Some Wisconsin high school students will be able to send their official transcripts to college electronically this year under a new statewide e-transcript initiative.

The initiative is an attempt to get state high schools to offer online transcripts of courses and grades, one of the last pieces of the college application that can’t be sent electronically for many students.

"It really removes the hassle factor," said Mari McCarty, vice president of WAICU, the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, and part of a statewide task force that implemented the initiative. "The application itself is already online. The one piece that remains stubbornly on paper is the transcript."

Twelve Wisconsin high schools are taking part in a pilot program which will allow students to send electronic transcripts at a discounted rate: $2.55 per transcript rather than around $5. The high schools, which must pay to use the e-transcript software, also get a discount through the statewide initiative.

The project was spearheaded by a task force made up of education officials from the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Technical College System, the state Department of Instruction, and state private colleges.

It will mean that students will have the power to order their transcripts online and track the progress, rather than relying on their school’s guidance office, McCarty said. Electronic transcripts are also cheaper for high schools and colleges because they cut down on administrative costs, she said.

Although there are only 12 high schools in the state participating in the pilot program, officials are hoping electronic transcripts will soon become commonplace at state high schools. Area high schools participating in the pilot are McFarland and Verona.

The UW System provided about $51,000 so that any high school in the state can sign on with Docufide, an e-transcript vendor, at the discounted rate for the next three years, said Larry Rubin, associate vice president at the UW System.

Wisconsin is one of five states in the Midwestern Higher Education Compact to implement an e-transcript initiative.

All public and independent colleges in Wisconsin will accept the e-transcripts, as well as 4,000 other colleges and universities nationwide.

Rubin said the initiative task force would like to make the system completely free to Wisconsin high schools and students, but they need to find $2 million to fully fund the program.