Customizing the Common App Essay for UVA

It's natural to look for advice from trusted voices when you're doing something important for the first time. I think it's wonderful that there are so many people trying to help students through the college application process. That being said, I continue to see college admission influencers on social media suggest that students should customize their Common Application essay for every school on their list. I made a video about this back in June, but it bears repeating here on the blog:

Your Common App essay should address the Common App prompts. 

More recently, I've seen people suggest that for UVA, the Common App essay must be about an intended major and/or address "why UVA." With two small exceptions*, we don't admit to majors at UVA and we've never had a "why UVA" essay in the 20 years I've been here. We don't expect you to have a major finalized yet and we have years of surveys and anecdotes that tell us why people find UVA appealing.

The essay is your opportunity to share something meaningful about yourself. A strong essay gives readers insight into your experiences, perspective, and interests. It doesn't have to be about a specific one college.

If you're happy with your Common App essay and it shares something interesting about you that doesn't come through in the other parts of the application, there's no need to rewrite it just to mention UVA or one of our academic programs. Focus on telling your story well. Authentic voice, style, and tone is far more important than trying to work a college's name into an essay where it doesn't naturally belong.

As always, remember that the application is made up of many important parts. The essay is one piece of the puzzle.

*The Common App and our application instructions explain that we admit students to the College of Arts & Sciences (undeclared), School of Engineering (undeclared), School of Architecture (undeclared), School of Nursing, and the Kinesiology Program. 

What is the Counselor's School Report?

As students read application instructions and start working on their Common Apps, they sometimes wonder about the School Report (also called the SSR or Secondary School Report) that counselors submit to support the application. 

This School Report is sort of like a "cover sheet" for the documents sent by the counselor. In our system, this form is bundled with the high school profile and counselor's recommendation. The School Report and a high school profile help admission officers calibrate to read the file. Generally, the high school profile gives information about the curriculum at the school, grading scale, and information about how statistics like GPA and rank are calculated (remember, those are not standardized). The School Report is a little more specific to the applicants and the current year's senior class.

The first page has biographical information on it and the privacy waiver...

 

The questions on the back of the School Report aren't all required, but they prompt the counselor to provide information about the student and contextual information. 

Some high schools don't allow their counselors to complete all sections of this form. For example, the sections asking counselors to rate a student compared to others and the disciplinary questions are regularly left blank.

  

 

 

Do you have questions about the School Report? Post them in the comments below. If you're on a mobile device, you'll have to look at the "full" version of the site instead of the mobile version to see the comment box.

 

 

#UVA and The Coalition App

Sometimes, the deans in the Office of Admission will cover the front desk for one reason or another. It's always nice to be reminded that our front desk handles a ton of call traffic and a lot of it isn't admission-related. I think it students become so used to calling us with questions during the application phase that they assume we have the answers when it comes to housing, dining, billing, and so on.

I just spent an hour at the front desk and enjoyed chatting with students and parents about a variety of things. One call that surprised me was about Coalition Applications. The caller insisted that the Coalition's website said we were using their application this season. The Coalition Application website has a note in bold on their UVA page that says we will not be using their application this year. We are members of the group, but have opted not to adopt their application at this time.

In addition, our application instructions tell students to apply using the Common Application. If we change our application process, you would see a change on this page well before the application launch date. We know some students like to get the basic parts of the application squared away before school responsibilities kick in, so we would try to give everyone plenty of notice about a big change!

We'll continue to have one application in 2017-2018, so all rising seniors will be submitting their applications using the Common App. Juniors, we will update our instructions by the end of next June if there are any changes to the process.



FYI, here's the list of schools that, like UVA, are Coalition members while deferring adoption of the Coalition's application:

If you have any questions, I'm happy to see them in the comments.

Counselor and Teacher Recommendation Requirements for UVA

Before I get into UVA's recommendation letter requirements, I'd like to share an observation:

Some people seem to think that application requirements are for average applicants and if they want to show a school they are especially worthy, they have to go above and beyond those stated requirements. I promise you that colleges ask for the items they want to review. There is no hidden message that we really want something else.

