Several weeks ago, Alex Bob got his first college admissions offer.</p>
<p>But the good news that the Quaker Valley High School senior received from American University didn’t arrive in his mailbox in the proverbial large envelope.</p>
<p>It came via e-mail – in his Yahoo spam folder.</p>
<p>“I almost deleted it,” he said. “I had this whole image of getting into schools that you’d get this big package and it would be really formal. It’s really not anymore with e-mail.”</p>
<p>As the college admissions season hits its frenzied peak this week, students are finding the process fundamentally changed by technology. These days, many students submit their applications online, find out their SAT scores by e-mail and, increasingly, get their admissions offers electronically as well.</p>
<p>“The technology is taking over everywhere,” said Bob Alcorn, guidance department chairman at Fox Chapel Area High School.</p>
<p>Many schools, including the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University and Carnegie Mellon University, still mail out their offers in the traditional fashion.</p>
<p>Thus far, most of his students have been notified via the traditional thick envelope, said Mt. Lebanon High School guidance supervisor Peter Berg.</p>
<p>But every year, more schools jump into electronic notification.</p>
<p>Most of the Ivy League schools, for example, announced in advance that they would send e-mails out at 5 p.m. yesterday notifying high school seniors of their decisions.</p>
<p>“God bless them for doing it at 5 o’clock and not during the school day,” said Jennifer FitzPatrick, director of college guidance at Sewickley Academy. “Kids can find out at home and not in the school library.”</p>
<p>When schools first started notifying students electronically, they would send out e-mails without advance warning, she said. Students would check their e-mail “five times a day” and when a decision came out, it would create a distraction throughout the school day.</p>
<p>Still, there are many schools that don’t announce the date they will notify students electronically.</p>
<p>Colleen Hosler, a senior at Vincentian Academy, was going online twice a day to check on her early action application to Case Western Reserve University.</p>
<p>She got an affirmative answer, but still appreciated the package that came in the mail several days later.</p>
<p>“I really liked finding out sooner, but it’s like a confirmation once you have it in your hand,” she said. “It makes it a lot more real.”