Between now and January 15 (and even a little while after that!), the UGA Admissions Office will be receiving a huge volume of materials, both electronically and in the mail. Since it has been less than two hours since we have returned from our holiday break, please allow us time to get these materials into our system and make sure that you monitor your myStatus page. Deadlines are always a hectic time of year, and the January 15 one is the most stressful, as it is the final deadline for admissions materials. Here are a few suggestions for the next few weeks.
- Be patient, as UGA (and all the other colleges to which you are applying) are still trying to get back into the office, and it takes a while to get through all the materials.
- Make sure to check with your counselor, teacher, school official, boss, or whoever is sending in materials for you and make sure they have been sent, and remember that items sent through the mail take time to get to UGA.
- Do not wait until the deadline to do things! I repeat, do not wait until the deadline to do things! Yes, we will take applications that are submitted on midnight of the deadline, but this means that you are putting yourself in a position with no room for error. And please do not go to your counselor on January 15 and ask for materials to be sent. They will send it, but you are putting them in a tight spot of trying to do things while rushed, and this many times leads to errors.
- Make sure that your counselor and teacher writes your legal name on the forms/letters. If your name is Jonathan Taylor but you go by J.T., make sure that Jonathan Taylor is somewhere on the pages.
- Do not send in items by FedEx, overnight shipping, etc. Our deadlines for mailed items are a postmarked deadline, so I do not want you to have to pay $18 just to have a transcript sent in, when a basic stamp will take care of it just as well.
- Do not fax items to the admissions office! As I have said before, there is a reason that the shredder is right next to the fax machine. We do not accept official documents by fax, as transcripts, forms and rec. letters come out horrible when sent through the fax.
- Try not to use staples, as we just have to pull them out to scan the documents, and it makes the scanning process go slow and makes the separate sheets of paper stick together in the scanner. Ditto colorful binders! Paper clips are great (or better yet, electronic submission of materials!).
- As stated before, be patient. I am guessing that by about January 25, we will have most of the materials into our system that were sent in by the January 15 deadline.
And remember, Go Dawgs!