Today, I thought I would share my thoughts about recommendation letters. Hopefully, you'll understand what we are looking for as we work through this part of your file and you'll realize that for the vast majority of applicants, the two required recommendations fulfill our needs. Sending a bunch of repetitive recommendations doesn't help us in our review. If someone tells you that UVA wants a bunch of extra recommendations, show them this blog post.

We require a counselor's recommendation and a teacher's recommendation. These can be submitted however the counselor/teacher wants to get them to us. Some schools have systems that facilitate submission, some counselors/teachers will use Common App's online system, some will email us (application documents go to uvaapplicationinfo@virginia.edu), and some will drop them in the mail. Any method of submission is fine with us. Everything meets up in the applicant's file.

The Counselor Recommendation

Your counselor will send us your high school profile, transcript, a school form with some basic information on it, and their recommendation. The recommendation can take any form. Many counselors write a letter, some bullet out a few statements about their student, and some schools have a form that that prompts their counselors to cover different topics. It all works for us. A school in one of my territories has a large senior class and 100% of the class typically goes on to a two or four year college. As you can imagine, those counselors are BUSY. When they created a form with areas to address different topics (academics, extracurricular, character, outside issues that may have impacted the student), it was a great move for both "sides" of the desk.

What would happen if a counselor didn't know a student well? Those counselors will sometimes share what they have learned from the student's file or from conversations with the students' teachers. There is also a way for counselors to let us know if the constraints of their job prevent them from writing a recommendation. In those cases, the school form is sufficient.

The Teacher Recommendation

We require one teacher recommendation here, but we don't specify the grade level or subject area for that teacher. We want you to pick the teacher who you think has the best insight into your classroom performance and style. Who might talk about your role in class discussion or your style when working on a group project? Who might have a story about you working really hard to get through a particularly different concept? That's the teacher you should ask!

These recommendations aren't about summarizing information we will learn from other parts of the application, so I don't recommend giving your teacher your activity list. You could remind them about the project you did that impressed them or about the time they asked to hold onto something you did so they could use it as an example. Those little anecdotes bring the data that we get in the rest of the application to life.

If you feel like your style is dramatically different in different classrooms, it might make sense to send an extra teacher recommendation.

"Other" Recommendations

When it comes to recommendations from folks who don't know you in the classroom, I think you have to be careful. Recommendations in the working world have a different purpose than academic recommendations. Academic recommendations supplement the data. Recommendations from outside academia are usually simple endorsements that restate the facts. Having a supervisor at work or where you participate in an activity certify that you do, in fact, work at that place does not provide us with new information. You've probably told us about this in the activity section of the application.

We turned the "other" recommendation feature off in the Common App. Stick with recommendations from people who know you through school.


Do you have any questions about recommendations? Feel free to post them in the comments.

2016-2017 UVA First-Year Application Essays

Towards the end of every reading season, we gather to talk about which essay questions elicited great responses, which ones could be tweaked to be better, and which essays we'd like to retire. We often pull students into our discussions to get their perspectives. Conversations we have at Days on the Lawn and other admitted student events sometimes come into play as well. Some essays work year after year and others need tweaking. This year, we've made


You'll write one general essay for the Common App and then you'll write two short responses on the UVA screen. The Common App announced their general essay prompts back in January. Here's what you'll see on the UVA part of the application...

2016-2017 First-Year Application Essay Questions

1.    We are looking for passionate students to join our diverse community of scholars, researchers, and artists.  Answer the question that corresponds to the school/program to which you are applying in a half page or roughly 250 words. 

• College of Arts and Sciences - What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way?

• School of Engineering and Applied Sciences - If you were given funding for a small engineering project that would make everyday life better for one friend or family member, what would you do?

• School of Architecture - Describe an instance or place where you have been inspired by architecture or design.

