University withholding transcript

[Merlin]

Kind of off topic but related since I'm still learning how all this college stuff works.

Can someone give me some insight into why schools want all your old transcripts to begin with?

If I took a course at some random school and it has nothing to do with my current degree, why do they need the transcripts?

There are many reasons. Here are a handful that I can think of off the top of my head...

• They want to understand what courses you have taken to evaluate the equivalency of courses at the new school
  
• They want to make sure you don't already have a degree in the subject you're pursuing
  
• They want to understand how successful (or not) you were in completing courses/degrees to gauge the likelihood that you will graduate from their school
  
• They want to calculate your GPA to determine if you qualify for their programs and/or if you are on academic probation at another institution and why
  
• They want to know if you owe money to another school. Colleges tend to work together on this to ensure that such bills are paid before new degrees are awarded
  

I'm sure there are other reasons as well, but that's just the ones that came up in 5 minutes while I responded to this.