Is this a normal progression for waiting it out? 2/20-7/09+?

[darkknight9]

Timeline for application

('Graduate Studies @ Nebraska' is an ad promoting grad school and 'Nebraska - Graduate Newsletter' is an email update for current applicants)

2/20/12 UNL Application for admission (received)

2/20/12 Account Password information

2/20/12 UNL login Info

2/20/12 University of Nebraska-Lincoln Graduate Studies Application (########) Director of your Dept Admissions

2/20/12 Application Fee can be waived

2/21/12 darkknight9, Welcome to GAMES at UNL, Director of Admissions

2/22/12 Password Change

2/23/12 Graduate Studies @ Nebraska

2/23/12 Application fee will be waived

2/23/12 Finance Rep: App fee will be waived

2/25/12 Reference letter received.

2/27/12 Finance Rep: App fee waived

2/28/12 Money returned

2/28/12 Reference letter received.

3/05/12 Graduate Admissions Management & Evaluation System, Application Status Update

Dear Kirk Coughlin:

Your departmental graduate application status has been updated. Your application status in the College of Engineering - Materials Engineering is now:

Submitted - You have submitted your application for consideration. Faculty will soon be assigned to review your application.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact me at ########@unl.edu.

Sincerely, Director of your Dept Admissions (contact info)

3/27/12 Graduate Studies @ Nebraska

4/19/12 Graduate Studies @ Nebraska

4/20/12 Student Family Housing

4/24/12 Request for status update

4/27/12 Person from a different department: I am responding on behalf of Director of your Dept Admissions. I checked your GAMES application, and it appears that at least one more letter of reference is needed. (**status was still 'waiting to be assigned' with no indication that any paperwork was missing.**)

4/27/12 Reference letter received.

5/16/12 Request for status update

6/26/12 Request for status update

6/26/12 Nebraska - Graduate Newsletter

7/02/12 Changing Engineering Specialty Dept Secretary

7/02/12 Application department update New Director of your Dept Admissions

7/02/12 Application status update New Director of your Dept Admissions

7/09/12 Newest papers will be given to selection committee tomorrow, will now take 'weeks' to process.

Weeks. School starts for my elementary school aged son August 14th in the Lincoln area. Please for the love of all thats holy tell me that this is not what regularly happens during these admission cycles. If I'm not admitted this year and I try again next year I don't know if I can handle this kind of last minute, pick everything up and move 500 miles just before school is supposed to start, let alone already have my son behind in his schooling.

Thanks much for any advice or support,

-dk9

[Usmivka]

I've not heard of anything like this before. You were supposed to commit to a school in April. The corollary of that is that they should have had their **** together long before that so you could make a choice (assuming you, like most other applicants had applied to multiple universities, no reason for them to assume differently).

Have you called the admission department? I would call and tell them that weeks is unacceptable, you have a family and needed to gear up for a move a month ago. If they want you as student, they will fast track it. If they don't, well, can you honestly say you want to work with people as unprofessional as this?

Other opinions out there guys?

EDIT: I'm going to partially backtrack--I shouldn't confuse administrators with the faculty, maybe they are lovely. I just assume the faculty committee is who decides on admits, but that could be a poor assumption, and the whole kerfuffle may be outside their control.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Usmivka

[darkknight9]

I am in contact with the admissions dept far more than they are comfortable with, I assure you. I appreciate your candor, and will take the complete lack of other responses as a hint that this is to be expected or that I have somehow hosed things up too badly for anyone to want to comment on. Thank you Usmivka for your help.

[TropicalCharlie]

darkknight9 - Delayed/ late admission is a common practice in professional programs like medical and pharmacy schools. A friend of mine was not admitted to his first choice PharmD program pretty much until the very end, leaving him 2 weeks to move 2500mi. For traditional graduate programs, however, I have never heard of such a late admission response either. Are you able to get in touch with current students in the program and seek some insight? They may not have info on the current admission process but may be able to shed light on previous years.

[darkknight9]

Are you able to get in touch with current students in the program and seek some insight? They may not have info on the current admission process but may be able to shed light on previous years.

I have. There evidently might be some serious medical issues with the chief decision maker in the process. Until he/she recovers most things are on hold. This is of course told to me on the sly and not official by any stretch.... but it makes a little sense.

[ANDS!]

Well you left out the part of the insane personnel change. That is not usual, and thus your application process may not be usual. Also it appears you have a pretty late application date (is this for a PhD or masters) and that your application wasn't entirely complete. It is really only in May and June that there is an unexplained lag in communication.

Edited July 15, 2012 by ANDS!