• School of Nursing - Discuss experiences that led you to choose the School of Nursing.

• Kinesiology Program - Discuss experiences that led you to choose the kinesiology major.

2. Answer one of the following questions in a half page or roughly 250 words.

• What’s your favorite word and why?

• We are a community with quirks, both in language and in traditions. Describe one of your quirks and why it is part of who you are.

• Student self-governance, which encourages student investment and initiative, is a hallmark of the UVA culture. In her fourth year at UVA, Laura Nelson was inspired to create Flash Seminars, one-time classes which facilitate high-energy discussion about thought-provoking topics outside of traditional coursework. If you created a Flash Seminar, what idea would you explore and why?

• UVA students paint messages on Beta Bridge when they want to share information with our community. What would you paint on Beta Bridge and why is this your message?

 
A note about word limits:
The word limits are there so you know that we are expecting short statements, not term papers. Be concise and thoughtful in your statement statement and try to convey your voice and style in your words. This is the one spot on your application where your personality gets to shine, so don't treat this like a formal school assignment.



We are looking forward to seeing what applicants for the Class of 2021 do with these questions! Good luck with your writing!

As always, I'm happy to answer your questions in the comments.

Five Tips for #UVA20 Regular Decision Applicants

The Regular Decision deadline is around the corner and from the tone of the calls I've gotten today, some of you are freaking out. Here are my final notes for all of you who are putting the finishing touches on applications right now:

1. Read the application instructions. There's a whole section about "Accessing the Student Information System" and so many of the questions I get on the blog are covered there.

2. Get YOUR part of the application submitted by 11:59 PM on January 1st. Your teachers and counselors have a grace period for submitting their parts of the application.

3.  You don't have to "rush" your SAT scores. As long as you have submitted your request to ACT or SAT, we can work with you. In an ideal world, you'd have submitted those requests earlier in the month, but we'll have plenty of things to work on if the scores aren't here on deadline day.

4. I know I mentioned this the other day, but make sure you submit your Common App. Paying the fee doesn't submit your application. Every year, there are people who submit a payment, but don't submit their actual application.

5. If you have any trouble, hit the "Instructions and Help" link that is on every page of the Common App website. They have support team members staying up into the wee hours to help students. That isn't permission to procrastinate. Can you imagine how many help tickets get submitted on the night of a big deadline?

That's all I have! Feel free to tweet at me (@UVaDeanJ) or post in the comments if you have a last minute question. Good luck!

Last Minute Notes for #UVA20 Regular Decision Applicants

January 1st is around the corner and it's time to remind Regular Decision applicants of a few things. Early Action applicants, you're going to recognize a lot of the information here. 

Deadline Night

This comes up every year. The deadline is January 1st. It is still January 1st up until 11:59 PM that evening. Don't wait until the last minute to submit just in case there is a technical glitch and you need assistance. The Common App team stays up all night to help students, but you can probably imagine that there are tons of support tickets being submitted on deadline night. Don't procrastinate!

Paying the Fee Doesn't Submit Your Application

Make sure you follow the submission procedures in Common App. Paying the fee won't make your application come to use. You still have to submit the application. We spend a few weeks following up with people after deadlines because they neglected to submit an application, but sent us a fee!

After Submitting, You'll Monitor Your Application Status in SIS

This is explained in our application instructions. A few days after your file is pulled into our system, UVA's Student Information System will send an email with login information to the email account you used on your Common App. On the main screen, you'll see a "to do" list of items that need to be checked into your file.

The first time you log in, you might see items that are in our system, but just haven't been matched up to your file yet. 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.

Mid-Year Reports will be sent by your counselors once first semester grades are available.

SAT and ACT Score Aren't Sent Instantly

Despite the testing agencies having this on their websites, many people don't know that it takes the SAT and ACT folks a few weeks to transmit scores to us. Even if you sent your scores a week ago, you might see them on your "to do" list in SIS for a while. Don't delay. Send your scores NOW.

