Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Undergraduate Advance Diploma
Undergraduate Advance Diploma
United States[edit]
In the United States, the word diploma usually refers to the actual document, especially in the
context of academic degrees earned at the college or university level. That is, Americans normally
draw a distinction between a diploma as documentary evidence of the award of an academic
degree, and the underlying degree itself (which is not called a diploma).
The reason this distinction matters is that many American universities do not print diplomas until
several weeks or months after the dates on which graduates were formally awarded their degrees on
their academic transcripts. In other words, when a diploma says on its face that so-and-so degree
was "given at [city] on [date]", the diploma itself was not physically handed to the holder on that date.
(For ceremonial purposes, the documents handed out at graduation are simply certificates of
participation in the graduation ceremony itself.) Thus, asking alumni when they received their
diplomas is usually pointless; what really matters for most purposes (e.g., occupational licensing) is
when they received their degrees. This important distinction can lead to some confusion when
persons who obtained degrees at American universities are presenting their academic credentials in
other countries.[citation needed]
There are two major exceptions where Americans have merged the document with the qualification it
represents (as seen in other countries). The first is the high school diploma. Second, the term
"diploma" can refer to a specific academic or training award. For example, the Diploma in
Nursing was offered by hospital-based nursing schools.
Historically, American universities emulated their European counterparts by issuing diplomas written
in the Latin language. That is now the exception today: "While most colleges and universities now
issue English diplomas, some prominent holdouts — including Yale, Princeton and the University of
Pennsylvania — still use Latin."[22] At Harvard University, undergraduate degrees began to be written
in English in 1961, leading to a street protest by students known as the "Diploma Riots". [23]
[24]
However, as of 2021, some Harvard graduate schools continue to issue degrees in Latin,
including Harvard Law School[25] and the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
The term diplomate (always ending with an e) is used in the United States to refer to a person
holding a specialized certification in a professional field, although the documentary evidence of this
is traditionally called a "certificate" and not a "diploma". For example, board-certified physicians in
the United States traditionally indicate their board-certified status on their letterhead and business
cards with the title "Diplomate", a comma, and then the name of their certifying board.