I am growing to hate email...

[mommafrog]

<p>...and the whole electronic "thing" that college applications, etc have become! I thought the potentially quicker responses would be great...but am finding through the process that there are so many blips and boops...and now I'm getting paranoid that there are missing things that D and I don't even know to look for!</p>

<p>For example, she was thrilled to receive a paper letter that she is still in the running for Otterbein after the November audition. The letter asked her to email if she would like to remain on that list...she did, immediately. Yesterday, she received a kind note from the school saying they hadn't heard back from her...I saw her send the original email in November...thank heavens for Otterbein's followup, as she definitely does want to stay on that list!!</p>

<p>Got a call last fall from CCM that her audition notification email bounced. We checked everywhere -- it didn't make it to her (and other notifications from CCM, before and after, have). Thanks to the live person at CCM who followed up on the bounce, or she wouldn't have known to look for that.</p>

<p>Right before her UMich audition, I asked her if she'd received her audition day schedule via email. Nope. Called UMich, who agreed to resend, and we had it in time to leave...but otherwise, would have been heading for Central Campus, instead of North Campus. </p>

<p>Before you ask, yes we've checked our settings and spam filters and antivirus settings. She's added everyone she can think of to the "allowed" settings. It's just making paranoid "what did we miss" me worry that stuff is getting lost in this complicated process that we're not even aware of losing...</p>

<p>And somehow, getting a paper notification seems "realer" to old me -- she did print a hard copy of the email she received (yay -- she got it!) with her UMich deferral, so she could look at it whenever she wanted to. And the sheer volume of junk email these kids receive from colleges recruiting them...she accidentally deleted her Wolverine access information when it came, because it was in the midst of 47 (I counted) email solicitations from colleges she hadn't applied to, with subject lines such as "your admission status, XX" Um...haven't applied, thank you. </p>

<p>All right...the rant is over...just wondered if anyone else is stuck in cyberspace, stressing over the things you can't control (like the whims of email).</p>

[soozievt]

<p>I think you have done a good thing to follow up by phone when something doesn’t seem right, etc. (though obviously some things you may not know are not right!). Also, I think it is a good idea to print out all official emails for the folder for that college in case you need documentation in the future. I had such an experience with my own kid when she applied. </p>

<p>At the time, you could sign up for an audition at CMU before sending in an application (that has now changed with that school). On October 1, the audition appointment system opened up online. In fact, I learned of that right here on CC and we were one of the first to sign up for an audition as I did it that first morning. Subsequently, I made airline and hotel reservations. Months later, when checking my D’s application status online, it said audition was not yet scheduled. What?? I called the school and they had nothing on record of my D’s audition appointment and were full by then. But my credit card had been charged and I had the confirmation in my hands because I had the wisdom to print it out. Otherwise, they were not gonna believe me. They told me I had to fax a copy of the audition appointment confirmation to them as proof. I did and then they honored that she have an appointment that day. (unrelated to that, there were screw ups on her actual audition day unrelated to the issue we are talking of here with email that caused us to have to spend an extra night in Pittsburgh unexpectedly)</p>

<p>So, always check if your file is complete by calling and always check if you should have heard something but didn’t, etc. Stuff happens.</p>

[MichaelNKat]

<p>mommafrog, what you are describing is an exacerbation of the frustrating screw ups that occurred even when it was a paper process; the increasing reliance on electronic submissions and communications just makes it worse! When my daughter was applying during the 2006-2007 cycle, about half her applications were hard copy and half electronic. The number of schools that claimed they hadn’t received items we knew had been sent (even with proof of delivery) was almost bizarre - including one school that claimed it hadn’t received the common app school supplement even though it had been mailed in the same envelop by certified mail return receipt requested as the main portion of the common app and one school that claimed it hadn’t received an electronic copy of a transcript from its own MT summer program located 2 blocks from the admissions office!</p>

<p>The best thing a student can do is treat this whole process like a formal set of business communications. Keep hard copies of everything and set up a tickler system to follow up to confirm receipt of all items sent and to check the status of responses or scheduling you expect in return. As a general rule, we checked a week after something was sent out by us to confirm its receipt and called a week after a response was expected to something if the response was not received. We kept a log of all telephone calls including the name of the person to whom we spoke so that if necessary we could follow up with the same person or at least provide a trail by name if we ended up speaking again to someone else.</p>