Sending Resumes, Papers, and Other Supplements

We do not accept resumes, papers, and 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 turned off in Common App.

If you are a Virginia resident, please be sure to fill out the residency section of the Common App. 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. The Common App is a robust application that provides us with plenty of excellent information. Don't complicate the application process with extras!

Jack loves the Common App...scarf.

The Final Countdown for Early Action Applicants

Early Action deadline day is here and we know there are still some applicants out there putting the finishing touches on their applications. A few reminders...

1. The Common App help desk is FAST.

Even when I have asked the most complicated question, I've had a response from the Common App folks in under and hour and often in just 15-20 minutes. If you have a problem while on the Common App website, open a help ticket. The individual colleges don't support the Common App website. The Common App has a great team of folks who do that.

2. You need to double check your responses to a couple questions.

Every year, we hear from students who accidentally applied under Regular Decision instead of Early Action. Double check your selection before you submit. If you hit RD, we won't even begin to work with your file until after the EA review is complete. While you're at it, make sure you are applying as a first-year student. Even if you are coming in with AP, IB, or college credit, even if you are getting an Associate's Degree concurrently, you are a first-year student if you are still working on getting your high school diploma.

You can verify all of this on the first UVA screen you come to on the Common App website.

3. Read the our application instructions.

The application instructions explain what happens after you submit your UVA application. If you read them, you will not be surprised to see items on your "to do" list the first time you log into the UVA student information system (SIS).


I'll be online as late as possible tonight to answer questions that come in by email, blog comment, Twitter, or Facebook. Our office will be open tomorrow morning in case you need to talk to someone about your application.

Good luck! Don't stay up too late!

Sending Resumes and Supplemental Information to UVA, Fall 2015 Edition

I normally spread posts out by a couple days, but the emails I'm getting are prompting me to combine my usual note about sending resumes with some more information about supplemental documents.

First of all, this post is not about the optional UVA supplements applicants interested in the arts, architecture, and the marching band are able to submit through SlideRoom. This is about all the other stuff that people want to send us.

1. Don't send resumes to UVA.

The Common App has a resume upload function and lets each school decide whether they want to use it. We are one of the schools that turned that function off. We prefer the Common App activity section to the various ways people choose to present their activities on resumes. Our reading loads are heavy and a systemic format ensures that we can zero in on the major pieces of information. Accepting resumes would slow the process down immensely (and increase the chance that we'd miss something) because everyone chooses their own resume style.

2. Don't send extra documents to Virginia Status unless prompted to do so.

The director of the Office of Virginia Status emailed me the other day and said that Virginia families are going through her website and filling out forms she has on there "just in case" they are needed. Submitting unnecessary documents slows the process for everyone. We ask our residency questions on the Common App. There are a few people who have to send extra documents and they will prompted to do so.

3. Proof of activities is not needed.

Some people seem to think they are getting into college because of their activities. Activities are part of the puzzle, but they play a role that's secondary to the information we get from your school. Listing your activities on the Common App provides enough information about your extracurricular work. We don't need documents that prove that stuff happened.

At the end of the Common App, you sign a statement saying that what you submitted is true. Certificates and nice notes from coaches or club advisers should go in your scrapbook, not get submitted with your application.

4. Application updates don't go to individual admission officers.

Right over the spot where people can find our email addresses is a note that application updates are sent to [update: portals] and that we aren't concerned with you demonstrating interest right now.

If you have some important information that needs to be added to your file, send it [update: via your portal], not to one, two, or several admission officers. Please don't copy us on emails to the application account either. We need to read applications right now and our inboxes are already getting flooded with lovely, but unnecessary emails from students.

It's no secret that applying to college can be complicated, but it seems like some are trying to make applying to UVA have even more layers. As a student, you need to request that school officials do their thing, have tests scores sent to us (posts about that here and here), and then focus on finishing up your Common App by the deadline. Once that is all done, go back to juggling all the other things that are part of being a senior.

