Try scanning at 200dpi, open in photoshop and reduce image size by 50% or so (depending on how big the scan is), when you save as pdf go into compression settings and set it to as minimum as possible so that it is still readable (play around with the settings and make sure not to save over the original). If you have adobe acrobat pro, open the files in that and select "document" then "reduce file size..." that's what I did and it brought some pages down to as low as 40kb.

Are you using windows or os X? I can help with the latter.

600k size limit seems like a test in torture. Who is hosting columbia's ftp? Craigslist? gah

I know! Egh.
A friend helped me get it down to the size.....the images like like poo. But whatever, at least it's done.
Thanks for your help anyway, arketkt.

with the resolution that poor, the trick is to edit your grades to make you summa cum laude.

This is funny. Columbia just emailed me and asked for higher res transcript pages, faulting the limited upload size of their application software.

that's a good sign...