Complaint Box! What's wrong, and how would YOU fix it?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
1

<p>Many of you new posters are not aware that USC admissions DOES check College Confidential. A few of us feel we may have even had a small part in the change from the old multi-status system to the current one-status system. So maybe some of you can help make changes that will benefit next year's applicants.</p>

<p>So:
In terms of your USC application, what has added to your stress/confusion in the application season? How would you suggest they handle it? What don't you like about the process? What changes should be made?</p>

<p>A BIG rule: I am VERY protective of all the new Trojans, so I do not want to see any criticisms of the kids who have already been accepted. It is fine to say, "I feel my stats should have put me in the group getting scholarships," but it ISN'T fine to say, "I am SO much better than that kid in post #XXX on the stats thread..."</p>

<p>The next rule: alamemom promises NOT to come in and correct misconceptions, misinformation, or tell you how it isn't USC's fault! As long as you don't criticize those who have been accepted, I'll take a hand-off approach and let you rant all you want :)</p>

2

<p>Some sort of confirmation of your application being received and considered for Scholarships might be nice moving forward. Somebody from our school, highly qualified applicant, has no idea if his application was even reviewed yet, and he submitted well before the Dec. 1 deadline. The corollary to this is that keeping a student waiting for weeks, hoping he/she got accepted (or the app was even read!), is a bit irresponsible- there should be a concrete and shortened window in which USC hopefuls can expect mail. </p>

<p>I also was somewhat confused by the wording of the supplemental essay instructions- I was accepted with an essay of 5-6 short-ish paragraphs, yet a 500+ word single paragraph is almost what they’re asking for. </p>

<p>And just a small annoyance of mine, I think it’s a bit odd to accept a student by the scholarship deadline and not offer them a scholarship, then tell that student he/she might be receiving a different one but that it’s not certain. </p>

<p>Finally, I think they should either stick to physical mailings or the online portal being the first indicator of acceptance, but that’s just my opinion as someone on CC who knows about it. </p>

<p>Obviously I have a very limited view of the logistics of the application and notifications process, but these are just my suggestions on what could have saved students some grief.</p>

3

<p>“And just a small annoyance of mine, I think it’s a bit odd to accept a student by the scholarship deadline and not offer them a scholarship, then tell that student he/she might be receiving a different one but that it’s not certain”.
Exactly!!! I am in the same situation!!</p>

4

<p>I second Seahawks:</p>

<p>“I also was somewhat confused by the wording of the supplemental essay instructions- I was accepted with an essay of 5-6 short-ish paragraphs, yet a 500+ word single paragraph is almost what they’re asking for.”</p>

<p>I ended up writing a rambling one paragraph answer, well below 500 words, when I could have easily expanded my answer to a few paragraphs.</p>

5

<p>^me three. Did not love the wording of the supplemental essay…</p>

6

<p>I wish the admissions blog was both more useful and updated more frequently. There are some large universities with tens of thousands of applicants (ie, very busy admissions offices too) that provide a lot more information.</p>

7

<p>My essay was only 125 words… I could have expanded but i was scared and did not know what they wanted. I still got in with Deans though :P</p>

8

<p>Stop using mailed admission results. This is 2012.</p>

9

<p>^^^THIS^^^ although I would like a letter PAIRED with an online admissions decision. letters give me something tangible to hold :)</p>

10

<p>Not a complaint, but a recommendation:</p>

<p>I think the solution is really quite simple. Everyone who applied by the scholarship deadline of Dec. 1st should get an email (all sent out at same time, or at least same day), notifying them that they either:</p>

<ol>
<li>Are accepted and are a Presidential/Trustee candidate </li>
<li>Are accepted and are a Dean’s Scholarship recipient</li>
<li>Are accepted and a National Merit Finalist and will receive a 1/2 tuition scholarship</li>
<li>Are deferred and will be notified by April 1st as to whether they were admitted, and letting them know that they will be considered for other smaller scholarships. Also, mentioning that if they are a NMF and are later accepted that they, too, will receive the 1/2 tuition scholarship.</li>
</ol>

<p>In the email they could inform the applicants that they should log into their USConnect account for more information, and to sign up for Explore dates etc.</p>

<p>The nice package should be mailed out by admissions at the same time, and the applicant would receive that a few days later.</p>

