Application Lessons Learned

[Sebastian (a lady)]

So DS applied to a school back in Dec.  He finally got around to checking his status and saw that they were missing a bunch of test scores.  I think the scores may have arrived before his application did.  Maybe they didn't know what to do with them and they were trashed?  

 

The school asked for his CB registration numbers.  That took an hour of phone time with CB customer service, because the registration numbers aren't stored in the student account.  The school still cannot find the scores.

 

They suggested resending with rush service.  Not only is Rush Service "not available" at the moment according to College Board, but I'm not really thrilled with the idea of paying to resend scores that we already paid to send.

 

This is a reach school.  DS is firmly in the average profile of the students they accept, but he's not in their top 25%.  He already has full tuition at another school and very nice merit aid from two others.  I have to admit that the fact that they cannot find his scores and seem rather blase about it isn't thrilling me.  

 

Lesson learned is to check the portal shortly after submitting the application to see what is missing.  This would have been a much less emotional issue if it had been discovered six weeks ago.

 

Also, the school uses a Common Application registration number as the access login for their applicant portal.  DS kept looking in vain for an email that would have arrived right after submitting his application.  They actually wanted him to use the CA registration number that he got when he first created his CA account.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

We had a similar experience with one school  (as a mentioned in a different thread).  The school was completely unable to appropriately manage downloading items that were part of Common App (recommendations, transcript, etc).  When dd contacted them about the emails she was receiving about missing elements of her application they put the burden back on her (this school has no online portal). They claimed they couldn't go back to Common App. Contact all the submitters of the various parts and have them resend them directly to the school.  They couldn't get the email of the right person on the first couple tries so they expected dd to keep contacting her recommender to resend the LOR every couple days rather than have the info forwarded internally.  In the end-the went back to CA and downloaded all the parts with no problems but never informed her they had completed this.  She needed to phone to inquire about application completion.  FWIW, this is also the school that scheduled a required interview with her and then failed to make the appointment. She had to call admissions and they tracked down the interviewer who phoned her back-nearly 2 hours after her scheduled time.  The interviewer had clearly not even looked at her application as one of the first questions was about where my daughter goes to school.  I would have thought homeschooling would stand out on her application.  

 

I think the only lesson here is to stay calm and stay on top of the process.  You shouldn't expect that anyone in admissions is doing that for you.

 

I do dislike the fact that admissions offices don't understand (or, perhaps, care) that these kids are looking at 6, 10, or more different schools who all operate differently.  They need to send applicants clear directions on their expectations and methods for monitoring the process and communicating.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

 

I do dislike the fact that admissions offices don't understand (or, perhaps, care) that these kids are looking at 6, 10, or more different schools who all operate differently.  They need to send applicants clear directions on their expectations and methods for monitoring the process and communicating.

 

In this case, I'm pretty sure it's "don't care."  They have a very high middle 50% SAT score.  Not single digit acceptance rate, but around 24%.  They are a profile school, and I'm a little doubtful that it would be affordable unless the NROTC scholarship were moved.  Because of the high student stats, ds isn't the type of student to get merit aid here.

 

Honestly, I'm getting tired of the whole application cycle.  He has an excellent option or three already in hand.  A scholarship for full tuition.  It makes me not that eager to keep chasing after this one.

 

The emails from admissions aren't even that cordial.  No indication that they regret losing his scores or putting him through more hassle.  DS sent a screen shot of the page on College Board that shows when the score report was sent by CB, so it's not like he's making things up.

[ThisIsTheDay]

We had a similar issue with ds's spring ACT scores being sent several months before his November application.  For whatever reason, the college was unable to find them, and it took several phone calls on my part over a two week period to be sure that everything ended up matched together. My big concern was that the scores were not matched until several days after the application deadline; however, the school had no issues with that, and everything that was based on that deadline has proceeded without any wrinkles (including honors and scholarship invitations).

 

It is interesting to note that your school would be so blase about it, considering this is the time of year when students are at least beginning to narrow down college choices.

