Stay on top of things

[LateAntique]

I decided to post this here instead of 'Transcripts' because it pertains to 'waiting it out'. I completed my Catholic University application back in November. Knowing that they have rolling admissions, I thought it was odd that I had not yet heard anything. So I emailed the admin asst. of the program (who is incredibly nice, by the way - it's refreshing) to ask if she knew of a timeline that we would start hearing back. She said that professors are reviewing the files this week and will meet next week to chat about who gets in. "Great!" I thought. I emailed the head cheese, someone with whom I've been in contact since last summer, to ask if he wanted me to send my updated transcript since I did really well last semester. He said something along the lines of: "I don't think your application has even come into the Dean's office yet (from admissions, that is)."

WHAT?!?!!

The website says my app is complete - but I call today to find out that they're missing a transcript (a transcript from another school I attended awhile ago and was told it was ultimately not important). I had that school send the transcript *twice* and it's still not there? Is this a conspiracy? I told her I'd mail my unofficial copy of this transcript out tomorrow if she would please just get my application into the professors' hands.

Long story short: Be diligent. Call these schools to make sure they've really got everything together. Had I not dropped a professor this note, next week would have gone by and I would never have known my application wasn't in their hands.

[NEPA]

Wow. I'm glad you found that out so you can get the whole thing resolved. I have nightmares of random and seemingly unimportant pieces of my application materials (like transcripts of college courses I took while in high school) getting lost and dooming my application.

[Pamphilia]

Jesus, how awful. I'm glad you got it sorted out in time!

[whereiscarmen]

Yes, this has happened to me too. I have had to call every school to make sure everything is there because I'm now paranoid.

[cuppycup]

Similar things happened to me with 3 out of 6 applications. If I had not followed up to make sure everything was complete, I would have been SOL. Now I still may be SOL, but at least it won't be because of an error.

[waytooold]

The website says my app is complete - but I call today to find out that they're missing a transcript (a transcript from another school I attended awhile ago and was told it was ultimately not important). I had that school send the transcript *twice* and it's still not there? Is this a conspiracy? I told her I'd mail my unofficial copy of this transcript out tomorrow if she would please just get my application into the professors' hands.

Long story short: Be diligent. Call these schools to make sure they've really got everything together. Had I not dropped a professor this note, next week would have gone by and I would never have known my application wasn't in their hands.

I have to say that this part of the process-- whereby everything goes into a black box with zero transparency -- is bugging me. Perhaps it is because I have been running a business for many (many, many) years, but I cannot understand what our fees are paying for if not a courtesy e-mail telling us the status of our files, or the posting on a website of same. I have applied to one program (app submitted in November) with a January 1 deadline. The website states they will not take calls about file status, but everyone will receive notice of file status the week of January 18th. Hello. It is well past that week and I have heard nothing. Since the website states we should not call, I have to hope against hope that all is in order.

Most of my due dates were January 1 or January 7. I have received one e-mail acknowledging my application from any of the six schools I have applied to. As a consumer, this is utterly ridiculous and I'd like to tell them that. As an applicant, I'm left to assume all is well.

Sorry about your experience. It just should not have to be like this.

[LateAntique]

I have to say that this part of the process-- whereby everything goes into a black box with zero transparency -- is bugging me. Perhaps it is because I have been running a business for many (many, many) years, but I cannot understand what our fees are paying for if not a courtesy e-mail telling us the status of our files, or the posting on a website of same. I have applied to one program (app submitted in November) with a January 1 deadline. The website states they will not take calls about file status, but everyone will receive notice of file status the week of January 18th. Hello. It is well past that week and I have heard nothing. Since the website states we should not call, I have to hope against hope that all is in order.

Most of my due dates were January 1 or January 7. I have received one e-mail acknowledging my application from any of the six schools I have applied to. As a consumer, this is utterly ridiculous and I'd like to tell them that. As an applicant, I'm left to assume all is well.

