Why not release Admission results all at once via the web?

<p>U of Chicago released 10,000 EA results at once this year, and no glitches in the website at that time. They will have approximately 20,000 more RD results in late March.</p>

<p>I think colleges that don’t use the web for this are kind of backward and a bit lazy these days. People who live far away from the college sometimes have to wait several days more than those close to the college. It is kind of pitiful to watch them out here on the web where some kids got mail and some got nothing. But this is not surprising – I think higher education can be quite insular and backward in many things.</p>

<p>The online process certainly can be cool. U of C’s was pretty neat, a bunch of bubble/balloon type letters floating around that resolved into “Congratulations!”, with a link to the acceptance letter, need based aid letter, and merit aid letters. No idea what the rejection page looked like. The big envelope still came, just several days after the online decisions were released.</p>

<p>I feel like it is mostly parents who want to keep getting letters, since they are often going to be there when the mail arrives or when the kid first sees the envelope. Harder to share that moment online, depending on the timing. But I really wish all colleges would move to the online decision.</p>

<p>University of Illinois Urbana Champaign does release decisions online on two dates – one in fall and one in February. All decisions are released at the same time, and then admissions season is over. </p>

<p>Last year, my son could not access the site, and it took a few hours for the traffic to slow down enough for him to sign on. He was not expecting warm and fuzzy from state u, so was not frustrated with the process.</p>

<p>I knew it couldn’t be a difficult task. It was a beautiful thing to see the Penn acceptance video.We can save it forever and we still got the letter.</p>