This week’s Admissions Office calendar

Fletcher is still a quiet place with most students still on their winter break, but the Admissions Office isn’t quiet at all.  We’ve had a few visitors today for the last of the on-campus interviews, and two of our Graduate Assistants — Cece and Cindy — are back at work.  Naturally, the inbox is keeping them busy, as folks send last minute questions.

Tomorrow (Tuesday), the Admissions staff will be meeting off-site for the day, but Cece and Cindy will take care of your last-minute application questions.  And then the following day (Wednesday) is the January 10 deadline, when we’ll receive most of the year’s applications.  Naturally, I hope you’re not waiting for the ultimate last minute (11:59 p.m. EST (UTC-4)) to submit your application, but I reluctantly concede that it’s too late to pester you to submit early.

Meanwhile, review of the applications submitted by December 20 for the PhD program and the Map Your Future pathway is well underway.  PhD applicants will still need to wait until late March to receive their application results, but MYF applicants will hear this month.

Back to all the January 10 applicants.  What can/should you be doing now to ensure smooth submission of your application?  I’m going to assume you’ve completed most parts of it, so the big task now is a careful proofreading.  Make sure your essays are correct, no longer have editing marks in them, and don’t include mention of any of the other schools to which you’re applying.  (Yes, that happens.  Too often!)  Double check your email and mailing address.  For the mailing address, please use standard punctuation and upper/lower case.  It’s amazing how many people provide us with an address that isn’t actually useful for mailing things.  Take a few minutes and write out abbreviations that might not be clear to us, even if they’re completely clear to you and your peers with the organization.  And do return to your essays and make sure they answer the question we’ve asked.

Above all, remember that the application you send us is the one we’ll review.  Unless there’s a technical problem that results in an illegible attachment, we expect you to get it right the first time.  So proofread proofread proofread!  And we look forward to reading your application.