International student chat this morning

Remember...

International Student Chat

Today

9 AM - 12 PM Eastern

We are five hours behind Greenwich Mean Time. :)

International student chat this morning

Remember...

International Student Chat

Today

11 AM - 1 PM Eastern

We are five hours behind Greenwich Mean Time. :)

International student chats

The Global Student Council here has set up two chat sessions to answer questions about life at UVa for international students. They have picked times that are a bit different from our normal chat times to accommodate those of you who are in other time zones. The dates: Friday, November 6th from 11 AM to 1 PM Eastern and Sunday, November 8th from 9 AM until 12 PM Eastern.

I'll post an update on the morning of each chat, but mark your calendars if you're interested so you don't forget. You can also check out their event listing on Facebook.

All chats take place on the Office of Admission chat page.

Some other blogs to read

It's time for us to get back to reading transfer applications, so blog updates might not come as quickly as in the past few weeks. For now, check out some of the student blogs. The AccessUVa student blog has some lighthearted videos up and the UVaLife student blog is in need of some incoming student comments. Wahoo World is run by international students and is an interesting addition to the student blogs.

The students writers created their blogs on their own and are not paid for their work. They are eager to answer your questions and chat with you!

A CavDog family photo to hold you over until next time
Can you guess which one is CavDog?

International decisions are on the way!

I just heard from Dean Muth that decisions for internationals are headed out by email! The international decision letters will go to the mailroom today, but it might take quite some time for them to get to certain countries.

Domestic students, please understand that the students who live abroad are facing very complicated logistics when it comes to coming to UVa, so we send out their notification a little early. We are still working on stuffing the rest of the letters. My promise to update you as soon as I know when the mail will go out stands.

Internationals, please be patient...getting all the emails out will take some time.

No one will see a change in their status page. That is an "all or nothing" page that will only change when I turn on decisions for everyone.

Good luck to you all!

The Likely Letter 2008

I'm going to keep this entry very, very simple.

Around this time of year, many colleges and universities send letters to very strong students telling them that their applications are impressive. These letters are commonly referred to as "likely letters".

If you have questions about a "likely letter" from UVa, I hope this helps:

1. A small number of likely letters are sent each year. There is no set number of letter sent.

2. The letters are sent in waves, not at once.

3. Do not read into the absence of a letter. The vast majority of admitted students never receive one. It is best to assume you will not get one.

4. There is no relationship between likely letters and Echols/Rodman/College Science Scholars.

5. The letter means exactly what it says.  We like you!

6. International students can get one of these letters.

Letters! We get letters!

Whenever I look at the mail bins downstairs, I think of the that little song...

Anyway, the mail is pouring in and that's great. Our mail services staff is busily opening bin after bin of letters and passing them along to the processing staff to be checked in and then filed. However, something else is pouring in: FedEx and UPS packages from students living in the US. Now, it's perfectly normal for international students to send applications via one of those delivery services (DHL seems most popular), but there really isn't any need for students living in the United States to send their applications or supporting documents by special courier.

Pass the word around. Don't spend $20 (or whatever it is) to mail anything by FedEx or UPS or DHL if you live in the US. There's plenty of time for documents to get here via the US Postal Service.

This is considered a very small amount of mail.

One last note for the Class of 2011

There was a nice story about the incoming class on our local news station last night featuring one of our summer student workers and Parke Muth, one of our admission deans. It dealt with the percentage of students who are international, African American, Asian, and Hispanic. The incoming class is the most diverse one we've ever had!

Great news for international students

Some alumni have banded together to organize a bus to take international students from Dulles International Airport to UVa before orientation session L (just before classes start). Seems like a nice way to make the trip...it's free, too!

For international students who are attending Session L of New Student Orientation, the University of Virginia is providing a free bus service from Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC to Charlottesville on Tuesday, August 21 and Wednesday, August 22. First year international students should fly in to Dulles (IAD), where they will be greeted by U.Va. alumni and staff, driven to the University, and escorted to their residential halls to rest after the long day of travel. Students who do not ride the Orientation Express will not be allowed into their residential halls until Wednesday, August 22. For more information, please e-mail Kate Malay at katemalay@virginia.edu. Sign up online at http://www.uvaclubs.virginia.edu/orientationexpress.

International Student Update

International letter have gone out and we are going to start following up by email in the next few days, knowing that it might take quite some time for letters to make it to other countries. If you live in another country, please check your spam folders over the next few days. PDFs of letters and all the information that comes in the admit package are being emailed and I imagine that the messages will be large enough to trigger your spam filters.


You can make a preemptive strike by adding undergradadmission@virginia.edu and applyonline@virginia.edu to your address book or safe senders list.

To the rest, letters are printing and envelopes are being stuffed. We're getting there!

How admission rumors gather steam

Admission officers around the country, from deans to rookie counselors, become mail room employees at this time of year. I always found the ritual amusing...everyone gathers staplers, highlighters, paper clips and date stamps and sets up shop in some spot in the office that's not quite big enough. At one school, it's a beat up table in the back of the office. At another, it's the nice conference room that's usually reserved for staff meetings. At another, it's the floor. Regardless, we're surrounded by US Mail crates crammed with envelopes from all over the world. We take our orders from an office manager as we relearn how to open the mail (it's more complicated that you'd expect!).

This year, I made the smart decision to sit at the end of our conference room table closest to the Parke Muth, who is oversees the international admission process. Most people shy away from opening the envelopes from DHL (that obviously hold international applications), but those people don't realize that the most interesting supplements arrive in those envelopes. Surprisingly popular, especially in China: "introduction" books that look surprisingly like the viewbooks we send out. They appear to be professionally produced, with book binding, action shots of the applicant at school, work, and play, and copy talking about the applicant in the third person. They're pretty amazing.

Let me take a "time out" and say that by no means am I advocating submission of elaborate supplements with applications. An art supplement is the only real "extra" we want to see. Anything that arrives in a binder or special folder is immediately yanked out and stapled along with the rest of the credentials. The person who reads the application won't see how the documents were presented.

Seeing all those introduction books had me thinking back to the fall, when juniors were stuffing resumes in my hands at college fairs and high school visits. When I quizzed Parke about the source of the books, he surmised that there was a website somewhere telling students that this was how they should apply to schools in America. Apparently, this is as big a business in China as in the Unites States. One Chinese student wrote a book about getting in to Harvard and made millions. Another person wrote some sort of instruction book for visa interviews and likewise, made millions (by the way, the advice was bad and many had their visa requests turned down).

I'm frustrated by the number of "experts" out there who post information on the internet as if it were gospel. I imagine that some of these people make money, but I wonder if others derive satisfaction at being regarded as "all knowing". The internet "experts" are here to stay. I just hope students and parents don't start paying more attention to them than to the colleges!