<p>This way, everyone would get their information at the same time, whether or not they live in Southern CA or on the East Coast. </p>

<p>My son received a more than 1/2 tuition scholarship to Case Western and that is pretty much how they did it, and I think it was the ideal way to notify applicants. </p>

<p>My son also received a full-tuition scholarship from a school on the East coast (we live in CA) and they notified via mail, and while the admission/scholarship letter was dated Jan 9th (and calls to admission told us all packages were in the mail and to sit tight), he didn’t receive the package until the end of January.</p>

<p>Just some ideas…</p>

11

<p>hmmmm, I think the tweet on the admissions blog should have been timed a little differently…maybe not the day of the “sorry” letter mailing. The week before would have been a cool teaser.</p>

<p>“USCAdmission
First-year scholarship applicants, keep an eye on your mailbox! Notifications are being sent. Good luck & Fight On!”</p>

12

<ol>
<li><p>Commit to notifying applicants of major decisions all on the same day. Today’s technology demands as much;</p></li>
<li><p>Eliminate the optional interview for the admission application, particularly because it’s impossible for the admissions committee to offer interviews to all applicants. Anything optional, like interviews or additional essays, adds to the students’ stress level. (“Are they serious when they say it’s optional, or is it really mandatory?”) At the information session our family attended, the admissions counselor said that only about 20% of applicants get to interview, and that if you thought you would do poorly, to skip the interview because not interviewing would not put you at a disadvantage or hurt your application. However, to the extent that an interview helps another student gain admittance, this cannot be a true statement (for the student who or was unable or decided not to interview). Likewise a poor interview certainly can’t help an applicant’s chances for admission. If the admissions committee finds interviews of value, they should adopt a policy where an interview is granted to an applicant only at their instigation, under the pretense that they need more information about that student in order to make a decision. Out of state students or students who couldn’t travel to campus to interview could be interviewed over the phone or (better) via Skype. This way an applicant won’t feel penalized or be left wondering if they made the wrong decision about interviewing or not. </p></li>
<li><p>Punt the Common App, or at a minimum modify how you use it. I’m going from memory watching my son fill it out, but from what I recall the only real benefit is that it makes it easier for the teachers and counselors to submit their recommendations online. For the student section it’s actually more complicated, since they have to complete both the Common App and the supplements of all the schools they choose to apply to. It shouldn’t take so long and involve so much wasted energy: certainly a student needs to list his birthday, address, and contact information, but there’s no need for him to list how many brothers or sisters he has, or where his parents went to school and what they do for a living, or his SAT/ACT scores (since College Board/ACT will be sending them) or a list of his prior classes (since a transcript will be sent) or a list of his senior classes (since a mid-year report can be requested), or whether he’s going to apply for financial aid (since that will be forthcoming if he is) or a list of his 38 extra-curricular activities, since it’s impossible that more than a couple of them really meant anything to him. All of this information is either redundant or extraneous, and when you throw in applications to the non-Common App schools, it borders on insane.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>This is how I think the USC (or any school) application should look:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>“Part 1” - Name, physical and e-mail address, phone number, birthday, and a list of significant awards and achievements;</p></li>
<li><p>“Part 2” - List of light-hearted questions that are fun to answer and give some insight into the student’s personality;</p></li>
<li><p>“Part 3” - Five distinct sentences (as opposed to a 5 sentence paragraph) written by the student to describe him or her (this idea is borrowed from UT Austin’s Plan II Honors application);</p></li>
<li><p>“Part 4” - Two 300 to 500 word essays, the first from the Common App list, and the second focused on what the applicant knows about a particular subject or topic;</p></li>
<li><p>“Part 5” - Teacher and counselor recommendations.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>All of this should be done in a format that is easy to input information into and navigate over a period of several visits to the site.</p>

<p>I guess my last thought is this: I find it ironic that this country’s elite colleges and universities all seek students who are energetic and self-starting, original thinkers, leaders rather than followers, people who are eventually going to change the world. And yet, when it comes to the admissions process, these same colleges and universities act like the biggest bunch of lemmings on the planet. They all seek prestige and marketing edges through the numbers, with the Common App as the primary vehicle. What really matters aren’t great students but more applications, lower acceptance rates, and higher yields, all leading to higher USN&WR and BW rankings. We’ve already seen on this thread and others how these numbers excite the alums. Really? Why doesn’t one of these institutions break from the pack and show some originality of thought about how it thinks about the admissions process? Why can’t it refuse to participate in the arms race for student applications, instead offering an attractive alternative that distinguishes it from everyone else? After all, this is the kind of thinking these schools are looking for and expect from their applicants.</p>

