<p>Maybe this is just my individual experience, but this year I have been really unimpressed with the efficiency of the admissions office at the schools I applied to.</p>
<p>Hendrix was the only school whose admission's office noticeably impressed me and moved me toward accepting their offer. They even sent the admitted students their favorite candy bars, and everyone was always very friendly.</p>
<p>At other schools, I often received cold, terse, unhelpful emails - and that was if I was even lucky to get a reply!</p>
<p>At Whitman, they sent an army of parents/volunteers/former/current students to call me about asking whether or not I was going to attend or had any questions. The first time, I appreciated the gesture but said I would not be attending. The second time I was flattered. The fifth time I got a little rude. By then it should have been relayed back to headquarters that I was not interested.</p>
<p>UVA really dropped the ball, though. When I got off the waitlist at Chicago I called and explained the situation. There was no big deal, no argument, she just asked if I wanted my tuition deposit back. Great, I said, I didn't expect that and I would love it back. So I asked her to email me the directions on how to get it back, and she did. Minutes after, I sent the email following the directions. I didn't get any reply but figured they were busy and would just mail the check to my dad (I was on a farm). I didn't follow up when I got back home and now I got a "Welcome to UVA" packet in the mail on Friday - and, of course, he received no check! Seriously!! Imagine how many kids they have begging to get off the wait list and all they had to do was stay on top of their EMAIL inbox.</p>
<p>How were ya'll experiences with the AdCom's this season? is this to be expected now; do we live in the Age of Incompetence or has it always been like this?</p>
<p>What are you comparing it to? How many other organizations have you had the chance to evaluate? This seems to be par for the course with most larger organizations. Even smaller ones. Gosh I was trying to find a realtor the other day in a depressed market…unreturned emails…unbelievable. What does ‘extremely busy’ have to do with anything? That reminds me of those voice recordings that say, “we apologize for the wait due to high caller volume…” NO, the wait is due to not hiring enough people for the demand! </p>
<p>Often, but not always, what looks like incompetence is really just rational behavior and what people or organizations are incented to do. People, groups, and organizations tend to focus their energy on where they have the most to gain, and don’t make a big priority of activities with weak or negative returns. Hendrix and Whitman still had spots available on their campuses a few weeks ago…lots of incentive to woo you, little to lose by forgetting to tell someone to take your name off a list. State U who owes you money? Good luck with that…but they would be extremely ‘competent’ if it was you owing them.</p>
<p>I work at a university, albeit a non-selective public one. Our Admissions office, for the most part, is staffed by straight-out-of-college counselors and very low paid clerical staff. The counselors are on a revolving door because most move on to better paid positions as soon as they can. They also hire the most student workers on campus. </p>
<p>My s is a jr in hs and recently attended a jr day at the school. He received mailings and phone calls for the next few jr days encouraging him to attend. Found out an admissions worker was supposed to identify the students who were juniors and who had not yet attended a junior day but had registered for an upcoming one - she instead pulled the list of everyone who had already attended.</p>
<p>Based on DD’s experience in the applications process (transfer) I imagine that most of the admissions offices are staffed by chimps who run around throwing application materials in the air. The ones who happen to land in the appropriate basket are processed by actual human beings. The rest are lost behind radiators or fall into the circular file.</p>
<p>Slightly more highly evolved chimps are manning (chimping?) the phones where they assure worried applicants that, yes, they’ve received all their materials and of course, the applicant will receive a decision “soon”. This process is repeated over a period of 4-5 weeks until the weary applicant gives up.</p>
<p>Honestly, the application fees should be paid in bananas instead of $.</p>
<p>I sent my SAT (1 & 2) scores to the a total of 3 times throughout the season. Once in June when I got them along with several other schools who received them and put them with my app in December, another time in January when my portal info said it hadn’t been received, and another in February when they still hadn’t received them. I even faxed them the unofficial reports just so that they had something. </p>
<p>Now, I’m not (completely) upset about the not receiving my scores part, its about the lack of communication on their part with making sure I know that they don’t have everything especially when I know that they emailed students letting them know that they didn’t have everything. Were the other components of my app so bad that they didn’t see a need to continue the review?</p>
<p>I’m going to take the side of the admissions office here. Let’s use UVA as an example. They received >21,000 applications last year. Apps are due by 1 Jan with all the school reports in Jan and Feb. Then they have to evaluate each of those 21K apps in the context of each student’s school and perform an eval on the whole person rather than just numbers. Meanwhile many of those 21,000 students are calling to ask when the results will be out, if they can get AP credit, would it look better if I had AP Psych or AP Stats in my last semester… Personally I have compassion for them because their job is thankless.</p>
