As the Early Action 10/15 deadline approaches (we are less than a week away!), here are a few thoughts about the Freshman Admission process.
- Please, please, please do not wait until the last minute to take care of things! If you wait until the last hour to apply, I can pretty well guess that you will have a few mistakes in your application, that your parents and counselor will put on a smile but be very frustrated inside, and that you will be worried during the following week about the supplemental materials that have not yet been matched up with your file. I expect that between today and the deadline, we will receive about 5,000+ additional applications, receive about 20,000+ pieces of mail, shred about 200 faxes (remember, no faxes!), and answer about 1,000 emails, most asking if we have received X document.
- Please do not call, write, or email our office about a transcript, school evaluation, etc. if it was just sent off, or if you just applied. My rough estimate is to give us 8-10 business days (Saturday, Sunday and holidays are not business days!) from the time something is mailed until it is matched with your file. And if you had the document mailed three weeks ago but just applied yesterday, give us 8-10 business days to then match up the materials, as we will have to check on 5,000+ new applications this week and see if any materials are in our “holding” files (where we put documents that have no applications). We want to review your file, so we will do our best to help make sure you have everything in for EA review!
- I cannot guess if an SAT or ACT will get to UGA in time if you send it on X date, as it depends on when the testing agency says it will get to UGA. We will taking the Oct. 1 SAT scores, which will arrive about 10/20, and we will hold open the score importing for a short while after that. But we do not control how quickly the test scores will get to us, so it depends upon you and the testing agency.
- The myStatus page is generally updated one time a day, during the very early morning, so you do not need to check it multiple times a day. Documents do not need to show up on the myStatus by 10/15 to be in by the deadline, so please be patient.
- If it has been over 10 business days since you both applied and any “missing” documents have been sent in, it would then be good to start inquiring about the missing document. If it is a GA411 transcript, we occasionally have one that does not come through, but it is easy to go back into the system and access it again.
- If you sent your SAT/ACT scores a while ago and they have not matched up
yet, make sure that you sent them to UGA. Then verify that the name,
SSN and birth date on the test scores are the same as on the
application, as these are important matching fields. If you have given
us enough time to receive them (not overnight!),they are not showing up
on the myStatus page, and some of the key fields are different (no SSN
on the test scores, Jimmy instead of James), email admproc@uga.edu with
your situation and we will work on manually matching the scores. Be
patient though, as scores that are sent on a Monday do not get into our
system on a Tuesday (or Wednesday, etc.). - We will be keeping the online school evaluation open for at least a week beyond the 10/15 deadline so that your high school counselors will not be pulling their hair out over any last minute applicants.
- It is the applicant’s responsibility to get in all required documents, as they are the “owner” of the documents/scores. UGA cannot call the College Board and have an SAT score sent, we do not always know who your specific high school counselor is, etc., so the responsibility lies with you.
- Please understand that the next few weeks will be a little hectic in our office as we pull together all of the materials for each application, so we might be a little slower in responding to voice mails, emails, etc. If you have a question that can wait about a week (such as questions about your high school junior), I would ask that you hold these type of questions for a short while to let us the deadline deluge. Thanks!!!
- In a few weeks, I will have a better handle on EA application numbers, completed files, etc., so I will then have a better idea on a rough date concerning the release of EA decisions.