<p>1) You could get very angry at this school, because “it’s your son’s future; that’s admissions’ mission; it’s poor customer service, etc”. Send admissions a letter with a copy to the institution’s president. Identify the school here on CC.</p>
<p>2) You can call admissions again, note that GC confirmed receipt of materials, wax about how school’s son’s favorite/dream school, that he’d enroll in a heartbeat etc. But if you need financial aid, enrollment still might not come together.</p>
<p>I think that “admissions decisions” continue to be made up to and including first week of school for many colleges and universities, with exception of “super-elite” schools. “Special circumstances” likely do get consideration, just not disclosed or noted in admissions literature.</p>
<p>There’s a very famous American architect who was denied admission to a super-elite graduate architecture program many many years ago, who then journeyed to the school itself, and camped out at dean’s office until he was admitted, refusing to accept the “no”. He was an unclouted candidate. I suspect this still occurs sometimes for the most persistent (and well-qualified) candidate who persists and begs at a school that’s not overtly self-identified as “super-elite”.</p>
<p>And I think it’s inexcusable for school admissions staff to “lose” application materials when the admit stakes are portrayed as so important.</p>
<p>I’ll add that our DS is at school from 8 to 5 too, with no pay phones and cell-phones officially prohibited and confiscated if seen, so it would have been difficult for him to call admissions office during daytime working hours too. This is another example of why it’s important to cultivate an e-mail relationship with an admissions officer at each seriously-desired school, to ensure attention to detail. Worked for DS.</p>
<p>I remember reading a few years back on the UMCP forum that students attempting to confirm that their applications were complete were unable to do so–it takes x amount of time for us to log it in, blah blah blah…to the point that someone was unable to determine that something had NOT been received and missed the priority application deadline. This was a student who was making a good-faith effort to ascertain whether his application was complete.</p>
<p>This glitch put the applicant out of the running for all merit scholarships–at his home state university.</p>
<p>I am sure there is a story like this for every school. So sorry it happened to your son.</p>
<p>I know it’s disappointing now, and you are angry, but consider this to be a learning experience for your son. He can learn from this how important it is to check and double check when submitting important documents, so a time in the future, when it really does matter, he can catch any hiccups.</p>
<p>I remember having to call our GC to resend transcript to D’s U. They claimed they hadn’t received it from the school. Our GC sends things certified mail she resent the transcript with a copy of the signed receipt. The GC was a little angry lol…</p>
<p>Well, I’d be pretty irritated AND I’d consider it a learning experience.</p>
<p>I mail a lot of stuff with a receipt so that I will have “proof” it arrived. I don’t trust any of those things, personally. This probably has to do with the fact that I had a bad experience once, when it mattered.</p>
<p>I’m glad your son has other options and if you are “done” with this school, I think you should request they return your app fee as well. Clearly they did not earn it.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, I appreciate all the comments. I still believe the professionals own their admitted mistakes. We might have made up for their mistakes with greater diligence on our part… lesson learned. We did not experience such mistakes with our first childs applications, and didnt have reason to expect it this time. Now, Im out of kids. So I hope my experience benefits someone else. My son has his 1st realistic choice, this was his reach afterall. And I probably save 60-70k in expenses.</p>
<p>penzly, D2 was down to 2 schools. One of them was kind of like the one you describe. Lost letters of recommendation, slow to respond, flippant, poorly organized, etc. The other was welcoming, acted like they really wanted her, quick to notify and to respond, always gave straight answers very quickly, very structured and organized, etc.</p>
<p>I told her, “Remember, that it’s likely that what you are seeing in the application process could be indicative of what the University is WILLING TO ACCEPT in the way students are treated. In other words, you are likely to get the same treatment for the next 4 years.”</p>
<p>Even though school A offered her a little more money, she went with school B. It was a good decision.</p>
<p>penzly, I agree with poetgrl’s points in #27. You have every right to be angry. Of course you aren’t going to be dwelling on it forever, but some of us who are not as perfect as others do feel anger when someone screws up and it affects our kid, and we need to vent.</p>
<p>As for those who say it’s the kid’s responsibility: yes, BUT. CC is FULL of kids who are obsessively checking their status online and even THEY frequently cannot tell whether the stuff has actually arrived or not, or whether it has been put in their file. I’ve also experienced the situation of someone giving my kid the run-around, requiring me to take over the calling since he was gone from 7AM until 5PM, with no access to a phone.</p>
