Admissions Office – 1, Applicants – 1

Like I said on Monday, a closed university on the day before applications are due is not necessarily what we would hope for. (Though, on a personal note, I have to say that everything looked really beautiful after the snow had stopped falling, with all the trees covered in white.) We’re working as quickly as we can to process applications and to answer questions, but we have fallen behind. As a result, applicants who had been aiming for the January 15 deadline now have until January 22. The extra days will give us a chance to answer all the questions that have come in (and continue to come in) by phone and email.

And speaking of questions, here are answers that I hear the staff giving out to applicants on the phone:

As you probably know, you can check your on-line application to see if your recommenders have submitted their letters. Once they have, we will be able to “upload” your application, and you’ll be sent a confirmation email which refers you to a second tracking system. (We realize this can seem confusing, but you’ll easily figure it out.)

Once you have received the confirmation email, please give us about ten days to update your application before you expect to log on and find out whether all materials have been received. I opened dozens (hundreds?) of pieces of mail this morning, and didn’t even finish off the pile I was working on. It’s a labor intensive process and it just takes time.

If you have been checking your on-line application, and you see that recommenders haven’t submitted letters, please follow-up with them. Remember, last week I said that we know you can’t control your recommenders, but we expect you to try! If someone isn’t going to come through for you, you’ll need to delete them from the list of on-line recommenders and find a substitute.

Last, I want to say that a one-week extension won’t make a huge difference to most of you. Essays should already have been written, standardized tests should have been taken. At the same time, we want to be sure that we don’t unfairly penalize someone who made a good-faith effort to reach us on Monday, but didn’t hear from us for several days.

Note that Monday, January 21 is a public holiday (marking the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr.) and the university will be closed. If you have “last minute” questions, try to get them in today or tomorrow.

Time for me to grab my letter opener and get back to work!