According to msnbc.com, a clever cat named Oreo earned her high school diploma with the help of her owner, Kevin Collins, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of central Georgia. This was part of an experiment to expose Internet diploma mills. Such mills will, for varying fees, give you an online test, clues to the correct answers if needed and ample time to complete the test and grant you a diploma.

Some mills will even go so far as to offer diploma verification services to its “graduates” for employment assistance.

This raised some interesting questions as to the protocol MATC goes through to verify the legitimacy of diplomas that are presented by those applying to the school.

According to Sarah Adams, Registrar and Director of Enrollment Services, the college looks at a variety of things to ensure the authenticity of its applicants. Some of these safety measures include looking to see if “it has a school seal, if it has an official signature, and how things have been typed.

“You can tell if the type is a little raised, we look for missing grades, to see if things have been tampered with and the type of paper used. We have staff that, as they are entering the transcripts, if they notice any (signs), then it goes to one particular person who does a check,” said Adams.

These checks may include calling the named school, Internet searching and other references designed to assist in these matters, such as the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Offices.

There are also workshops to help you determine what degrees are real.

The staff does training in these areas at least once a semester to maintain the quality of their work. Adams also said that GEDs are different from high school diplomas. “They are issued by the state and can easily be verified.”

In the rare case a student cannot produce a transcript or it comes from a school that MATC does not accept, then students can take a GED test and then get their degree.

“It is not that we are trying to be difficult, they are not just there for requirements. It is because (students) need to have that basis in order to move further in a program,” said Adams.