13

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</p>

<p>I disagree. Having all my applications in one centralized online location reduced my stress levels a lot; I could check my application status (i.e. how much was completed) for all schools at one website.</p>

<p>I second many of the above posters who were confused with the “Why USC” supplemental essay directions. If I recall correctly, 3500 characters were given for the 1 paragraph that was asked for. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. </p>

<p>I actually like the combination of an online portal and a physical admissions letter. However, USConnect’s user interface is pretty confusing.</p>

14

<p>314159265…You make a good point, and seeing how you’re a student and I’m a parent, your opinion probably ought to carry more weight. Still, it seems like a really good web presence with both a portal and mobile capability is a “killer app app” for admissions departments to strive for. One of the fundamental principles of the Internet is you want eyeballs directed at your site, not a competitor’s or third party’s. I think the school that makes its application process a cutting-edge, user-friendly experience will leave a great first impression with applicants and create a competitive advantage for itself. Perhaps the Common App will eventually evolve beyond its current status of a shared first part accompanied with individual supplements to one a one-step process where each school controls the upfront look and feel of its application and Common App provides the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that allows for sharing of meta data so that there isn’t repetitive input data entry.</p>

15

<p>I echo mumstheword2.</p>

<p>Everyone being notified on the same day, by mail or email would save the heartache. We waited two weeks for the notification to be notified you did not make the cut. Could the same not have been done by email once the first 1000 candidates are notified that btw, you are not one of them. It saves the school a lot of postage and saves a lot of trees.</p>

16

<p>I’m going to pass on this information, [and copy a link to this thread ]to the admissions dean at USC.
They have been very responsive to past suggestions about simplifying regular admissions notification procedures and the various messages that students receive -hopefully they will review the current method[s] of scholarship notification and make some adjustments.</p>

17

<p>I know it is really hard for those waiting who don’t get the early admit packages, but on the other side is the experience of those who DO get that package. I kind of like the tradition of a big acceptance package that you can hold, and the excitement of opening it without knowing what it contains! As a parent, the day the USC package arrived unexpectedly in January and the experience of watching my daughter open it with shaking hands was VERY memorable.</p>

<p>Maybe it would be a good compromise for them to send the packages and follow-up with emails after a set number of days so that applicants don’t wonder if something was lost in the mail. They could send the early admit packages on Jan 26th, for example, and announce on the admissions website that on a set date - maybe a week later - the USConnect account would have either “accepted” or “still being considered” as the status. That would retain the tradition while keeping everyone informed.</p>

<p>Just my 2 cents!</p>

18

<p>I think they need to transition to posting ALL decisions online FIRST, and then they can mail the big package. When my son applied to college in 2005, 7 years ago, he learned of every single decision online [all 15 of them which included an early decision] except USC’s. Every single college THEN mailed a copy of the "CONGRATULATIONS’ letter and a package. We still have all the letters.
Continuing to rely on the very shaky USPS for delivery of important information is not in USCs’, or applicants’ best interest. USC does not communicate with its students on campus via USPS mail, why should they treat future students differently. The old method of mailing decisions is quaint, out of date, and is no longer the most reliable method of communication with the outside world.</p>

19

<p>For my daughter, she had not seriously considered USC until she was holding the package in her hands. She had already received two admits w/scholarships from other schools via online notification, and they did not hold anywhere near the excitement of USC’s package - even though one of the other admits was (at that time) her top choice. With the online notification, she saw it and told us and… we all just stood there and said, “Great!” With USC’s package, we all gathered 'round and paged through all the info… reading and re-reading the letter… looking at the pictures of the dorms… reading about the meal plans… it was SO fun.</p>

<p>That was beginning of her choosing USC. I wonder if things would have turned out differently if she had only received a quick online notification?</p>

20

<p>^^ that is why I suggested this as well-
“then they can mail the big package”</p>