<p>I agree, Erin’s Dad, DoinSchool has been bouncing all over the place in the last few months, looking for advice, seeming entitled,dealing with apparently numerous admsisions offices, etc. I admit to bias with UVa as older son is an 09 grad . He /we were not wooed at all by UVa but it was the clear choice instate for him. UVa does not need to woo people-it is a top choice for lots of instate kids.The schools that sent him stuff were more ones like Harvard,Princeton,Duke,Caltech,Columbia,etc. Not interested ,in 05 the middle class type initiatives did not exist. No regrets at all on that-UVa was the best fit financially and personally. A great 4 years. DoinSchool ,good luck to you at Chicago but please have some compassion for all of these admissions people who have tried to be helpful.</p>
<p>Whoa sevmom, maybe my OP was a little snarky but this isn’t about being wooed, it’s about a prestigious university’s inattention to a simple email directly resulting in another student not being taken off the wait list! How would you feel if you were wait listed at UVA and read the OP? And I will work on having compassion - maybe I came across wrong in the OP, I am not an aggressive person at all and I’ve always been very polite with the AdComs. I save my frustration for CC lol! thanks for the well wishes and I’m glad your son enjoyed UVA - most people do!</p>
<p>Furthermore, consider the massive endowments of these schools, how important their “reputation” is to the schools, and the minuscule marginal cost of staying on top of admissions contact. A little goes a long way. Hendrix is now a place that I would recommend with no hesitation that someone apply to. I realize that it’s more challenging when you have several ten thousands of applicants, though</p>
<p>DoinSchool, With schools that get tons of applications, I can imagine that a package to you could go out even if you had emailed that you were not planning to attend -cross posting, different departments,etc. Ignore it and move on. There are numerous things going out to accepted students-housing, dining ,stc. If it does not apply to you anymore, just move on. Good luck!</p>
<p>D1 didn’t hear much from the two schools she decided against. Then, after may 1st, when she declined admission and fin aid packages, we’re hearing from choir directors? Guys, where were you in March and April when the decision hadn’t yet been made? See mom here might have preferred a school a little further from home. If admissions could’ve sold her on your school in the spring, you wouldn’t need to be calling now, trying to sell her on how much better your program is. </p>
<p>So doinschool, you weren’t the only one not feeling the love from admissions.</p>
<p>FYI-DoinSchool’s situation seems to involve a Virginia resident. I hope he will correct that impression if that is wrong.Much different situation for alot of people. There are many Virginia residents who are very happy to pay instate tuition for schools like UVa ,William and Mary and Virginia Tech. Many families in Virginia actually send kids to private school to potentially give them a leg up on admissions. We were public school but admissions in Virginia is tough, lots of out of state kids also intersted in our instate schools.</p>
<p>“it’s about a prestigious university’s inattention to a simple email directly resulting in another student not being taken off the wait list!”</p>
<p>You don’t know that. In fact, it’s very unlikely.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Schools anticipate most of their yield. They know roughly how many admits will choose another school, before and after May 1. The chances are very good that they already over-admitted to compensate for your departure from the class.</p></li>
<li><p>Even supposing your change of heart did open a space in the class, it’s very possible that they went ahead and admitted someone else and simply didn’t remove your pre-printed welcome packet from the mail bucket. You should never assume that all the moving parts in a complex organization like an admissions office have the same information in real time. The people in charge of getting mail out the door aren’t the same people making decisions about the waitlist.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I don’t think there is any excuse for inefficiency. Very likely it is a work study student dealing with the mundane clerical work but that should not make it ok. Everyone in the workforce should be taught/trained to do a good job and that nothing else is acceptable…this instills a work ethic, the benefits of which are imesureable for your employer, yourself and the people you have to provide a service to.</p>
<p>UVA has admitted students from the wait list already. Given that, it’s not a simple lack of removal from the mailing list. It means they would have to have read my email, given a student my spot, then completely ignored my refund request (which was actually OFFERED to me), then kept me on the mailing list. I think that’s pretty inexcusable but maybe I’m just overreacting.
I think this thread has run its course.</p>
<p>DoinSchool, If you were told you would get a refund, you might want to check with your father again to see if he has gotten a check or has gotten a credit back on his credit card. If the refund has not come back to you yet, you could follow up with the bursar’s/student accounts office to ask about it. Good luck.</p>
<p>It could just be the age old problem of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. </p>
<p>I remember years ago when my credit card was stolen and someone used it to make a number of unauthorized charges, on one hand, I was talking to the fraud department who said they were removing the charges and all would be well. On the other hand, I was being threatened by the collections department who were hounding me for payment. This went on for months before it was completely cleared up.</p>