Kismet1992

It depends really on whether you've applied for a Masters degree or a PhD. It's not at all necessary to contact them if you're only doing a masters, but with a PhD it's important to contact professors with similar research interests to you. If you contact professors, you can gain a better understanding of whether their research objectives are similar to or compatible with yours, making it easier to make a decision on which school and program is the best fit for you.

You should be fine, SOPHAS doesn't mail in applications anymore, so the schools you're applying to will recieve it electronically as soon as it's verified, maybe even before that.

That's really odd, maybe try calling SOPHAS customer service to ask them? I guess it could be a good sign that the schools have acknowledged your application, maybe it means you won't have to wait as long for your application to finally be verified

Verified means that they've checked your coursework section and matched it up to your transcripts. It can take up to 6 weeks! But if you've studied at a non-US/Canadian school, it doesn't take as long. My advice is submit your application as early as you possibly can to ensure that your application makes it to the designated universities on time. Good luck!

Yeah I was pretty surprised that they'd done it so quickly! But it's only because the coursework section doesn't apply to students who are attending a non U.S. or Canadian university. Good luck with your application! Hopefully SOPHAS will pull themselves together and get a move on. Their website is so vague, and the instructions are outdated and inconsistent with one another! The good news for you is that once it's finally verified (which will hopefully be VERY soon!), you no longer have to wait for their policy of mailing out applications once a week. Once the application is verified it is immediately electronically sent and available to the universities you've applied to

Just got an email from SOPHAS confirming that my application has been verified! I guess this is due to the fact that my recommenders submitted their recommendations very early (before I e-submitted my application), and that there was no U.S. coursework to verify. The e-mail stated that SOPHAS no longer MAILS applications to universities, it's all done online now, which I guess is much better. Does anybody know whether or not universities themselves send confirmation e-mails that the application has been recieved?

Hey guys, It's my first time on here. I just submitted my application through SOPHAS two days ago. Was wondering if anyone else on the forum has already submitted their application and has already had their application verified?? I was a little late with submitting mine, and deadlines are approaching and SOPHAS says it takes up to 4 weeks to verify US/Canadian coursework, but I'm an international student and that section doesn't apply to me. Does that mean it won't take up to 4 weeks for them to verify it? Thanks!