Admissions Depts: The Good, Bad & Ugly

[LIS Hopeful]

So, this is just my personal experience, and I hope that I'm the only one who's had to deal with an awful admissions dept, but I think it would be helpful to know whether I'm alone in having an admissions dept horror story.

 

Pratt: Their policy only required official transcripts after acceptance, as long as an unofficial copy was scanned & uploaded w/ the application. I included an unofficial scan &, just to be on the safe side, had an official copy mailed as well. 2 weeks after my application was submitted, I received an email from their admissions dept that my unofficial copy was unacceptable & my application would not be considered until they received an official application. 3 emails informing them I had an official transcript mailed to them = No response. Phone call #1 asking if they received it in the mail = "We're still sorting through our mail" (even though it had been 4 weeks). Phone call #2 a week later to follow-up = No response to my voice mail message.

 

At this point, I'm panicking: Why haven't they received my official transcript? What if I send another one & it ends up "lost in their files" again? What if my application isn't even considered because they arbitrarily won't accept my unofficial transcript?

 

Imagine my surprise when I received an acceptance package in the mail the next day, my first one out of all the programs I applied to. What happened to the admissions dept holding my application until they received an official transcript? Did they ever receive an official transcript? I have no idea, since my followup emails & phone calls were, once again, unacknowledged. So I sent in my form declining their admission 2 days ago. Hopefully it won't take them 4 weeks to find it in their office.

 

They may have an amazing program, great professors, and outstanding networking opportunities, but I wouldn't know. If I treated the application process & admissions dept this way, I wouldn't be admitted (or I certainly shouldn't be).

 

Is it an overreaction to expect that admissions depts treat their applicants with the least bit of respect or courtesy, or is it a reflection of the overall program itself?

[sfh09]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect admissions departments to be respectful and courteous of applicants.  Admissions are a prospective student's first introduction to a program and should be a chance for programs to represent themselves well.  While it's entirely possible that admissions is run poorly but the rest of a program doesn't have the same issues, you have no reason to expect that to be so after having that type of experience.  I would've declined, too.  

[Grimm101]

I don't blame you for declining.  I have not experienced anything like that during the application process, but I can only imagine the stress that this caused.  A simple e-mail reassuring you that they had indeed received your transcript would have been nice and would take, I don't know, 1-2 minutes to send!

[LIS Hopeful]

I'm glad that no one else has had a similar experience to mine.

 

I wasn't sure if behavior like this was common or not, since this is my first time applying to a "real college." Not to denigrate my almae matres, but both of the college I've graduated from did not a formal application process or have any admissions criteria for students. My community college accepts everyone (outside of certain requirement for health professional programs) & my state college only requires students be at least 21 years old (GED/HS diploma required, of course). As a result, I never had to go through the entire process of filling out a huge application package, collect letters of recommendation, or take an standardized test (GRE but no SAT).

 

I am very glad the admissions process is over & have been accepted to all 3 of the programs I applied to (never thought that would happen). I haven't had a second thought about Pratt (even though it would save me about $20k by living at home), so I know I've made the right decision.

[arraytherocks]

Sorry to hear this happened to you, and I don't blame you for declining. While what happened to me wasn't as bad, a similar series of miscommunications and lost documents played a pretty big role in my turning down Queens College when I was accepted last admissions season. I've worked in postgraduate admissions offices in the past, and while I know firsthand how hectic things can get at the height of the season, there's absolutely no excuse for jerking prospective students around, losing documents, etc. 

[polhemoth]

I had a fun experience with Kent State:

 

Their Grad admissions department for the university has different requirements than the SLIS.  No biggie, that's typical.

However, the SLIS, which you would think would be more on the ball technically, required paper versions and signed forms from recommenders.

 

The general grad admissions site allows direct uploading.

 

When I contacted SLIS, they assured me that people could submit online and they (SLIS) would still receive them.

 

Just to cover my bases, I had one recommender mail a paper form as per the SLIS website instructions, and the other 2 submitted online.

 

NONE of them have been received, despite all of them being mailed before mid January.

 

No one can explain why this is, and the grad department at SLIS informed me that I must have done something incorrectly.  They also refused to resend the email link for my recommenders to submit their letters online :/

[bluebros]

I had a fun experience with Kent State:

 

Their Grad admissions department for the university has different requirements than the SLIS.  No biggie, that's typical.

