Hi all
When would be the best time to send a letter of continued interest after a deferral? I was told mid February so as not to send it too early and because I’ll probably have more things to say. I’ve done a whole lot of things since I sent an application mid October so I feel like there is a lot I could update on and I want to reiterate my interest in the school.
Is mid February a little late perhaps? Would they get the chance to have a look?
Thanks!
Isn’t your GC supposed to send your first semester grades? I’d send a letter after grades come out and update them on your activities. A couple of colleges expressly want only email so respect that. Don’t send them a FedEx letter or anything pretentious. Good luck.
Thanks @OspreyCV22. My counselor sent in my first semester grades last week and I was planning on uploading a PDF document of my letter to the portal. Do you reckon that would work?
My kids just emailed admissions at their colleges to update them on their accomplishments. If you applied early, they already know you are interested in their college. New accomplishments are more likely to tip the scale. I think my kids did it at the end of January.
“Thanks @OspreyCV22. My counselor sent in my first semester grades last week and I was planning on uploading a PDF document of my letter to the portal. Do you reckon that would work?”
That sounds perfect but you need to hurry before they download it. Otherwise just send an email.
What does the college want? I would upload to the portal and to the rep. I once read something by an admissions person that said if someone is deferred in December and there is nothing until March, it shows a lack of interest or effort. A deferral says they might be interested but want to see. Give them a reason to admit you.
If you have something now, send it. Then do a short note of continued interest and update a month from now. Also when do decisions come out? If this is Wash U or another first reporter in March, then you need to do it earlier. If this is a late March school you may have more time although some people are convinced that even the ivies know 95% by March 15 who they are taking.
I think it would just annoy them to duplicate it in the portal and in an email. Also, rep emails are not always reliable. Reps change regions, quit, go on medical leaves, etc, and the websites often don’t get updated. Just send it to the main admissions email with enough info for them to easily connect it to your app.
I could not disagree more. Yes by all means send it to the portal but at the end of the day it helps having a Rep who knows you and wants you admitted or wants people from your school admitted because they have a relationship (professional of course) with your school administration. If they do not hear from you, then you are a number on paper. Especially since you got deferred. I know kids from last year who were strong candidates but got deferred. They completely lost interest in that school and ended up turning it down. The school definitely needs to know that you still want them and so does the Rep. What would also be good is if you have a relationship with your GC. They can often find out what the hesitation was and advise you what to send in.
I know someone that this happened to with a Wait List, she had put something down on her application that made the school think that he had an unrealistic picture of them. The GC had a conversation with someone and was told this, the kid sent an email to the school explaining her essay and it worked out.
Your rep will get it if you send it to general admissions. You are overthinking this. Certainly make sure your GC knows if you are very interested, as sometimes colleges call them to check. But if you want to make sure the person actually reading your app gets your additional info, the general admissions email WILL get to them.
I was thinking of simply uploading my letter onto the portal. Haven’t been able to get in touch with my rep and he’s always away for some reason. Don’t want to keep calling too much either because they take my name each time. My counselor knows I’m very interested in the school but I doubt he will be called because of the huge time difference. Also my school sends very little students to the US so I doubt it would have any kind of reputation where I’m applying. Is it necessary to send the letter to different places? Wouldn’t the portal automatically put it where it needs to be? Thanks!
Not sure why you are calling unless you have an urgent question. Your regional rep most likely has no interest in speaking with you (nothing personal) and I doubt he is going to be calling overseas anyway (although I have no idea, its just most Americans have no idea how to even place a call overseas, although if he is assigned to your area I would hope he would).
Your counselor should call, not you. It does not matter whether they know him or not if you are serious about the school.
Not sure why I get sending an email and uploading to the portal is such a big deal?! Just how organized do you think these places are ? Do you really think nothing every gets lost?
If you send an email, he can read it at his leisure and put it in your file and most important, he knows you still want to come without you pestering him. My kid NEVER called the rep unless she was specifically told to by her GC or the rep called her first (which only happened when she was wait listed, they wanted to know if she was still interested).
@SeekingPam What I meant was I don’t know who my rep is and there has been no way of getting in touch with him. I haven’t got an email address or a number and when I’ve called to find out he wasn’t available. I seem to know who my rep is for every other school though because that information has been given to me but in this case I really don’t know and don’t want to keep pestering. Even if I wanted to email him, I’m not sure how I would go about doing it. I doubt my counselor will call because we have only one counselor and he knows very little about the US anyway – and the time difference. Knowing my counselor, he won’t bother.
I’m very passionate about what I want to study and about wanting to attend and hopefully that will come across in my letter.
The school has to download the item from the portal, it doesn’t just go to their in box automatically. This isn’t a standard item for the portal, either. Just email to the main admissions email. They WILL get it to the person(s) reading your app. You are overthinking.
While not every school does this, most have a map or list somewhere on their web site that tells you who is assigned to a particular region, sometimes it is broken down by country, sometimes you are just international, either way you get a name and an email address. If you have looked and found no such information then upload it to the portal and to the admissions office.
Based on D’s experience, especially when documents are out for review as they are now, there is more than one file on you, the rep has one and the school has one. I once sent the same document to the admissions office and to the regional rep. The admissions office told me they could not accept email attachments and I had to fax it, the rep thanked D and told her it was in my Ds file.