<p>SBdad:</p>
<p>Send another email, asking whether the first one was received and if not, here is the gist of the enquiry. Sometimes, people get so buried by email that some of the messages stay buried and unanswered.</p>
<p>a week is no time at all in education land
My daughter attended a public school where emails to the principal that were directly concerning her required IEP and were followed up with notes in her mailbox were not answered ever.
I would wait another week or more, and then send a follow up email assuming the email had been lost or screening by the spam filter.</p>
<p>This is what I think about adcoms encouraging emails-
first I take with a grain of salt any comment like that- just too much experience with * real life*.
I didn't email adcoms, because we could find all the answers to our questions either through the web site or from other sites.
We did email other depts at the school- and while the school was in session, received timely responses, although if I really needed a timely response I called, because then I could know my question was recieved and it was much more personal.
I agree that this is a very busy time for colleges- additionally they could be having trouble with their computer systems- so if there is a question an oldfashioned call or note may be better.
They also maybe practicing triage with their time-the ones that have a time constraint are answered first- the ones that are general questions that aren't time related answered later- that would be more efficent & how I would want them to spend their time once my child was enrolled.</p>
<p>And of course if it really bothers you, as it seems it does, go elsewhere with your consumer dollars- lots of other places just waiting to take your money :)</p>
<p>SBDad, call me the contrarian on this thread, but I agree with you for all the reasons you stated.</p>
<p>I might do as Marite suggested and send a follow-up e-mail. If the response is not satisfactory, then my reaction (going back to your original question) would be to ignore the adrep and the school.</p>
<p>There are too many wonderful colleges out there that are more than happy to give prompt, personal, and courteous attention--no matter the time of year. It has been our experience that there is no way of predicting such ahead of time. Trial and error does tell its own story. S has had experiences, both good and otherwise, with a handful of top schools. Sometimes I've thought, "Wow. Now I know how XXX earned its reputation." Other times, I've thought, "Gee, how much extra would it have cost to hire a __________ [clerk, proofreader, tech, etc.]?"</p>
<p>I say go with what your gut tells you.</p>
<p>I think if a school is a class act, they will respond to emails. My son was so impressed with Williams in that vein that we visited. (this was not an easy visit) It was a fun visit for me, a lark, yet costly and my son learned in the end that it was not for him in his field of interests but an email can make all the difference. If he wrote to a place and didn't get a response, it got crossed off his list.</p>
<p>My D had a similar experience with one of the schools she applied to. In the end she rejected their offer of enrollment. Her thought, "if this is how they treat me when they should be on their 'best' imagine how I'll be treated once they've got me in 'their clutches'"</p>
<p>I've raised her well. (tee hee)</p>
<p>Yes you have "just"aMom.</p>
<p>I might suggest emailing the main address for admissions as one never knows an individual's schedule or for that matter if they have done anything weird with the email system after school was out. (computers are always a mystery to me). Probably I would just pick up phone and call, which is usually my first inclination anyway as I don't trust email (its all some big black hole in my imagination) :). My son had questions re APs and such toward the end of his senior year and just called admissions and received answers right away after being transferred to the "curriculum specialist" or some such title.</p>
<p>It's now been five weeks since the email was sent to the admissions rep with no response. I think we'll wait until the new applications come out and then try to get the answers. If we can't get them (the info is no available on the website), then I don't think D will waste her time in applying.</p>
<p>Imagine if every student in an Admissions Counselor's travel territory emailed them in addition to their regular emails in the office. Some counselors are in charge of hundred's of high schools and simply cannot respond to every email. It's just reality and it rarely has anything to do with the school being a 'class-act' or whatever another poster above said. </p>
<p>A WORD OF CAUTION:</p>
<p>If you base your decision whether or not to attend on whether you receive a tiny email back, it might be possible that you are basing your decision to attend on the wrong information for if you are admitted, you will often have little or not interaction with the office of undergraduate admission again.</p>
<p>I'm not a parent, but I volunteer in the Admissions Office at my university and I know the admissions staff have been really busy for the past few weeks with recruitment for the Class of 2011. It's not that hard to accidently miss an email, so if you don't get a response, try following up with a second email. I don't know how other schools' admissions offices run, but I would also second mkm56's advice. Many admissions offices have one central email address for sending questions (and one central phone number) where a student employee can quickly answer your question or get you in touch with someone who can.</p>
<p>SB Dad:</p>
<p>My daughter went through a round of unanswered e-mails from her regional adcom at Swarthmore. Turns out that he was on a two-week vacation and had been out of contact. He responded when he got back.</p>
<p>I would add that you have to be respectful of their calendars. I would never bother an adcom with e-mails for next year during the November - May stretch while they are processing this year's apps. Even May is busy as adcoms are dialing waitlistees.</p>
<p>Also, I would be careful about questions. I'm not sure that an AP versus college course is a legitimate question for an adcom. I would stay away from anything that smacks of "would my chances be better if...."</p>
<p>My favorite kinds of questions are, "I'm interested in "this and that". From the articles in the school paper, it looks this "this person" might be able to answer my questions about "this and that". Would he/she be an appropriate person for me to contact, or would you recommend somebody else?"</p>
