Notary Services at the
Graduate Student Center
are temporarily suspended!

IMPORTANT: Anita Mastroieni's notary commission expired and her new commission has not yet arrived. She is unable by law to perform notarizations until the new commission arrives. We anticipate the new commission won't be active until late summer 2008. Check this website for updates.

A list of other campus notaries can be found at the bottom of this page.

Please read the following information before a notarization.

What you need to bring
Notary fees
Penn Diplomas: Translations, Certifications, Replacements
Other local notary publics

What you need to bring
You must show government-issued photo identification for notary services. Generally acceptable forms of identification are U.S. state driver's and nondriver's IDs, driver's licenses issued by Canada or Mexico, U.S. passports and visas, federal IDs issued to U.S. government employees including military personnel, and alien registration "green cards." Your PennCard is not a valid form of identification for notarizations.

If you are bringing a form to be notarized, do not sign the form in advance...for most notarizations you need to sign in front of the notary. However, the rest of the form should be completely filled out. If you arrive with an incomplete form, the notary will not wait while you fill it out; you'll have to make another appointment.

For Copy Certifications:
If you need a multi-page copy certified, it will be faster and easier to have the copy made by the notary. Otherwise, if you bring the copy to the notary, she must compare each page line-by-line to the original to ensure that the copy is true, and that can take much time. The notary can make copies for 10 cents per page.

Birth Certificates
Death Certificates
Marriage Licenses:
A notary public cannot make certified copies of public documents, such as birth and death certificates or marriage licenses. If you need a copy of a marriage license or a birth or death certificate, you must go to the appropriate public office in the state where the certificate was originally issued. Usually it is the Bureau/Office/Division of Vital Records or Vital Statistics. Refer to the state's web site for more information.

Notary fees are:

• Affidavits: $5
• Acknowledgments: $5
• Certified copies: $5
  • Making copies: 10 cents per page
• Administering oaths: $5

Fees are payable by cash or check only. Make checks payable to "Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania."

Penn Diplomas: Translations, Certifications, Replacements, etc.
The Office of the University Secretary can provide letters of certification from the University to verify Penn degrees awarded, translations of diplomas, and replacement diplomas. Go to http://www.upenn.edu/secretary/diplomas/index.html for more information.

Other local notary publics
If you need notary services and cannot be accommodated by the Notary Public at the Graduate Student Center, there are other notaries on campus:

• Aviva Hirschfeld at Penn Student Agencies, 117 Williams Hall - entrance directly on the west side of Houston Hall. Her notary walk-in hours are 10am-11am on Tuesdays and Thursdays
• Student Financial Services on the first floor of the Franklin Building at 3451 Walnut Street
• Joanne Murray in the Annenberg School, 215-573-6394.
• Commerce Bank at 3735 Walnut Street