I know this may sound odd, but my daughter has not set up any of her college portals for schools to which she has applied. I think this is her way of trying to avoid some anxiety while she waits for decisions. I have not pushed her because I know it’s an anxious time and I want her to enjoy senior year. And really, what can she do? The applications are in. She has been admitted to 2 schools, but she will not hear from most of them until March.
So now I have read here on CC that a number of schools may send early notification or early requests if the student might be in the running for a scholarship or invited to a reception. And I’ve also read that some schools notify admissions via the portal not via email. So my question is, should she go ahead and set up all these portals? Or will schools send emails in addition to updating student portals? Thanks in advance.
Portals are important at two points in time in the admissions process. Prior to the application due date they are the best tool for an applicant to be 100% sure that all required documents have been submitted. Then when admissions decisions are communicated in some cases the applicant has to go to their portal to find out if they were admitted or not. They will get an admissions decision letter as well but it might be as much as 10 days after the decision is posted to their portal. I doubt the only notification of a scholarship would be via the schools portal. It’s a pain for the applicants to keep track of say 15 portals if they have applied to a lot of schools but that’s how admissions decisions and application documents are tracked in 2016
Thank you. I thought that might be the case. I’ll tell her she has to buck up and do it. That’s the position she’s in – she has about 10 schools left to hear from. Many of them are UCs (one application) but a separate portal for each school.
Some schools are good about emailing you if something is missing from an application but others expect you to be proactive and check the portals.
We put together a document that links to all of the portals in one place. Under each college is a link to the portal and in red underneath each link we list any missing or to-do items, along with other random information that S wants like expected notification date.
I would also think that if its a school where demonstrated interest is important, not setting up your portal could send the wrong message. I would tell her to do it ASAP for the various reasons outlined here.
Agree with all the above (especially the part of checking in on whether they’ve received all elements of the application). Another reason…decisions do come in earlier than posted dates. When you get that notification that a decision is available on your portal, wouldn’t it be nice to have that login already set up?