Wednesday, November 29, 2017

A Few Status Notes for #UVA22 Early Action Applicants

Our Early Action applicants are obviously keeping a close eye on their status pages. I thought I would go over some of the most common questions that come up when viewing a SIS account as an applicant.

1. The SAT and ACT scores don't come quickly.

It takes the SAT and ACT folks up to two weeks to send your scores to us once you make your request. Once the score files arrive electronically, it can take a few days for scores to be matched up with applications. One common issue we've seen is that students are applying with a different name or address than the one they used with the SAT or ACT. This probably affects international students and those at boarding schools the most. If you know that you used a different name and address with the testing agencies, drop us an email to inform us.

2. We know your mid-year report isn't ready.

If you attend a school on a semester system, we know mid-year grades aren't ready yet (see the "After You Submit" section of the application instructions). We leave the mid-year report on the to-do list so you know it will be expected. Once a file is marked complete, students often stop checking their SIS account (until decisions get released!). If we waited until the end of the semester to add the mid-year report to checklists, may students wouldn't see that new requirement.

By the way, international students in IB programs can send predicted grades as their mid-year report.

3. Just because something is missing doesn't mean someone dropped the ball.

If something is missing from your file, please don't assume a the document was never sent. Though the USPS works very hard, sometimes the mail goes astray or a document fails to upload. Do not worry! We will work with you. No one is going to throw an application away because a credential is late. We want to get your file to complete so we can read it.

4. If you have to resubmit an item

Please use the dedicated email account for application updates when sending anything you want considered with your file. Do not email documents to individual deans or groups of deans. We're just going to forward the email to the account above the next time we check email (we are not on email all day...we're reading!). Sending things to the deans just slows down getting those items into your file. The folks in charge of the dedicated account are on the administrative team that files documents and they will get items into your application quickly!


If you have questions about your status pages, I'm happy to answer them in the comments!

Thank goodness we don't have paper files anymore!