Why Haverford College isn’t getting a dime of my money
In the course of applying to grad school, I need an official transcript from my mala mater (look it up, it’s Latin and it means what it says), Haverford College. Trying to get said transcript has reminded me why I felt that Haverford does not care about its students, unless there is money to be made from them.
Case in point is the registrar’s Web site for transcripts. In order to get a transcript, you can mail or fax a form (or visit in person, ain’t that modern), but you can’t even put a credit card on the form, so faxing the form is useless while you wait for your mailed check to get the registrar. Now, the fact that Haverford’s Registrar’s office is in the Stone Age might be forgivable given the size of the college, but then you check out the Alumni giving section of the Web site. There, you can throw money at Haverford using any and all manner of modern payment, with no qualms whatsoever.
Now, of course, the Registrar’s office is hiding behind the facade of FERPA compliance, but I work at a school that is capable of having students identify themselves and request (free) official transcripts without having to mail a check and a printed form (note, we are a public university in one of the worst-funded states for higher ed–i.e. we’re not wallowing in endowment here).
The response I got from the Alumni Director at Haverford only confirmed my feeling that money is the highest priority at the school. In it, she made up several excuses about how much more difficult it is to set up a payment system for the Registrar as compared to Alumni donations, and how there’s a plan in the works to improve the Registrar’s site. Seeing as I work as a Web developer, these untruths really galled me. It has been almost a year since the email, and unsurprisingly those promises are as vacuous as they were when they were made.
So here’s a promise from me, Haverford College, and one that I intend to keep: you’ll never see a dime of my money until your fundamentally greedy attitude changes.
Comments
Timothy Haroutunian (Apr 01, 2010)
I "Topeka'ed" "Mala Mater" and it didn't give me anything useful.
Are you sure you know Latin.
Vasken (Apr 04, 2010)
The vernacular translation would be "evil mother." As in, in contrast to alma mater, "kind mother."
Douche