<p>Perhaps I am stuck in the stone age, but I decided that I will mail my application rather than email it. A couple months back, I read about placing a post card in everything you send the college so they send it back to you confirming that they recieve it. Is this right? Can someone please clarify this?</p>
<p>Yes, the post card idea has been recommended on other threads here. You address it and add postage to yourself and write on the back : application materials from X received by Y college--the colleges can stamp it and send it back.</p>
<p>I have said the post card thing on a number of posts. I know when my D went through the process (class of 08) we stuck a stamped post card addressed to our home in everything that went out via snail mail from supplemental information, techer and gc recommendations to financial aid stuff. You can write a little notation in the corner of what is being sent ex: supplemental essay, application, fee, tax information etc.. For teacher recs, she wrote teacher rec and the initial of the teacher. She gave the post cards to the teachers with the rest of the recommendation stuff.</p>
<p>The schools are very amenable as they will stamp the post card for the date that they opened your stuff (some will even sign a name) and mail them back to you. At that time only Barnard and Tufts had some sort of on line tracking and she wanted to make sure each school received their stuff because she did not want her applications delayed. You also have a written record in the event your prospective college said they did not receive something, you could say that Ms. Jones signed for it on 10/3/05. She applied to 7 colleges and we recieved the signed cards back from each school for everything we sent. I think the schools were amenable because it meant less calls to the office asking if they received something.</p>
<p>all the best</p>
<p>correct me if im' wrong, but don't schools send an acknowledgement back automatically?</p>
<p>yea, don't colleges notify us themselves if sth is missing from the app or if the app is complete?</p>
<p>this is wut i got from penn and i didn't send in any postcard: "You will receive a postcard in the mail acknowledging receipt of your application. Normally, this takes about three weeks from the time that you send it to our office."</p>
<p>or is penn only one among few who do this?</p>
<p>and can't we just ask them to email a confirmation instead of mail it? tht'd be quicker and more convenient, especially for intls.</p>
<p>I got little cards from several schools to which I applied saying that they had received all of my application, and other schools had online tracking.</p>
<p>while schools do notify you if they don't have something your file is also placed on hold until they receive it actually giving others with comlete files the opportunity to knock you out of the box. Out of the thousands of colleges inthe country the majority of them do not track online nor do they inform you that your application packet is complete.</p>
<p>I know at the time Emory did not track applications nor did they send correspondence about the status of the application. My best friends son was waitlisted and when he contacted the school they told him that part of the application was missing. He never received anything to the contrary.</p>
<p>For schools that also receive tons of applications I believe it is in your best interest to be in control of the things that you can be. The postal system is falable, go to the parent's forum and look up a posting by mootmom where DHL lost the package she sent to her son and he did not get it until 2 weeks later. At the end of the day who has the vested interest here as it is very easy for a school to say next.</p>
<p>Can you say with 100% certainty that a school that rejected you did so because they had all of your stuff? Look at it as an ounce of prevention</p>
<p>I also sent postcards with all my application materials, and just to add to what sybbie said, many colleges don't notify you that something is missing till after the deadline. If you get a letter saying that your application is incomplete, you don't have much time to get things mailed in. On the other hand, if you know you mailed something out pretty early and don't get a reply card for a while, you can call and confirm that your application has been received.</p>