Class of 2020 Application Essays Revisited

I share the UVa application essays for the next season each June on this blog. Traffic is often low at that time of year and since it is increasing, I thought I would show you where our questions appear.


Applicants will submit one essay with the main portion of the Common Application and then write short answers in response to two questions on the UVa screen within the Common App website. The first question you answer will depend on your answer to the question "To what school or program are you applying?" The second questions allows applicants to select a prompt from a list.

There was a point in time when Common App required every school using their application to put questions that required writing on a separate tab from their general questions. We quickly learned that some students didn't understand the connection between the question about choice of school and the first short answer question. There were also a slew of students who, despite us contacted them repeatedly about their incomplete application, never submitted the essay section. There were lots of complaints about the Common App being "too common" that year. Thankfully, Common App now lets each school decide if they wanted their essay questions to appear on the same screen as their general questions or on a separate tab. It makes much more sense for ours to appear right under the school choice question.

If you are applying to a few Common App schools, just know that some may still have their essay questions separated from their general questions and some will have combined the two. 


Do you have any questions about essays?

Social Norming, College Admission, and Stress

The concept of social norms was emerging when I started my career (I was in student affairs) and isn't really discussed in admission all that much. With a social norms approach, we talk about what is normal instead of what is happening with outliers when discussing behavior or outcomes. I use a social norms approach when talking to students about the college application process and I've been thinking that students could benefit from more widespread use.

I spoke on a panel at a Fairfax County summit on teen stress last weekend and it is so clear to me that many people draw conclusions about the college admission process based on stories they've heard about outliers. Outliers are probably interesting because their stories amaze and excite us. The outliers get so much air time that even the most calm, rational people lose sight of what is normal. If we focused more on norms, maybe there wouldn't be as much pressure to do what the outliers are doing.

Let's look at something as simple as the number of college applications high school students are submitting. This New York Times article says:

...In 1990, just 9 percent of students applied to seven or more colleges. By 2011...that group had risen to 29 percent.

In the class of 2014, according to Naviance, 16.5 percent of seniors using the system said they intended to apply to 11 to 20 colleges.

Flip that around so that the normal behavior is highlighted:

In 2011, 71% of students submitted six or less college applications.

In the Class of 2014, 83.5% of students who use Naviance intended on applying to 10 or less colleges. 

 

The data that the Common App puts out about the number of applications the average user submits might help back up the norms approach. They've been putting these charts out for years and the numbers haven't changed all that much. In fact, in our mid-Atlantic region, the average number of applications submitted was lower in 2014 than in 2012 at every kind of high school except the ones with religion affiliations. The number for those schools stayed the same.

It's still interesting to marvel at outliers (that NY Times article cites someone who applied to 56 schools!), but maybe we can take things down a notch by talking more about what is normal.

Sending Resumes to UVa

I wrote a post with important notes for Early Action applicants this morning, but the amount of emails my colleagues and I got today that included resumes prompted me to write a second post.


With an applicant pool that is fairly large, the Common App is a wonderful thing. The formatting allows us to zero in on a student's information quickly. I think most people understand that this is why many schools like to use the Common App. It's Common.

The Common App lets colleges make some decisions about the questions/features they use. One of them is a resume upload function. The resume upload feature is turned OFF for UVa. I know that some really, really want us to see a resume or another activity chart, but please respect our process and use the Common App.

When you use the Common App's activity section to enter your information, a chart is created on my side of the application. I know exactly where to find all the pertinent information on that chart. Here's an early draft of what the activity section looks like. There have been a few changes, but you can get the idea...

An early draft of the activity page on the Common App

We really like how activities are organized in the Common App. We know where to look for the facts and we don't spend time sifting through extra information to get to the good stuff. Resumes tend to restate a lot of information that is presented elsewhere in the application.

