<p>Spent a lot of time today thinking and discussing this (returning from a big driving trip) and our family had a couple observations:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Several of the colleges where S’s applied also did “rolling admissions” (meaning they admitted students throughout the audition season, not just at the end of the process, i.e. April 1st) and of those, PPU is the only one that requires paying early or risking losing your spot.</p></li>
<li><p>Even if you can get your deposit back – it seems to us that a deposit that you can get back if something better comes along is quite meaningless. Couldn’t we envision a scenario wherein every student admitted paid their deposit early “just in case” and then most/many request refunds? What does this get PPU in the end?</p></li>
<li><p>As mom of one S on WL for MT and one S accepted for Acting, I knew PPU “recommended” paying early (I received all those postcards), but it was completely lost on me that if you didn’t pay early you would lose your spot and be relegated to the wait list. I’m clearly one of those who never read the fine print or had this policy (written or otherwise) clearly explained to me. Thankfully, PPU isn’t at the top of either S’s list; but I shudder to think what we’d be going through now if it was. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Again, I truly hope it works out for those students for whom PPU is at the top of their wish list. Sending positive vibes to all…</p>
<p>Exact thing happened to my friend’s D this morning. Yesterday after I read these posts I contacted her regarding her deposit…she sent it in beginning of last week. She called Admissions and they had no knowledge about kids being moved from accepted to waitlist in MT. She called the Department and this morning received news that “late 2/12 they had all 20 girl spaces filled when they received several deposits at once and had to go to waitlist. There are 20 on list currently. Early depositors often withdraw due to lack of funding at the final hour, so the list may seem long, but it may not be depending on how many withdraw.”</p>
<p>So there you go.</p>
<p>The strange thing to me is her D didn’t even audition until 2/12 and was sent acceptance letter on 3/13. She was a walk in at Unifieds. My D applied early and was admitted to school in October, but to program 2/16 via email after 2/12 audition…since both these dates were after 2/12, why was either given acceptance at all? My D has decided against PP so this doesn’t affect us, but friend’s D is seriously considering PP. Guess they best change their deposit verbiage to say, “Send deposit overnight mail when you receive your acceptance!”</p>
<p>I just stumbled upon this and am sickened that these kids had their acceptances pulled after such a long grueling process. My heart goes out to them and their parents. I’d say go somewhere else just on principle!</p>
<p>So sorry to all students that this has happened to! I was rejected from Point Park this year and in retrospect - I’m glad I was. PPU was a top choice for me, and I would have been heartbroken if this happened to me.
Also, now that I read all this, I don’t think I would want to attend a school that has such policies…people can make excuses for the university, but this is just plain wrong. Last time I checked, students admitted to a program should be able to enroll in that program by May 1st. Otherwise, the program should be waitlisting those students in the first place instead of snatching their acceptances away from them! Again, my heart goes out to everyone who’s been dealing with this…</p>
<p>True, this may be avoidable if everyone read the fine print and made sure they understood the process but I don’t see that as the main problem. It seems like a school that admits way more students than they can have attend, in this way, doesn’t really (for lack of a better word) want these students. They seem to treat them like they could be replaceable. I don’t know if this is any indication of how they run the program in the university but I’m a bit wary of it now.</p>
<p>The school is not entirely to blame - just as they are not to blame for students who apply to way too many schools even though they can attend only one.
But there are some circumstances here that contributed to this. PPU does not charge an application fee and they recruit at Unifieds. Those two factors probably mean they are getting lots and lots of applicants who don’t visit the campus and are using PP as a safety. Couple that with the fact that it is one of the more expensive programs, and it means that a higher percentage of those accepted will not attend.
My son is among those - as he has sent in his release primarily due to the costs.
Keep in mind, we parents and students do this ONCE, while the schools do it every single year - and their admission procedures have surely evolved over time to get more efficient and fit changing needs. But there does seem to be a disconnect here - and perhaps an application fee or some other measure to cull applications to the more serious contenders would be the way to go in coming years.</p>
<p>I I haven’t received a call from PPU regarding my acceptance, what should I interpret this as? I’m STILL waiting on scholarship offers from other schools, so I cannot offer any sort of confirmation regarding my acceptance to PPU. I also cannot afford the tuition deposit for about a week. It is currently between PPU and UofArizona for me, so I need to get this figured out.</p>
<p>In addition, I was offered acceptance AT unifieds on the 11th of February. This was apparently one day before the class “filled up?” Is that right? I tried to e-mail Mr. McKelvey right after the audition like he requested I do, but I never received a reply.</p>
<p>I must say going into this Point Park was one of my top choices despite the fact i did have some worries about the program based upon years of observing it and talking to students who go there. Sadly after this year and this situation happening i feel all these situation have further proven true my biggest concern when it came to point park, do they really care if i come to their program or not? Am i just a number on a piece of paper out of 80 kids? As nooneleseisalone24 said “do they view us as replaceable?” This was the vibe i got back in October when i visited the school after being accepted into COPA. We made a long trip to Pittsburgh (over 8 hour drive), went to visit the school and upon our visit were told that the head of the program was going to stop by and talk with us since i had been accepted and was highly considering going. Well to our surprise the head of the program never showed up, not even for a quick second to introduce themself. While i understand teachers have busy schedules and things come up, still i was already an accepted student (not a perspective), was at the school for 3 days, and still got no interaction, letter, or phone call. Not even an apology for not getting to meet us as planned. To this day i still have not met the head of the program, and it just goes back to say that i feel like i am not even important to this program. For $40,000 plus a year i think i deserve to be at least acknowledged.</p>
<p>My D was also offered on the spot acceptance at Unifieds (12th) and received the email a few days later. The offical COPA letter arrived a few weeks later. Keep in mind that the adjudicator at Unifieds may have been completely in the dark as to how many deposit checks the school received that weekend. Admissions and COPA are two separate entities. This is clear when several schools make offers and say, “But this is contingent on your acceptance to the college…”
Regarding kids still getting acceptances…ONLY the 20 girl slots have been filled. Boys out there are still OK and IMHO should be calling for more scholarship $$ because they need boys!</p>
<p>I don’t think so because checks are sent to admissions not COPA and if they all arrived on that weekend the office wouldn’t have been processing until Monday so noone would have known on Saturday and Sunday. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super frustrated about what happened because some people had many if not all eggs in the PP basket and that is a total disappointment, but I’m just saying that I can see HOW it may have happened. I do think PP’s reputation will be severely negatively affected by this moving forward.</p>
<p>S got letter via US Mail today that he was accepted to PPU for MT with small merit scholarship. He’s already committed to Rider, so it is a moot point, but this may signal some movement at least for MT boys…</p>
<p>Hello! I am a current acting major at Point Park, and I wanted to say first off that I am terribly sorry for the experiences that some people on this thread are having. For the past few years, PPU has kind of messed up the acceptance/waitlist process (two years ago, they sent acceptance letters to those on the waitlist as well as those who were originally accepted, and last year they under-accepted acting majors and were holding auditions in July). I can confirm that as of a few weeks ago, they were still auditioning for MT boys to be accepted, but MT girls were only auditioning for the waitlist. This being said, Point Park is weird, but (at least the faculty I’ve had in my two years being there), they don’t view students as being “replaceable”. I hope everything works out. If anyone has any questions, I’d be more than happy to answer to the best of my ability!</p>