Sorry about your experience. It just should not have to be like this.

I had the exact same thought last night: what am I paying all this money for? If I pay a school up to 100 dollars on an application fee, I anticipate that buys me a little more than a folder in which they shove all my paperwork, not considering what is or isn't in there. Likewise, the website has said 'Application Complete' for months now - what would I have thought had next week come and gone and nobody had seen my application?

[GeoFemme]

This happened to me too. I'm applying to two programs at the same school, and luckily I received a call letting me know that one department hadn't received my GRE scores yet (I had sent them in early October). Finally got in touch with the grad enrollment center - turns out they were filed under "multiple applications" and never made it to either dept. I'm just glad it got resolved before the deadlines passed!

[grad_wannabe]

The times that I've tried to contact schools to check up on things, they told me in a somewhat curt manner that they "simply did not have the time to look for individual documents" and that "if anything is missing by the time we start reviewing applications, we will let you know."

I was under the impression it was frowned upon to check up on applications??

For my last application, I emailed the grad program coordinator (with whom I'd already been in contact) some extra writing samples he'd asked for. In the same email I told him, "Ok, both parts of the online application are done, and I've received confirmation that all of my recommendation letters and transcripts have been received. Thank you for all your help, and I hope I'll be talking with you soon."

That 'confirmation' was in the form of the online delivery confirmation I'd paid extra for on my transcript package, my two online rec letters getting automatic "A letter has been successfully uploaded for you" emails and my one offline rec letter writer telling me, "Don't worry, I sent it in. Good luck." The department itself never sent me any confirmation of anything.

I never got a response from the guy. I hope I didn't come off as pushy.

Edited January 29, 2010 by grad_wannabe

[astroturf]

I was under the impression it was frowned upon to check up on applications??

I'm wondering this too. Most of the departments I applied to said something to the effect of "don't contact us, we'll contact you if something is missing/we require more info." Two schools did contact me about missing materials, so I guess I thought that's how the system worked. Reading this post is starting to make me paranoid that I should be checking up, especially since the applications I can access say they're complete.

[growing19]

I hope it's all sorted out now, LateAntique. Best of luck!

I struggled with whether to follow up as well, because I feel that it's my responsibility as the applicant to make sure everything is complete. I ultimately decided to be proactive. Only in one case did that involve contacting a school that requested applicants not to enquire; to be clear, it was because something major appeared to be missing on my status page, and I was concerned that waiting until they contacted me would not allow enough time to correct a problem, if one existed. So I emailed, on the logic that they could easily ignore it or delay responding if they were too busy. However, I received a very kind reply that same afternoon, assuring me that my application was complete. It was a huge relief just to have that confirmation, so my two cents is to contact them if something seems truly amiss with your app. Just try not to panic, as it seems things are easily resolved if you stay on top of them. Good luck, everyone.

Edited January 29, 2010 by growing19

[piccgeek]

I had something just like this happen, but with an LOR instead of transcripts (I have to say that my UG has the best transcript system ever. It's free, online, painless, and in the 8 schools I've applied to over the last 2 years they've never failed me. So, you know...that's something) and in last year's round I was scrambling two full weeks after the submission due dates dealing with Kaplan crap. You are absolutely right about staying diligent and being proactive--if I hadn't been emailing the admin assistants I would have been totally screwed both years. Last year when I was applying to my UG for the MA, I actually had to go see the admin asst in person a couple times to get all the GRE stuff straightened out! The thing is, even though we've payed them to process our applications, it's our futures on the line, so we need to be ever vigilant (aaaaaand now I feel like MadEye Moody...)

[piccgeek]

A little relatedly, I really appreciate how Purdue emailed this week saying they had everything, and that I should not expect to hear before March7-April 15. Good on them! They kept in touch.

Purdue is my UG and current school for MA, so that would be Jill Quirk and yeah....she's amazing and she basically keeps the English department alive. When she retires the whole program is doomed.