Students have taken to emailing resumes because we don't offer the upload function. I got one the other day that was four pages long and the first two pages listed details about the same activity. It was as if the student whose activity sheet is above listed statistics about every game in which he had played. The detail provided (three years on varsity, elected caption) helps me understand the involvement far better than knowing a batting average does.

Keep it simple. Remember that schools ask for the things they need and they usually tell you the format they prefer. Use the activity section of the Common App. Do not email us a resume.

Five Common Concerns of Early Action Applicants

Early Action applicants, you have one more day to submit your applications! I thought I'd write one post to cover some of the most common worries that students have around deadline time.

1. The Early Action deadline for UVa is midnight on November 1st. 

That doesn't mean those of you who thought it was midnight tonight now have permission to procrastinate. Avoid submitting at the last minute since there are thousands of students applying to schools with November 1st deadlines who will also be submitting tomorrow. Give yourself a nice buffer just in case something goes wrong and you need some help from the Common App folks.

2.  Double check the type of application you are submitting.

Every year, one or two students submit applications and forget that they designated them as Regular Decision. If you did that, we probably won't even touch your file for a couple months. Double check that you indicated that you are a first-year applicant submitting an Early Action application for the Fall 2015 term.

3. Contact Common App if you have trouble submitting. 

There is a help button on every single screen within the Common App's website. The admission officers at your schools aren't able to help with Common App issues. What's more, if there's a problem, the Common App team needs to know about it in case it is systemic.

4. Your UVa status page won't be current yet.

We have two processes happening simultaneously right now: the January transfer process (their deadline was October 1) and the Early Action process. Our staff is processing documents as quickly as possible, but it will take a couple weeks for everything that has arrived to be checked in. If we are missing something from you after all the documents have been processed, we will be in touch! Just focus on getting your application submitted. Don't panic about your status page just yet. Please don't call or email admission officers to check on documents. We will be immersed in file review and can't sift through mail bins or stacks of documents that are being scanned.

5. Your application won't be "downloaded" on deadline day.

Every year, we get frantic emails from students who submit before the deadline, but don't see their application as downloaded by their schools. Applications tend to be downloaded once per day and the download date is almost never the same as the date you submitted. No need to worry about that!



Here are a few blog posts that address some other things that might be on your mind. I'll be updating the posts from last year with some new thoughts in the coming weeks.
-All of the 2014-2015 first-year essay questions together
-Essay word length
-Essay formatting
-How we use demonstrated interest
-Sending Resumes to UVa
-About extracurricular activities

As a reminder, you do not need to rush your SAT scores to us at this time. As long as you get your request in to ETS before the deadline, we should be good.

Good luck, seniors!

The 2014-2015 Common Application is Live!

Happy Common App Launch Day!

The Common App's blog has tips for applicants, parents, and school officials that you should check out before you get started.

If you created an account last season, you need to create a new account. You may notice one format change this season. Common App allowed colleges to choose whether they wanted to maintain a separate tab for essay questions or move their essay questions so ALL questions from the school are on the same tab. UVa and lots of others moved their essays. All UVa specific questions are now on the UVa tab. There's no "Writing Supplement" tab for UVa.

Here are screen shots that show how the essay questions will change based on which school within the University you select. Remember, the essays were posted back in June right here on the blog.

I'll be back next week with a few more Common App related posts. Feel free to post questions (or messages that convey extreme exultation over launch day) below.

Reminder Emails

In the next few hours, we will be emailing Regular Decision applicants who didn't submit all three parts of their application to give them one more chance to get it done. We've been emailing you for a few weeks about this. Thousands of you have everything submitted. A few hundred are leaving us hanging. 64 of you paid a fee, but never submitted anything else.

You might want to be proactive and log into your Common App account to make sure you submitted all three items (the application, writing supplement, and payment) for each of your schools. You don't want your application to be in limbo!

Limbo.

Double Check Your Common App!

For the last week, we've been emailing people who didn't submit all parts of their Common App to give them a chance (or several last chances) to hit submit on what was missing. Would you believe that 23 people paid a fee and told Common App they were applying during the Early Action period, but never submitted the actual application?

