Do I really need to submit an “official” and an unofficial transcript? What exactly is an official transcript? Should I mail or email the transcript to your office?

You must submit an official and unofficial transcript from the US-accredited undergraduate institution you received a degree from. If you did not attend a US-accredited institution for undergrad, you must submit official and unofficial transcripts from the US-accredited graduate program you received a degree from. Graduating seniors should submit their most recent transcript. Nexus applicants should submit their undergraduate transcript.

Official Transcript

An official copy of your transcript is one that is emailed to the PiAf office in a format that is certified and sealed. You must have your institution’s registrar’s office email an official transcript directly to piafapp@princetoninafrica.org. This can be sent directly via email or through an online transcript verification service such as Parchment, Credentials Solutions or The National Student Clearinghouse. An official transcript can only be emailed to PiAf if your university provides official transcripts in an electronic format. These electronic transcripts are considered official documents and can be validated because they have been digitally signed and certified by your institution’s registrar’s office. The transcript should be sent from your university’s online system directly to PiAf. If your university does not offer electronic official transcripts, please contact your university’s registrar’s office for more information about ordering a digital official transcript. You can then email piafapp@princetoninafrica.org for further instructions. Please note, you cannot forward an electronic transcript to PiAf.

Unofficial Transcript

In order to submit the application, you will need to upload an unofficial copy of your transcript to the online application. This unofficial copy is merely a scan of your official transcript once it has been removed from the official envelope provided by your university’s registrar’s office or downloaded via your university’s online records system (remember that once the transcript is unsealed it becomes unofficial). Since you are submitting one transcript to PiAf with your application, you may need to order two copies of the transcript from your registrar’s office (one to open and upload to the online application and one that will be emailed to the PiAf office). If your unofficial transcript is an electronic version, please be sure that the PDF is not digitally sealed or coded in a way that it will expire or not be visible to multiple users. Some electronic official transcripts will have expiration coding; it is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that your unofficial transcript will remain available to the Review Panel during the entire application and review timeline (through February after the application deadline).

Note: Each university has its own system for the procurement and delivery of official transcripts. Please contact your university with questions regarding this process.

Posted in: The Application