[swimmermom3]

So DS applied to a school back in Dec.  He finally got around to checking his status and saw that they were missing a bunch of test scores.  I think the scores may have arrived before his application did.  Maybe they didn't know what to do with them and they were trashed?  

 

The school asked for his CB registration numbers.  That took an hour of phone time with CB customer service, because the registration numbers aren't stored in the student account.  The school still cannot find the scores.

 

They suggested resending with rush service.  Not only is Rush Service "not available" at the moment according to College Board, but I'm not really thrilled with the idea of paying to resend scores that we already paid to send.

 

This is a reach school.  DS is firmly in the average profile of the students they accept, but he's not in their top 25%.  He already has full tuition at another school and very nice merit aid from two others.  I have to admit that the fact that they cannot find his scores and seem rather blase about it isn't thrilling me.  

 

Lesson learned is to check the portal shortly after submitting the application to see what is missing.  This would have been a much less emotional issue if it had been discovered six weeks ago.

 

Also, the school uses a Common Application registration number as the access login for their applicant portal.  DS kept looking in vain for an email that would have arrived right after submitting his application.  They actually wanted him to use the CA registration number that he got when he first created his CA account.

 

How frustrating!  Because I am very much on the anxious side about everything to do with the application process, we've been checking portals routinely.  One school had everything they needed except the test scores. We waited two weeks to see what would happen, but by then all of the other schools showed that they had the scores. We contacted the ACT customer service and they were very quick to send the batch and cycle number that the school originally received the test scores in. The school had the scores; they had just overlooked them.

 

It took another school 5 weeks to download the information from the Common Application. They would basically check off one component per week. Drove me crazy.  They finally just checked off everything. The official ACT scores were the only thing that was sent separately from the CA.  The school report was the last thing they checked off.

 

One school has no portal. The student is supposed to call and check in. Thank you for posting your experience and reminding me that we need to do that.

 

[swimmermom3]

We had a similar experience with one school  (as a mentioned in a different thread).  The school was completely unable to appropriately manage downloading items that were part of Common App (recommendations, transcript, etc).  When dd contacted them about the emails she was receiving about missing elements of her application they put the burden back on her (this school has no online portal). They claimed they couldn't go back to Common App. Contact all the submitters of the various parts and have them resend them directly to the school.  They couldn't get the email of the right person on the first couple tries so they expected dd to keep contacting her recommender to resend the LOR every couple days rather than have the info forwarded internally.  In the end-the went back to CA and downloaded all the parts with no problems but never informed her they had completed this.  She needed to phone to inquire about application completion.  FWIW, this is also the school that scheduled a required interview with her and then failed to make the appointment. She had to call admissions and they tracked down the interviewer who phoned her back-nearly 2 hours after her scheduled time.  The interviewer had clearly not even looked at her application as one of the first questions was about where my daughter goes to school.  I would have thought homeschooling would stand out on her application.  

 

I think the only lesson here is to stay calm and stay on top of the process.  You shouldn't expect that anyone in admissions is doing that for you.

 

I do dislike the fact that admissions offices don't understand (or, perhaps, care) that these kids are looking at 6, 10, or more different schools who all operate differently.  They need to send applicants clear directions on their expectations and methods for monitoring the process and communicating.

 

How does this experience make you feel about this school?

 

I have been comparing how the various schools ds applied to handle the admissions process. The first school that accepted ds is also the one that has been so on top of everything. Their website is clean and easy to use. Their communications are prompt and professional. They leave me with the feeling that if your student ran into a bump somewhere, they'd be able to manage it competently.  They definitely make you feel like your student matters and that they'd be in good hands. Some of the other schools, especially ds's top pick - not as much.

[Frances]

How does this experience make you feel about this school?

 

I have been comparing how the various schools ds applied to handle the admissions process. The first school that accepted ds is also the one that has been so on top of everything. Their website is clean and easy to use. Their communications are prompt and professional. They leave me with the feeling that if your student ran into a bump somewhere, they'd be able to manage it competently. They definitely make you feel like your student matters and that they'd be in good hands. Some of the other schools, especially ds's top pick - not as much.