So one last email went out yesterday. We are about to shut things down and move forward with processing all those fabulous transcripts and recommendations that are rolling in. I should have some preliminary numbers for you soon. Keep in mind that our official stats use completed application numbers, so you will see these numbers go down in time.

By the way, official statistics about everything at UVa come from the Office of Institutional Assessment and Studies. You can see all kinds of admission statistics on their website. Most schools have an office like this. The name often has a name like institutional research or assessment.


Now, because I've given you lots of screen shots lately, here's a picture of CavDog in one of the UVa gardens.

Happy day!

Sending Resumes to UVa

Common App has a great upload feature for resumes. They also have a great feature that lets colleges turn that function off if they don't need applicants to upload resumes.

UVa turned the feature off. We don't need resumes.

Here's the thing: we have a pretty large applicant pool (just over 29,000 people applied last year). It's helpful when information is presented in a consistent format. We really like how activities are organized in the Common App. We know where to look for the facts and we don't spend time sifting through extra information to get to the good stuff. Resumes tend to restate a lot of information that is presented elsewhere in the application. Repetition is totally unnecessary in this process. What's more, I think students divert a lot of time and energy to crafting a resume when they could be working on school work or putting the finishing touches on their essays.

Here's an early draft of what the activity section looks like on my side of the Common App. This was a test application from a few months ago. There have been a few changes, but you can get the idea...

An early draft of the activity page on the Common App

We also like that there are ten spaces for activities on the Common App. So many people think this part is about documenting every step you've taken over the last four years when we are really interested in seeing where you have your deepest involvement. We don't need intense detail about your activities. Short summaries are perfect.

There's a school out there that only has five spaces for activities and I think that's a great idea. It coveys the message that this isn't about having a long list, it's about sharing your favorite ways to spend your time when you aren't involved in classwork.

Students have taken to emailing resumes because we don't offer the upload function. I got one the other day that was four pages long and the first two pages listed details about the same activity. It was as if the student whose activity sheet is above listed statistics about every game in which he had played. The detail provided (three years on varsity, elected caption) helps me understand the involvement far better than knowing a batting average does.

Keep it simple. Remember that schools ask for the things they need and they usually tell you the format they prefer. Use the activity section of the Common App and don't email a resume. If we wanted resumes, we would have allowed them to be uploaded in the Common App.

After Your Hit Submit

We are still processing everything that was submitted over the weekend, but I thought I'd remind you of the "After you submit" section of our application instructions.

Once you submit your application, the Common App holds onto it until a designated time when we pull the day's submitted applications. If you submit after the day's pull, we might not get your file until the next day. That's totally fine.

Our system has to move the information from your file into our databases. Around deadline time, it can take a while for all of this processing to happen. Once your application has be set up in our system, an email will be sent to the email address you submitted. The email will give you login instructions for our Student Information System (SIS). It can take up to five business days for these emails to go out. It all depends on volume.

The first time you log into SIS, you might see several things on your "to do" list. For now, you should not be worrying about missing credentials that are being submitted by your counselors and teachers. I will let you know when it's time to worry about that. The system has to look through credentials that have already arrived to match up documents that are for the same applicant. This can take a little while.

If the only thing on your "to do" list is the mid-year report, your file is complete for now and ready to read! Hooray! Mid-year reports come in late January or early February.

One your file moves into our reading process, you'll see a "view decision" box pop up. It's built into SIS and we can't change it. It does not mean we have a decision for you. Decisions won't be final until some time in January. I'll post as soon as we are done to let you know about the release of decisions. 

By the way, if you file financial aid documents, a second "to do" list will appear for that process. Be sure to log in regularly.

Common Worries Around Deadline Time

The Early Action deadline was Friday night and it seems like more students than in the past decided that they wanted to submit an application to UVa early. I'll have some unofficial numbers to share in a few days. Today, I wanted to address a few of the things that keep coming up calls, emails, and blog comments.

