Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Deadline Reminders for #UVA Early Action Applicants

It's the time of year when Early Action applicants are putting the finishing touches on their applications. There are some common questions and concerns at this point and I thought I'd go over a few of them. 

1. The deadline is November 1st, not October 31st.

You have until 11:59 PM on November 1st in your time zone to submit your application. Keep in mind that many schools share this deadline and while the Common App and Coalition App support teams will be around to help with issues (I know for a fact that the Common App team is up 24/7 around big deadlines), they are apt to be inundated with help requests in the hours before the deadline. Try to submit your applications early to avoid last minute issues.

2. Counselors and teachers aren't subject to your deadline.

You need to get all of YOUR parts of the application submitted by the deadline. Plenty of counselors and teachers have already submitted supporting credentials for students, but the system stays open for them. They get a grace period.

3. Double check that you've submitted on the application website.

Submitting an application isn't a one-click action. Make sure you follow the entire submission process. Log out and go back into the application you're using to make sure the submission went through. 

4. Your application will be incomplete the first time you log into the student portal.

A few days after your file is pulled into our system, we will send an email with login information for our student portal. Please be patient. It takes a few weeks for our staff to match all those transcripts and teacher recommendations to newly submitted applications.We only log required documents due to volume.


5. We do not accept resumes, abstracts, research, or writing portfolios

We do not accept supplements that fall outside the lines of art supplements (for the arts, architecture, and marching band). Your activities should be listed in the activity section of the Common App. Be concise and brief. If we have any questions about your activity list, we'll email you.

Recommendations should come from your counselor and a teacher of your choice. The feature for submitting "other" recommendations is even turned off in Common App to stop non-academic recommendations from coming in. Please respect our process and follow the application instructions on our website. 

6. Virginia residents must complete the residency questions to get in-state status.


If you are a Virginia resident, please be sure to fill out the residency section. The first section asks questions about you (you'll answer "no" to most of them). The next section asks about a parent. The parent section is where most of you demonstrate residency since most of you are dependents. Only send extra documentation to the Office of Virginia status if they contact you with a request for supporting information.

Submitting unnecessary documents slows the process down for everyone. 


Good luck! I'll be watching the comments below for questions. Feel free to tweet at me or DM me on Instagram if you have questions after office hours. I'm @UVADeanJ on both.