December/January Admission Notes

The Holiday break is coming up, which means a large number of students will be completing their application (or part II of their deferred EA application). Here are some suggestions for Regular Decision and Deferred Early Action applicants to review.

1. Patience. Patience is key, as this time of year brings out a rush of supporting materials. We will receive tens of thousands of documents over the next month, and we need time to match these items up, enter them into our system, and have them show up on the application status page. We have made great strides in importing documents, so the status page is almost a live feed, but mailed items take a little longer to add to a file. You do not need to call/email us if you do not see an item on your Status page. Give us 10 business days from when you applied or the document was sent (not requested but actually sent), whichever was later. As well, make sure your name on your documents matches your application data (and both name and email on test scores).
2. Part II for Deferred applicants. For deferred EA applicants, your next step is to make sure you complete part II of the application (the 3 short essays), give us any updates on the Update section, and contact a teacher through your status page about sending in a recommendation. 
3. Test Scores. We will take the January SAT for admissions review for this year and the February ACT (without Writing!), but these are the last exams we can use. In addition, you need to make sure to request as a score recipient when you sign up, as we have to keep on a timeline in order to get decisions out in a timely fashion.
4. Fall Grades. While we do not require fall senior grades due to some high schools not having these ready until mid-February or later, we do heavily suggest you send in Fall grades. These can be sent in through the Update section of part II for Deferred EA applicants or by your counselor sending in an updated transcript. If you have a dip in senior grades, it is better to let us know now (and explain it) rather than us finding out in June and having to possibly rescind an admission offer.
5. Timelines. Review the Timelines page on this blog, as it can give you more details on when things will occur. We do not have rolling freshman decisions, but instead have three decision release dates. One, the EA decision date in November, has already passed, another small group of admissions offers will go out for RD/deferred EA applicants who meet our Early Action admission criteria (see last year's February post for details on this group), and our final decisions will go out in mid-late March.
6. Responsibility. While your parents, your HS counselor, and our office are here to help you with the application process, the ultimate responsibility for your application resides with you. Make sure that we have all the items needed for review, check your emails and your status page for details, and make sure that you have a complete application ready for us to review. The worst calls are always the ones from students where we were not able to make a decision, even with our reminder emails, phone blasts and text updates. Take care of your application.
7. Scholarships. From about mid-November through mid-April, our office will be reviewing files and awarding scholarships to a limited number of admitted students. This is not a quick process, so please be patient as we do this. If you are awarded a scholarship, you will receive a letter in the mail, and email will be sent out, and a scholarship section will appear on your status page. You do not need to call/email about this process, just have patience.
8. File Reading. From early January through about mid-March, the counselors in our office will be reading files. We will be reading, then reading more, then reading even more. As such, we will be limiting travel, we will have "quiet time" in our office where our counselors focus on reading and are not available to answer questions, and we will focus almost all our attention on reading files. Please be patient and think positive thoughts for our sanity.
9. Finish strong. Admission to any university does not end with an acceptance and a deposit. It ends after you graduate from high school, when we review your final transcript. Senior year is a time of celebration, but don't take this to the extreme. We will be looking at senior grades and any new conduct issues, so make sure that you finish up your senior year academically and personally on the right note. I do not want to have to call you and ask why your grades tanked during the last semester, and I do not think you want to talk to me either. Keep on track with things.

Good luck, and Go Dawgs!