1. Admission officers have ALWAYS been flexible around deadlines.
There's a story that goes with this. 

Back when I was a college student, I gave a tour to someone who is a bit of a legend in the college admission field. He wound up pushing me to think about working in this world. I went to the admission office at my Alma Mater and begged for a job. After promising to stay at school and work for them over holidays and spring break, they let me join their staff. 

On my very first day in the office, probably within the first hour I was in the office, I took a call from someone who had been prevented from applying (I can't remember the reason) and wanted an application sent out. (This was in the dark ages, when we had to mail applications.) The call came after the deadline, so you can imagine my total shock when my supervisor told me to stamp "Late Application" on the packet and mail it out. 

Looking back, I have never worked for a school that refused applications after 11:59 PM on deadline night. Even the school I know that is very strict about their application process being followed precisely has a very loose deadline. When something beyond your control affects your ability to submit, we are understanding. 

This is probably why the majority of colleges didn't feel the need to make a big statement about extending the application deadline in the wake of reports of Common App glitches. We always leave the application open for a little while after the deadline. This is pretty standard in college admission.

2. Applications are transferred electronically once each day.
There were several comments and emails over the weekend about the date "stamp" you are seeing on your application when you log into your Common App account. There could be lots of reasons why your account says you submitted a day after you did, but the bottom line is that if there's something there, your application was submitted to us.

Common App has a scheduled delivery once per day for us. Be aware that if you hit submit after the day's transfer, we'll be getting it the next day. This isn't anything to worry about.

3. Counselors and teachers have a different deadline.
I was a little surprised that I got a slew of emails from people panicking about teachers not submitting recommendations by November 1st. November 1 is your deadline. Teachers and counselors have so much going on and it seems like more and more students are leaving the recommendation assignment to the last minute (back in my day, you were expected to give forms to your teachers/counselors about a month before deadline). No one is in trouble if the recommendations come in after deadline.

4. Application components accumulate in your file.
More than ever, people seem very worried about the different components of an application getting matched up in the admission office. With a few exceptions, the different components of applications have always arrived separately and get reunited in the student's file.

Back in the day, there were schools that wanted to applicant to send everything in one envelope, but plenty had a stack of envelopes in the application that students would distribute to their counselors and teachers so credentials could be mailed separately.

These days, things are much faster. Everything that is submitted electronically through the Common App is already tagged with your basic information. Our system knows how to file everything that comes in electronically. Everything that comes by mail is scanned into the system and then filed.

The process is much faster than it was in the paper days! Back then, this is where we put items send for students who hadn't applied:

This is what about 16,000 applications looks like. Imagine how much more space we'd need for the 30,000 applications we'll get this year!

Early Action Deadline Day!

Happy Deadine Day! To those who are still putting the finishing touches on applications, please submit early. So many colleges have November 1 deadlines that the Common App servers (and help team) are apt to be extremely busy tonight. Do not wait until 11:59 PM.

There are three things you should double check to make sure your application is coming to us as an Early Action application.

1. Check that you designated that you are a first year student. Even if you have a boatload of AP, IB, or Dual-Enrollment classes, you're applying for a first year if you didn't finish high school and then get 24 college credits after your high school diploma was granted.

2. Make sure you selected Fall 2014 as a term. If you did #1 properly, the only option you had was to apply for the Fall of 2014, but it's worth mentioning.

3. Verify that you selected the Early Action plan. You'd be surprised by how many students call us after we release EA decisions wondering why they didn't get a decision. Inevitably, they indicated that they were applying under Regular Decision, so we didn't touch their file during the EA review.

You can double check all of this on the very first screen of the section of your application dedicated to UVa's application questions.

I'm the "Dean of the Day" today, so I'm going to spend much of the day giving information sessions and talking to visitors. Please understand that my response to comments might be a little delayed!

Good luck, EA students!

Happy Deadline Day!