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Westchester University is a regional, public, comprehensive institution
in the state of Pennsylvania. Our enrollment is over 15,000.
Before Parchment we processed nearly 20,000 transcripts in our office.
However, the beauty of Avow by Parchment product is, that was
an estimation, we didn't actually know how many we produced. Now that we're
up and live on the system, I can see daily, weekly, monthly reports
yearly reports, I now know actually how many we are producing
We're currently averaging about 1,500 a month. Since we have gone live on Avow by Parchment,
which is about 6-7 months now, we have produced
11,264 transcripts as of this morning. Previously we were
doing transcripts every 5-7 business days to get them out
and it was two full-time dedicated staff. We now say, we're doing it through
one business day. We've accumulated all this extra time in our
staffing that we can now put them to other tasks in the office
The Avow by Parchment product has far exceeded my expectations.
I think I had a good sense of what I wanted to accomplish going
into this, a decent vision on how it would look in the
end, and yet, I still find myself amazed at, you know,
we are, within one business day, we're getting that paper transcript out to the
student, within 45 minutes we're sending out that electronic transcript
As of right now, about 25 percent of our students and alumni are requesting
electronic transcripts. We're looking to see how that
continues to grow as that becomes more the means of which all
schools are starting to send and receive electronic transcripts
The pressure to provide great service is always something that I feel internally
certainly, the university wants us to provide great service, that's one of our missions and our
goals, but I've always been that way as well, and so
and especially through technology, to me, that's something that I enjoy, that's something
I know that our students today, with Facebook and Twitter and smartphones and
laptops and everything, they're certainly technologically-savvy
so for me, it's how do I make that connection between the two?
Middle of the night "Oh I forgot to get, for my graduate
application, to the university I need to get a transcript," and they
can order it at two in the morning, order an electronic transcript, and before
3 a.m., it's sitting in that person's email box for the next morning.
I think of parchment as a partner to Westchester University, especially
through the implementation process, however, I also look to
the company as a solutions provider. So even though we went live with
the entire suite of software services for online
transcript ordering and electronic transcripts, I've come back to the
company and said, "What are some other things that we can be doing? Here are some ideas I have."
I would definitely recommend Parchment to any of my colleague
institutions in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education
as well as any of my colleagues across the country. I tell them that
there's definitely a cost-savings, there's definitely a benefit to your office,
but really you've got to look at it as the greater service you're now providing to your students and alumni.