My son’s school email, that he uses for all college stuff, wasn’t working for a couple of days this week. He checked in at school and somehow it got fixed. I didn’t think more about it until reading on another thread, a college he applied to EA sent out emails this week with status of incomplete FA info. When I asked him to check for it, he tells me that oh, he doesn’t know…any emails received during that crash are gone…forever. ??? That’s pretty scary!
What would you guys do? Just check each college he applied to portal and see if there are any updates there? Are parents typically copied on emails to students? (I think that answer is no). I’m not even sure to know what he could have missed.
He can also check the financial aid sections of the websites for required submissions and deadlines. Hopefully he kept a record of what he submitted to each place…and when.
That’s a shame, @TS0104. He probably didn’t miss anything, but as mentioned above, check the college portals. Hopefully he’s checking those regularly.
When he gets to the point of setting up his college email accounts, have him forward all of those to a single gmail account. My son found that was the easiest way to keep on top of everything.
@intparent Oh, I misunderstood. I though school email meant an email he set up for college applications. I’m sure the school backs up.
If he can change to an email address that he controls, like a gmail account, that would be preferable. Also, then his HS can’t read his emails about financial aid, etc.
I doubt the HS is poking into people’s emails. And once the apps are in, I wouldn’t mess with the addresses. I do agree that a gmail account shared with a parent (so no critical emails slip by) is a good idea for someone just starting the app process. One year my kid’s HS took the email system down for all of winter break for maintenance, right in the heart of app season!
Have him go back to IT at school today. If anyone can guide him correctly, it should be them. And, if not, they they can direct Guidance as to his status.
School may not necessary backup their emails. It depends on the provider. That being said, the son probably should have all application materials on his computer (essays, FA). Even without this mess up, I would check on all school’s portals to make sure the application is complete.
For anyone else reading this…don’t use a HS email account for college applications. Use an email account from your home. Get a dedicated gmail account…or something.
Remember…within a week or so of graduation, your HS kid won’t have a speck of access to his or her HS email account. You may say this doesn’t matter…but oh yes it does. If THAT is how the college is communicating with your kid, then he or she has the potential to miss some important emails…especially if selected for financial aid verification or something like that.
Our HS is very clear…students are told NOT to use that account for college applications. Ever…at all.
The nanosecond after the kid graduates, the email will be shut off. An individual HS may offer forwarding ormay convert the email address to an alumni.edu account, but not all will. Not a big thing generally,but if that’s the address the college has on file,any communication over the summer (new student week, roommates, etc) will be sent there. So I highly recommend that he set up an account just for college admissions communicate the email change to any colleges that have the old email.
Like the HS cares, even in the unlikely event that they have the time and energy to do so. If you’re going to advocate conspiracy theory, you might as well go all the way and suggest that he use an encrypted server to at least try to thwart Big Brother reading about his plans to get pizza after school. 8-|
Thanks all! Reading this it is SO CLEAR to me that he should have been using something other than the school email. My husband is in the computer business…we’re all about backups and if it had been anything else, we could have found these emails, I believe. DH agrees that if the school said those emails were really gone, then they probably are really gone, if the email provider had to restore from an older backup.
And GREAT advice to set up a dedicated college account and autoforward to parents…my DD’s friend barely got into a dorm for his freshman year because he was ignoring his school email that he used for apps (his fault, yes, but a safety net is good, I think, for all of these important emails especially on financial matters).
I think what I’ll do to address that is have son change his address to a gmail wherever he decides to go…I’m putting that on the calendar to-do right now! I am a little afraid to mess with the email address now. And this is the first crash in about 8 years of school email, so hopefully it won’t happen again.
Update: The school has an archive of the messages received during the outage, they say they can’t restore them all, but they can go in and look for specific ones. So, yes, they are poking around his lost incoming messages now. Which, I think, the kids and parents have to sign something anyway about these school accounts that they really aren’t private. But I feel better now. DS hasn’t even set up some of his portals (which in a way, is good…no OPC : Obsessive Portal Checking), so now he realizes the importance of doing that.
Holy Smokes @intparent now THAT is stressful…no school email over winter break! Yikes, I bet they heard some uproars about that.
So this came up again at college — my kid’s college had some long email outages over breaks. For grad school applications, she used a non-school email as well, just in case.
Your son should regularly check each school’s portal anyway. Some info and requests may not be sent via snail maiil/email and may only be conveyed through the portal.
I agree…there are not very many colleges/unis that don’t use a portal these days. If his login info has been lost in the high school email address box, the colleges he applied should be able to help with portal access. But I agree that high school email addresses are probably not the best to use for all the reasons stated by previous posters.