I posted this note about your status pages on the 2014 Facebook group earlier in the month and I realized that I should post it here, too.
-The amount of processing we have to do right now is staggering. All of your credentials may not be checked in until early February. Do not send duplicates unless we contact you. Don't worry about your status page until February.
-"Initiated" in a term used by our Student Information System to show that an item has been added to your to do list. It means the item has not been completed yet.
-If you get to the point that the only item on your to do list is your mid-year report, that's great! We know those don't arrive until February.
-Once your application is complete and it moves to the "ready to read" mode, you'll see a box pop up at the bottom of the status screen. "View decision" will appear in the box. It doesn't mean your decision is ready. That's just something that's built into the computer system that we can't change. If you hit "view decision", you'll just see a note about decisions not being ready at this point.
-If/when you apply for Financial Aid, their office's to do list will appear on your status page. Our offices are separate, so we in Admission have no knowledge of what's going on with your aid application. Direct all questions directly to them.
-While the Office of Admission is paperless, you'll be getting a paper decision letter from us in addition to seeing a short version on the decision screen on notification day.
-Financial Aid packages are posted online ONLY. They won't be sending your paper documents. You'll probably want to take screen shots or print out the screen when your aid package gets posted so you can share it with your parents.
-If you ever forget your SIS password or want to change it, you can follow the steps in that first email you got to generate a new password.
Let me know if you have any other questions!