It may be different for grad school, but I actually found the smoothness of the admissions process to be the exact opposite of how things worked once I actually arrived. I did my first year of grad school at a large state university where they somehow lost part of my application, but notified me so late that I ended up hand delivering a new copy. But once I was there, everything ran amazingly smoothly, both in the department and the college as a whole. I then switched fields and went to an Ivy to finish grad school. There were absolutely no issues with the admission process, but that was just about the only administrative type thing that ever was easy. It was a running joke about how even the simplest thing could take so much time and be so frustrating. And the general unfriendliness of some of the support staff was really depressing. Everyone I knew spent the first year wondering what they had done to offend so many people. Eventually people figured out it didn't make any difference what they did, some people we're going to treat them poorly regardless.

 

Ironically, just as I was leaving, the president of my former state u was named the president of the Ivy, so maybe he brought some positive changes with him. And of course this was just my experience with two specific schools, so it may not be generally true.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Next lesson: Be Bold - Just pick  up the phone and call admissions.

 

After ordering new score reports from CB*, and agonizing over the fact that scores still aren't showing up, I finally called the admissions office.  It took a couple transfers and about 5 minutes before the admissions rep was able to bring his scores over manually.  It's still not showing up in his online file, but she said she could see all of the scores.

 

When I called, I explained that I was calling for a homeschooled student in my role as guidance counselor and that I had questions about some of the documentation supporting his application.  I didn't get any sense that they were putting a black mark against his app because I called.

 

DS isn't fond of having phone calls like this.  It may be partly a generational thing.  In this case an actual conversation was able to quickly fix what might have taken a dozen emails and several days.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Sebastian (a lady)

[teachermom2834]

Yes. My son just picks up the phone and calls. He actually has a somewhat personal relationship with the admissions folks at a couple of schools (very small schools) because he has called enough times to check on things and ask questions. This method has been much more effective than email.

[Grantmom]

 

 

Also, the school uses a Common Application registration number as the access login for their applicant portal.  DS kept looking in vain for an email that would have arrived right after submitting his application.  They actually wanted him to use the CA registration number that he got when he first created his CA account.

 

 

Can you explain more about this?  Do different schools handle this differently?

 

 

 

 

When I called, I explained that I was calling for a homeschooled student in my role as guidance counselor and that I had questions about some of the documentation supporting his application.  I didn't get any sense that they were putting a black mark against his app because I called.

 

DS isn't fond of having phone calls like this.  It may be partly a generational thing.  In this case an actual conversation was able to quickly fix what might have taken a dozen emails and several days.

 

 

Is calling them something that is normally frowned upon?  Just asking, because you said it didn't seem like it cause them to put a black mark on his app.  Did you think that was something that would cause them to do that?

 

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Can you explain more about this? Do different schools handle this differently?

 

 

 

 

Is calling them something that is normally frowned upon? Just asking, because you said it didn't seem like it cause them to put a black mark on his app. Did you think that was something that would cause them to do that?

 

Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

I didn't want to come off as a helicopter parent doing the app for her kid. Ds had tried to deal with the admissions office but had not gotten helpful responses. So I was trying to convey that I had m guidance counselor hat on.

 

When you create a Common App account you get a CA registration number. This college uses that number along with last name and date of birth to grant access to the admissions portal.

 

Other colleges sent emails acknowledging the application and issuing their own login number with a link to create an account with the school to follow the status of the app. This was the only school out of four CA schools that just used the number from CA.

[Grantmom]

Okay, thanks for sharing!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

College Board can send score reports to small scholarships as "hand addressed recipient." 

 

DS has applied to a local scholarship.  They want "official score reports" unless scores are listed on transcripts.  His score is listed on the transcript I made, but they don't want to accept that as official for a homeschooler, since it's not from a school registrar.  He sent copies of the paper reports CB sent, but they didn't want that either.

 

The scholarship is small and doesn't have a CB code.  However, I did find that CB will send a hand addressed report to special recipients.  I had to call CB to set this up.