[darkknight9]

Well you left out the part of the insane personnel change. That is not usual, and thus your application process may not be usual. Also it appears you have a pretty late application date (is this for a PhD or masters) and that your application wasn't entirely complete. It is really only in May and June that there is an unexplained lag in communication.

I'm unaware of any 'insane personnel change' that might be going on. Also, I have emails from the system that tell me when the initial was received (2/20) and when all the materials were in (3/5) again, according to the system. It wasnt until much later that luckily someone outside the dept returned my missives and informed me that something was missing. I'd say the lag occured during April, May, and June. Which, around here, tend to be seen as some pretty important times for shoring up your decision based on offers made, etc. However, as I said just above your post, I have discovered that someone in the dept was having some medical issues. So this type of delay was making more sense. I don't want to pass judgement or anything with this kind of knowledge. I don't know how reliable the info is yet, but no amount of my anxiety is worth worrying over if any part of these med problems are true. I have had family members with major med issues similar to this and I don't wish that on anyone. To answer your question, this is for a PhD.

[ANDS!]

There evidently might be some serious medical issues with the chief decision maker in the process.

That is a pretty major personnel change. Also, all my applications were "accepted" before letters of recommendation were in, so it is not surprising that the system thought everything was A-ok - and it turned out that it wasn't.

And I would agree that this is highly unusual, but your program already has a highly unusual application deadline. I received most of my Acceptances/Rejections by that time.

[darkknight9]

Ahh. I would have called it a personnel change if the person was replaced on a temporary or permanent basis. But from all outward appearances, no one is stepping in to take the persons work. They are awaiting the persons return to the department.

[darkknight9]

Well, just to update anyone still following: August 10th the dept secretary told me she'd get back to me. No response since and classes started today. I'm kinda bummed.

[prettyuff1]

did you ever hear back from the department.. even though school has started you may want to find out what happened to your appication..

I had an application lost from being sent to the department from the admissions office. What was an even bigger problem was the admissions department sent the file electronically..Admissions had electronic proof but the department said :blink: we dont know what happened to it.. Since i had 4 professors interested upon reviewing it, they offered to interview me with the 2013 application cycle..

You never know what happened and you deserve some closure. But TBH, if the school can't give you the common decency of a no, then i would think twice about the state of affairs..

[ANDS!]

Are you located in the town? At this point I would have initiated some face to face time to get an answer. If not, I would simply send a letter to the secretary and anyone else you think would need to know about this situation, that you're simply moving on. Any place this disorganized you really don't want to deal with anyway.

Was this the only school you applied to or wanted to attend?

[darkknight9]

My latest news:

Tuesday, August 21, 2012 11:08 AM

We may yet have an answer for you for this semester. I just checked with a committee member, who said that she gave your file to another faculty member for review. I will check with them to see how the review is going, and get back to you.

Sincerely,

(Person whom I have pestered quite a bit but she'll still talk to me, name removed), Graduate Secretary

I am not in town. I am still in Wisconsin, moving to Minnesota to look for work. I also applied to a few other places. MichTechU was the absolutely nicest about the their rejection, including tips on strengthening my application, Iowa State was an email, all others used the mail or the phone with the exception of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, whom I had to call to get an update and was asked if I had gotten a letter or notice of acceptance. I answered "no" and the young female voice on the phone said "then clearly we don't want you." And before I could even breathe to thank her for her time, she hung up. So compared to my local alternative, having to wait seems not at all bad.

Just chugging along, hoping that I don't get trapped into a job and having to get a masters instead of a PhD with the "friendly locals".

[darkknight9]

Although, at this point if it *is* still going to happen for this semester, look for my new blog entitled: How to stay at the library until closing time, then live out of your car for awhile.

[prettyuff1]

Wow. I'd start thinking about applying this coming cycle

[darkknight9]

Well, in case any of you are still subscribed to this thread, surprise! They still haven't updated anything.

 

 

 

 

 

Joy.

[katieliz456]

Yikes :/ that is just ridiculous! Did they accept anyone to your program for the school year beginning in August 2012, or did they just "skip" that year's cohort and keep all of the applicants' files on hold until this upcoming year? So weird!

[ShiningInShadows]

Fascinating.

 

I applied to UNL back in November for the psych phd program. My bar is at the 3/4 mark as well even though I was told I'm not getting an interview/record number of applicants from my POI. I checked it a few days ago out of curiousity (as the dangling along of another program is grating at my mind). Makes me wonder what it will look like in the fall.

[fuzzylogician]

FWIW as far as I know I'm still waitlisted at one school (close to 5 years now!). Never got notified of acceptance/rejection. Some schools just suck at handling rejections.