gonna miss the deadline, Am I doomed ?

[m.leo]

Hello fellow scholars,

It has been total chaos for the last couple of days, and apparently, it will last long until the next week. So the long story short, I applied to this graduate program at an ivy league school. Time frame as follows;
11/18 - application started; transcript ordered through credential solutions
11/19 - got a notice that transcript ordered, processed, and delivered to the school's admission department 
11/20 - application completed; the transcript is shown as missing, not yet received.
At this point, I didn't call the admission office as they specifically mentioned on the app portal by saying, "please don't contact them regarding the status of transcripts, whether they received or not since it is a manual not automated and takes up to 7 days to process transcripts."
11/27 - at 12:45 pm ten minutes before the long Thanksgiving break, I received the following email.   
"since there are only a few days before the deadline, the application will be marked incomplete if your transcripts, not received in the admissions office by the application deadline. If you don't think you'll be able to meet the deadline, you should withdraw your application."
I called them around 1:10 pm but ended up voice mail that offices are closed until December 2nd. December 2nd is also the last day for the application deadline. 
11/27 - I received an automated email saying, "admission office will not accept any application material after December 2nd. If you need immediate assistance for the application related questions, you may contact our office directly after December 1st; however, since we are currently busy, it may take up to three business days to address your problem." 
So basically, it says if you need assistance, yea contact to us on December 2nd but don't expect any response cause we gonna respond in three days. When you received an answer, you will already miss the deadline anyway. 
11/27 -  I also sent emails to anyone and everyone and explain the situation. I checked with the "credential solution," and confirmed transcript is delivered.  
11/28 - I received another automated email saying that " your application is incomplete. This is because, in most cases, students' transcripts have either not been received or, more likely, received but have not been checked in by admissions office staff. Please, at this point, do not contact us as it takes up to 7 days to check and process the transcript. " 

If they received everything before the deadline, why I am the one to be punished because they don't process the documents they received in timely manner.

Any advice, guys, as I am about losing my mind ??? Is it over ???
Thanks for reading,

Edited November 29, 2019 by m.leo

[betun]

The automated emails on 11/27 and 11/28 are self-explanatory. The one on 27th states that no application material shall be accepted after the 27th. It does not state that all material accepted has to be processed by the 2nd. The one on the 28th further makes it clear by stating that not having the material checked yet is the more likely case. If you can trust credential solution's delivery report, there is no reason to be worried. As long as the date of receipt is before the 2nd, you have met the deadline. Automated emails have this problem that they are generic and really can only tell whether your material has been processed, but cannot tell you about receipt; that requires human input.

   

[m.leo]

Thanks betun;

Yes, everything you wrote makes sense. But the thing makes me worry about is it says on automated email

“it takes up to 7 days to process the transcript manually, to be shown on app portal as received”  

so based on their logic, they don’t consider any document as received if they don’t process it and if they don’t process it on Monday; my application will end up incomplete. As you say it said on email that they don’t accept any materials after Monday, So at this point I wonder what they consider as accepted? If accepted means received my office before deadline or accepted means received and processed before the deadline? 

[betun]

The processing or acceptance does not have to be till the deadline. Even if they (hypothetically) finally process the document on the 6th, they will enter the date of receipt as the 27th and it will be considered to have met the deadline. As an example, my UC Berkeley submission was on 2nd December, the date of deadline. However, the processing happened on 4th and was application was marked complete only then, 2 days after deadline. The system however, through automated mails and manual login to the application system confirms that everything is in order. 

To cut a long story short, the only thing that matters is having stuff received before the deadline. Marking as complete could happen for weeks afterwards. This is based on my experience during the Fall 216 cycle and the current (Fall 2020) cycle.