<p>I know that I have had varying experiences in communicating with different schools. The school son will be attending has been the best, by far, in responding and working with us (which is one of the reasons we chose them over the other schools). One of the other schools that we have sent an e-mail that S will NOT be attending is sending him more materials about attending their school. </p>
<p>It sometimes does take time to get a response, even from this school since the adcoms are often travelling--orientations, admitted students receptions, college fairs, etc. I had been e-mailing our regional adcom at the school son will be attending & didn't hear back for over a week & then got a very apologetic e-mail that she was still traveling in the orient & didn't have good internet access & would get back to me as soon as she could get answers from her office. I was happy & impressed that she kept me informed & it persuaded me that the school will work to keep in touch with the students & families.</p>
<p>It can be a bad sign if you never get a response, but I'd give it a bit of time before getting overly concerned about the delay. A friend who has 2 kids in college says that the school his D is at is pretty responsive but the one his S is at is awful; their experiences at both schools have been affected by the responsiveness/flexibility of the schools.</p>
<p>I agree that it should be fine to call the admissions office & ask them who the best person to contact about your child's Qs would be & what the best method of contacting them is. Who knows, it might be that the person who answers the phone has the answers your child needs?</p>
<p>It would be a mistake to base too much on ONE adcom answering or not answering an e-mail and/or Qs and in what time frame.</p>
<p>I can't for the life of me figure out how you can base ones opinion of an entire school on whether one email was answered in a timely fashion. How do you know the email was received (ignored in your mind) if you don't follow up?
Pick up the phone,call Admissions or the department who can truly answer your questions,if thats truly the issue.</p>
<p>Not to worry, I'm not basing my "opinion of entire school" based on whether one email was answered. But the point is, when things like this happen you shouldn't just ignore it. I'm incredulous as to the low standard we impose on these admissions offices - they don't seem to impose those low standards on their applicants. As I said, if you are away, how about using an auto-email reply. These institutions are some of the most technologically advanced in the world - they can't figure that out? It's just a matter of proper application of resources, training and attention to detail. </p>
<p>In addition, if you will read my first post you will see that another email sent to a different part of the admissions office many months ago also went unanswered. So this is not the first time.</p>
<p>Well, call and ask the admissions office about it. I know that sometimes, despite the best of intentions, I forget to change my voice mail message or change my email for auto-reply when leaving for vacation.
I guess I always figured, well the world won't come to an end...I'll take care of it when I get back.
But I think the point is...you have no idea why your emails haven't been answered & you need to telephone someone, speak with a human being and find out. If they blow you off or give a lame excuse, then you can rightly form a negative opinion about the office operation.
But you never know what happened unless you ask!
For eg. one of my colleagues had to cover for an admissions staffer who was supposed to represent her college at a national CF this spring, but she was in the hospital for emerg. surgery the night before leaving for the event.</p>
<p>We expect the internet to be perfect...</p>
<p>Are you sure the return email address you put in is correct, maybe the school made a typo</p>
<p>A whole lot is being read into on lost email</p>
<p>I once had a problem with someone not answering emails</p>
<p>So I faxed them saying just that...i just said, maybe something was wrong with the technological side of the program and I wanted to be sure my emails were going through, because if they weren't, I wouldn't be the only one having a problem</p>
<p>It was for a summer program and it was indeed a tech problem</p>
<p>It amazes me how quick we are to judge without having more information</p>
<p>OK citygirlsmom, I certainly get your point.</p>
<p>But, I hope you see (apparently not because you said "one lost email") that I have twice stated that this is the second time this has happened. The other email was a few months ago, to a different person in the admissions office.</p>
<p>Once could be a fluke, twice is beginning to become a pattern. I really don't expect perfection at all, just common courtesy.</p>
<p>Please email us - OK - emailed - no response</p>
<p>Please email us - OK - emailed - no response</p>
<p>So now it's incumbent upon me to follow up - I don't think so.</p>
<p>Twice is not a pattern, it is two different people making the same mistake</p>
<p>Not a pattern</p>
<p>With all the posts here, you could have just called or faxed them to ask about the email problem </p>
<p>two missing emails two months apart by two different people in different areas</p>
<p>This is not indicitive of a serious problem</p>
<p>Sometimes following up can be helpful, but if you just want to gripe about it and not do something that might do some good, that's okay</p>
<p>When I contacted the program, they were very grateful for my "complaint"- it gave them a heads up</p>
<p>I was very nice, just said I wasn't getting a response, so i wanted to be sure my emails were going through correctly</p>
<p>With all your posts here, you could have "followed up" very easily without being whiney about it</p>
<p>but if you do feel it is indicative of a problem- and they haven't corrected it to your satisfaction- unless you have already invested a great deal of time & money into this school- I would look someplace else.
Some schools may not be as technologically savvy as you might think- & responding by email may not be a priority. ( whatever they say- they might just have good intentions)
It may be that further down the road there will be additional communication glitches and the frustration will keep mounting.
I would just scratch it off my list if it is a big irritant.</p>