However, the SLIS, which you would think would be more on the ball technically, required paper versions and signed forms from recommenders.

 

The general grad admissions site allows direct uploading.

 

When I contacted SLIS, they assured me that people could submit online and they (SLIS) would still receive them.

 

Just to cover my bases, I had one recommender mail a paper form as per the SLIS website instructions, and the other 2 submitted online.

 

NONE of them have been received, despite all of them being mailed before mid January.

 

No one can explain why this is, and the grad department at SLIS informed me that I must have done something incorrectly.  They also refused to resend the email link for my recommenders to submit their letters online :/

I fortunately didn't have an experience as bad as that with Kent State (I had all of my recommendations sent via mail), but it definitely seems like there's a lack of coordination there. I recall one of their webpages saying that recommendation letters weren't necessary, only the downloadable form, but then another page seemed to suggest that letters were also necessary. So I just erred on the side of caution and had them send letters as well. I noticed another lack of coordination with assistantship applications. The Graduate Studies division had one PDF form to fill out, and SLIS had a completely different, more-detailed PDF form to fill out. Neither form allowed you to type your information directly into the form, so I just superimposed text boxes with my information in the appropriate spots. I didn't want to have to fill them out by hand and mail them in because I haven't found the mail to be too reliable in sending my transcripts. So I filled them both out and uploaded them with my application. Then a few weeks later, SLIS posted a new, entirely online version of the assistantship application on its website. It was essentially the same as the PDF I had filled out, but they told me that I would have to fill out the new online application in order to be considered for an assistantship. Ultimately, I ended up filling out three different applications for an assistantship. I actually would've been better off if I had procrastinated until after the online application was posted. Go figure. 

 

Luckily I haven't had any major horror stories yet. My biggest complaint is that a lot of programs don't seem particularly communicative beyond telling you whether or not you've been accepted. With the exception of Michigan, the schools I've applied to haven't really done a lot to keep students in the loop about things. And I've found that they're all a bit coy about funding information. I'd rather they just be upfront about the realistic availability of funding from the beginning, as it would have helped me to target my efforts more effectively. The exception to this is Pitt, which told me that funding is extremely tight right now. But I already knew that anyway from meeting with the director of the Archives program last spring when I didn't get offered any funding from Pitt. 

[LIS Hopeful]

I had a fun experience with Kent State:

 

Their Grad admissions department for the university has different requirements than the SLIS.  No biggie, that's typical.

However, the SLIS, which you would think would be more on the ball technically, required paper versions and signed forms from recommenders.

 

The general grad admissions site allows direct uploading.

 

When I contacted SLIS, they assured me that people could submit online and they (SLIS) would still receive them.

 

Just to cover my bases, I had one recommender mail a paper form as per the SLIS website instructions, and the other 2 submitted online.

 

NONE of them have been received, despite all of them being mailed before mid January.

 

No one can explain why this is, and the grad department at SLIS informed me that I must have done something incorrectly.  They also refused to resend the email link for my recommenders to submit their letters online :/

 

Wow. That's bad. Having 3 different recommendations, both digital and hard-copy, lost in the ether is crazy-sloppy. And refusing to allow your recommenders to resubmit their recommendations online is completely unacceptable. How do they expect your recommendations to be submitted?

 

Maybe you'll receive a "surprise, you've been accepted!" packet like me.

[LadyBibliography]

From the beginning UNC was difficult. The library science department did not follow through with two areas of my application. In one instance I had to contact them. However, the library science office did not pick up the phone on several occasions. Furthermore, they did not return phone calls although I left messages. I e-mailed them a few times and eventually they responded, not in a timely manner. Because the department incorrectly processed my application, I was not eligible for university funding for graduate students and despite their mistake they would not give me a chance for this type of funding. Of all of the programs that I was admitted to, I found that UNC was the most disorganized and the least communicative. The department never sent out a greeting to admitted students or a timeline. Even now I have no information from the department about when they would like admitted students to accept or decline an offer. I wanted to like this program. Initially, they looked like a promising program. Unfortunately, I do not have a favorable impression of their program.