With competition for jobs heating up, colleges are looking to give their graduates an edge in the employment market. Will a second transcriptâ??one that focuses on a student’s so-called soft skillsâ??do the trick?
University of Wisconsin officials think so. The 26 universities that make up the state system, which includes the undergraduate business program at Madison, are working on a plan to develop dual transcripts that could be sent to job recruiters and graduate school admissions committees. These dual transcripts would include the traditional one with courses and grades and a second one that somehow validates a graduate’s creative thinking, participation in extracurricular activities, jobs, and internships, and gives those reading it a sense of the person’s life outside the classroom.