February 2, 2010

We need your help!!

So, as the title says, we (mostly me) need your help! I'll give you some background and then let you do the rest.
Today, I received my diploma in the mail. Yipee, right? Nope. My degree looks like something printed from an online template. I'm pretty sure that I could have printed something better from my home printer.
Upon calling the University, all the woman could say was that in order to have it reprinted it would cost $25. Here are the things that I find wrong with it right off the bat:
1. Half is off-centered. For anyone walking by, they wouldn't notice. For someone like me that designs things that must be aligned correctly, I notice.
2. It is on cheap cardstock.
3. It does not have my major listed (the woman at the school says that they only print that on the official transcripts)
4. There is no raised text. It looks like it was printed in bulk from a laser scanner.
5. There is nothing official-looking about it at all.
6. I paid $150 graduation fee for my diploma and cap and gown. I'm not paying $25 to have it reprinted.
7. The signatures have been blown up so big, that I can tell they are digital. It's almost like they are pixelated.

Some people may say that the piece of paper isn't what matters, it's the education in my brain. I agree- However, I feel that the diploma should be a symbol of the education I received. I spent $20,000 at this institution, it's a private, accredited university, I should receive a nice-looking diploma. I want to be able to hang it on the wall proudly! I want people to see it and stop and ask where it's from, etc.

I opened it up before Steven got home and I was disappointed. I thought I might just be over-reacting though. I knew when Steven came home and looked at it and said, "this is it?!" that I wasn't over-reacting.

Steven and I compared this diploma to my Associate's degree from SUU and my High School diploma. My BA diploma came in 3 of 3.

So here is why we need your help. If you have a degree, Bachelor's, Master's, Associates, High School Diploma, anything, I need you. I'm going to write a formal complaint letter to the University. If the issue isn't handled in a professional manner, I will be dropping out of the Master's program at the school and looking elsewhere. I don't want to pay any more money to a school for another cheap diploma. So, if you can, please answer these questions for me. You can comment them here or email them to me at chelsea.dorn@yahoo.com Thanks in advance for your help!

1. What type of degree do you have?
2. Where is it from?
About the diploma itself-
3. Is the text raised?
4. What type of paper is it printed on?
5. Is the seal of the university on it? Where is it at? What does it look like?
6. What is the wording of the diploma?
7. Is there a watermark on the paper?
8. What do the signatures look like?
9. Who signed the diploma? The president, the board of trustees chair?
10. What are the color schemes of your diploma? Black and white? colored? gold-leafed/gilded?
11. Are you proud enough of the diploma itself to display it somewhere?
12. Anything else you can tell me about the diploma?

If you don't want to type out exactly what the wording is, you could just scan a copy and email it to me...I promise I won't steal your identity or anything...I wouldn't even know where to start! I might covet your nice-looking diploma though!

Thanks in advance for your help!

PS I googled diplomas hoping to find out what the standard was, but I found that there are companies that make fake diplomas--and they ALL look nicer than mine. That was just the icing on the cake.

2 comments:

Sarah Zawatski-McClellan said...

Michael got his Bachelor's about 16 months ago from BYU-Idaho. I looked at his diploma when I read your post. The text on his is raised or indented. You can feel it when you rub your finger over it. The seal is at the bottom in the center. With that, it's like when you get something notarized. You can feel that as well. The wording states Michael's name, what he received his degree in and the date in the fancy wording. There are 2 signatures. One is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees and the other is the President of the University. The actual paper is a cream colored card stock. The colors are blue with gold plated over the top. We display it in our home. I couldn't be prouder of him. I think you should find other people that have graduated from the same school and look at their diplomas.

Steven and Chelsea said...

Thanks Sarah! I did ask a few other people I went to school with too! Just waiting to hear back :)