu—the free tool powered by Parchment—is an invaluable resource for counselors looking to save time and effort when sending important information to schools. The platform keeps track and notifies you of all your requests, meaning all you have to do is upload a file and move on to the next one.
2. Record Student Information Such as Grades, Attendance, and Disciplinary Infractions
Parchment’s record management is a data solution built for the 21st century. Counselors won’t need to worry about filing manual records when everything can be inputted and stored on their secure online server. This includes everything from semester grades, yearly transcripts, attendance reports, and health records.
3. Transfer Records to Students, Colleges, and Alumni
The Parchment system is designed to make transferring records straightforward and secure. Whether a current student and their family is trying to access their records, transcripts and recommendation letters are being sent to admissions committees, or alumni are requesting their high school credentials, counselors can share student information with just a few clicks of a button.
Parchment also protects student records with their multiple layers of security. Users requesting documents have to be verified and validated by a real human at Parchment. Not to mention, Parchment complies with FERPA regulations and SOC 2 Type II.
How CollegeVine Can Help Your Students Get Into College
If you’re looking for more resources focused on college admissions beyond what Parchment has to offer, join the school counselor network on CollegeVine.
As a part of the network, you can directly connect with over 300 colleges who are actively recruiting on the CollegeVine platform, as well as put your students into direct contact with these schools. Counselors are also able to track their student’s application process—helping them build a school list and seeing what steps they have completed in the process for each school.
Additionally, CollegeVine’s free AI Rec Letter Assistant is an invaluable resource for counselors that cuts down on the time you spend drafting student rec letters so you can worry less about formatting and more about telling your students’ story.
