Preparing for graduation

Now, most of you would think that for your graduation, you attend Farewell Assembly and Convocation, get all your transcripts, and send them off to universities.

Simple, huh?

Reality check: No, this does not happen.

In actual fact there are a lot of things that need to be done to prepare for graduation. In other JCs it's simpler because all you do is take A levels. However this may be good practice for future university studies where you are require to file for graduation - meaning you should know when you are going to graduate, what are the requirements, and whether you've fulfilled them.

The requirements that students need to complete before graduation are numerous.

On Convocation Day you will receive your transcripts. This includes your academic transcript, research transcript, student development transcript, and testimonial.

I will talk about these in the order that you need to work on them.

1. Testimonial

I have written about this before, in this post. Please start on it early. Teachers will start writing them in September and it's good to get it out of the way. Yes, it's strange to be tooting your own horn but here's our first step into the adult world of selling ourselves to total strangers.

2. Research transcript

Presentations for your ARP should be over by mid-August. You will get emails about who to contact for ARP presentations. Some departments are nice and chase you to set up timings to present. Others leave it up to your own initiative. If you want to apply to UK universities (especially Oxbridge which are due earlier), you'd want all your research stuff to be shown, so do the presentation as early as possible.

In September, the Office of RIE will ask you to check through your research transcript. You have to look through it carefully and make sure everything is in order. They used the abstract from my very-long-ago research proposal to put in the transcript, and it's very out of date. This is an example of things you may have to change.

Other things include addition of research projects other than your ARP, addition of research-related activities, editing the activities, etc.

Once you are sure everything is done, you can click on the acknowledgement button at the button of the transcript and that's the end of it. No more editing.

3. Student Development Transcript

The headache of the bunch. Thankfully, I was able to remember most of the EC activities that should be on this thing. This includes all sorts of stuff like exchange programmes, participation in competitions, whatever. It's a conglomeration of every single non-research activity you've participated in.

Why is this the most annoying? Because you need to make sure all your activities are there, and the rojak nature makes it hard to collate. Also, you have to email Mr Chua Chong Ping and the teachers-in-charge to get your entries updated. If you want full credit for your leadership, your CIP, and everything else, it must all be here.

Another thing is the newly-added Personal Statement on a Key Achievement. As the name suggests, you have to write a short statement about something in the SDT that means the most to you. 300 words maximum (this is strict).

This can get aggravating because you don't want your statements to overlap. You could write about olympiad achievements, but chances are you'd already write about them in your essays/personal statements for university applications. Same for your CIP, or leadership. For me, I chose my least-elaborated-on event (Pre-U Sem) to talk about, since I didn't want the admissions officers to be reading about the same things over and over again.

The Personal Statement will be due in mid-September. Again, there is also an acknowledgement button. So far I've refused to press it because my transcript is riddled with errors.

4. Academic transcript

Self-explanatory. All your modules and grades, and all the different kinds of CAPs will be displayed here. You can't do much with it until after exams, and even so, there's the nifty algorithm that calculates your best possible CAP, so it's quite easy on the brain here.


Now, why is it important to get these done ASAP?

The reason: Early application.

While UK universities are generally due in early January, Oxbridge are due earlier as mentioned before. So it's nice to have everything done by then, so they'll get the transcript the way it's supposed to look.

But what if I'm not applying to the UK, you say.

Well, US early decision is usually due November 1, which means you need to submit your transcript request form by October 1. If you wait until then to sort out your transcript, you will have no time, because you have all your last-minute assignments and projects and EXAMS to deal with. The buffer space after exams til Nov 1 is just that: buffer. Time must be given to allow the transcripts to fly to the US.

But what if I'm not applying early anywhere, is your next reason for putting this off.

Here's my response: do you really want to be fussing over all this after your exams? You want to celebrate your liberation from studying. Who wants to deal with all the school's bureaucratic stuff then? What's more, for those who haven't started on their college essays (like me, oops), the essays are enough to deal with. Having to negotiate with various teachers for transcript amendments can get quite frustrating, if you are unlucky.

So, in conclusion, do everything early and relax, knowing you have the time to do final edits. It gives you a whole lot more to look forward to after exams :D