We’ve been getting a lot of questions from the high-school community about our Unified Inbox Partner program and how it works. We thought it might be helpful to post a blog with the questions we are hearing. To help answer these questions, we spent some time with our very own Executive VP of Product, Jason Weaver, and he gave us the details about what Parchment’s Unified Inbox Partner program is and what it means for our Parchment K-12 Members.
Jason: The Unified Inbox program is a partnership between Parchment and College, Career, and Life Readiness [CCLR] solutions that enables those services to securely deliver students’ college application documents to higher education institutions and organizations using our widely adopted credential inbox, Parchment Receive.
The goal of the partnership program is to help as many students as possible turn their credentials into opportunities by giving high schools and districts access to the efficiency of the Parchment Receive Network, the most widely adopted tool in undergraduate admissions, regardless of any CCLR solution a school or district may use.
Jason: We have 8 major U.S. and international K-12 credential management partners in the program so far:
Jason: One common misconception about the Unified Inbox Partner program is that schools and districts using a Unified Inbox Partner solution get access to Parchment’s suite of products and solutions. Since Unified Inbox is a delivery solution, it doesn’t include any of the powerful credential management features that are the reasons K-12 institutions use Parchment. The full Parchment Award platform extends far beyond what is offered through our Unified Inbox Partners and streamlines all types of credential management (including transcripts, letters of recommendation, graduation verifications, and more) and support pathways ranging beyond higher ed into workforce and government. When a school or district adopts a Unified Inbox Partner solution, their students’ documents can only be sent to colleges and universities in the Parchment Receive network, not all of the workforce, government, and scholarship members of the network. Because the program is intended to improve the college application process in particular, it only allows schools adopting our partner solutions access to the higher education institutions within the much larger Parchment Receive network, which includes other K-12 schools, employers, licensing boards, and background check companies.
Jason: A Unified Inbox Partner gets access to securely send transcripts and supplemental application documentation to colleges and universities from their CCLR service in our Parchment Receive network. Almost every Admissions Office prefers to receive transcripts and application documents through Parchment Receive, so our partnership program allows K-12 CCLR solutions to better support their students by allowing sending through a secure, trusted technology.
Jason: Parchment Members have access to much more extensive resources than those available through the third-party integration of the Unified Inbox Partner program. Schools that use Parchment Award K-12 enjoy:
Jason: Yes, all the time. Parchment is considered to be the best K-12 credential management solution, and our focus area is different from those of our Unified Inbox Partners. Since our mission is to support learners no matter which direction they are going currently, schools often use Parchment in addition to a Unified Inbox Partner solution to add support for non-college pathways. For a school with a Naviance or SchooLinks account, for example, there are many reasons to consider becoming a Parchment member as well, including assisting students who plan to join the workforce, the military, or obtain a professional license instead of attending college.
Jason: The Unified Inbox Partner program makes the admissions process faster, simpler, and more secure for students and higher education institutions. Parchment’s mission to turn credentials into opportunities applies to every high school student, whether or not their school is a Parchment member. Bringing K-12 CCLR under the Parchment Receive umbrella, allows us to give Admissions Offices in colleges and universities the convenience of the Parchment Receive, which allows them to offer students quicker turnarounds, more visibility for pending applications, better security, and ultimately a better student experience.
