<p>My D was considering applying EA to WPI, but she is having a problem coordinating all the pieces of the application together - for example, she’s still waiting for her teacher recommendations to make it through the pipeline. She’s already completed a couple of online applications, but they haven’t been submitted yet because the school is slow on getting the official transcripts together.</p>
<p>D said that all the pieces must be sent together, but I wasn’t sure if that was actually the case. So can anyone confirm this?</p>
<p>THe most important thing is to make sure that your D gets all of her information in on time; the online app, her essays and ensuring that she has ordered scores from the collegeboard/ ACT (she will be dinged for turning in her stuff late). </p>
<p>Unless the school states specifically that this is a self managed process where all pieces must be sent together (more likely at public school where they want the transcript and the application or for grad programs) the college will not hold it against the student if the teacher or counselor is late with their stuff.</p>
<p>As far as the recommendations and transcripts are concerned, the regional admissions person is more likely to extend a professional courtesy to the GC if his/her stuff is late and they still have the option of calling up the GC to have a live conversation or having them fax in their peice.</p>
<p>Unless a school specifically requests that all pieces are included in the same mailing, items can be submitted separately. Online applications, in particular would receive student submitted applications at one time and school submitted supplemental material as the school send them. A file is started when the first item is received;this may be the Official test scores in some cases.</p>
<p>It may depend on the school. From what I’ve seen of Harvard, all of the pieces need to be together for an EA admit or rejection decision to be made. Otherwise, it seems that students will be deferred. This includes if it’s not possible to get an interview for students who are in the US, but have difficulty getting an interview during the EA period because of a lack of alums willing to volunteer. Depending on where one lives, there may be lots of EA apps, not many alum volunteers, so students may end up being deferred until later so that they can be interviewed. </p>
<p>Harvard does its best to inteview all US applicants before making a decision. Sometimes it’s not possible to inteview US applicants at all because alum inteviewers are simply too far away to make an interview possible. In such cases, decisions are made without an inteview, but I think that first the admissions office does its best to find an inteviewer, which could mean that decisions end up being made during the regular decision cycle.</p>
<p>I’m only an alum inteviewer, however, not on the admissions committee, so I may be wrong.</p>
<p>Yes, all of the peices need to be in in order for the admissions committee to make a decision but it is not on the student to personally mail all of the components in (which I think is OP’s question). WHat the student should be doing at the time they ask the teacher for the rec, is to let them know the due date and give them a gentle reminder as the time comes closer.</p>
<p>mominva is right, they open a file on the student with the first piece of information received and when all info is there, the application moves on.</p>