<p>The question now is do you and your son want to pursue it or move on. You could send the missing materials–having identified and spoken to a specific individual to email/address them to-- you could request a refund of the application fee, or you could just chalk it up to experience and move on to celebrating your S’s excellent choices. To me, a lot would depend on what you think your S is going to take away from this. On the upside, he will learn about the vagaries of systems and bureaucracies, and understand that he needs to be more proactive in the future. On the downside, he might be inclined to obsess about might-have-beens, or absorb a defeatist message. I would be inclined to send the missing materials, as long as he understands that the school STILL remains a reach for him, and that the finances are also unknown. He might add a lesson in persistence if you take that route. It’s hard to say. I guess I would talk it over with my so, and be frank about it all.</p>
<p>I think a university should send out an email notification that things are missing, instead of just expecting a student to check their status on the university’s website weekly to see if anything pops up. It is understandable that mistakes can be made, but the process should include a reasonable backup system to make sure there is time to correct mistakes.</p>
<p>I am with Golffather. Except for this last kid, all of mine have had some issues with things not getting there. Actually, I take it back, I’ve sent college transcripts to his school for courses taken that they claim they did not get. So, yes, it happens all of the time. Not just for colleges either. When you are applying for something, anything, it is up to you to make sure that everything is complete. You are the one asking for something. It’s wonderful if the schools did not make mistakes, lose things, sent out proper notification.</p>
<p>It’s late to be saying this here, but it is smart to open up an email account for all college things and have parent/student access to it. Kids can be stupid sometimes and miss an important email and the consequences are just not worth it. I look at senior year as the last hurrah for parents to be in their copters and hover. After that, it’s all them. </p>
<p>I never found out for sure whether it was my son, or another kid with the same name, similar SSN accepted to one school. We got emails regarding that other kid during the entire year. Did two major sit downs trying to straighten it out and then got a notification that my son needed something or other that did not pertain to him at all. Sigh. Yes, it sadly happens all of the time. And really, I can’t control how I feel about these things, so if I feel disapponted, which I would and angry, not very angry, but certainly irritated, that’s just the way it goes. I won’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, I can tell you that as I have some control over that. But emotions, how I feel, well yes, it would bother me.</p>
<p>@ charlie is referring to his alma mater, and the university both of our students attend. Once all of the dust settles and admissions is quite sure they’ve filtered through everything submitted and matched to applicants files students with missing items are notified via email and given a chance to get those items in asap. These items have been noted on their online ‘To Do List’ but they are told to hold off until all sorting is done. So after the deadline is past they are contacted to send in missing items. They can also check online and a big green checkmark will show that all items have been received and they are good to go. A pretty good system for a school that does receive about 29k applications.</p>
<p>Having said that when my student was applying he did need to contact admissions about a few things, and yes his schedule had him at school from 7am until well after 6pm most days. His GC was more then happy to allow him to come during lunch, or right after school before ECs started, and use her phone, or one in the guidance office, to call admissions and take care of whatever he needed to. Would he rather I have done it, you bet…mom’s home all day (yea, I NEVER have anything else to do ). This was his responsibility and even with being a very busy high school student there is no reason between email and a helpful GC a student should not be able to make contact during regular business hours for all but the most extreme matters (usually those involving financial aid).</p>
<p>Some universities do send out notification that things are missing. Wesleyan’s financial aid system is particularly excellent for that; they emailed me ALL THE TIME to let me know what wasn’t in yet.</p>
<p>That said, for actual admissions, I would agree with people who said that it is the student’s responsibility. Many schools get 20k + applications and it’s unrealistic to suggest that they individually notify every student who is missing some component. Of course, they <em>could</em> do it automatically, but that’s the basis of the “application check” systems that they all have.</p>
<p>I have a spreadsheet of all the colleges I applied to with marks for myself about what I submitted and when. I also included the ID numbers and passwords for each school so that I could check everything. Things happen and it’s unfortunate when documents get lost, but your child’s job isn’t done when they click “Submit.”</p>
<p>I read a very long, sad article about the plight of three young women in a town in Texas pretty much having navigated the whole college application and financial aid route themselves. The one young woman paid and is paying very dearly for not keeping an eye on how things were done. Emory made a mistake on something, she did not catch it or appeal it, so too bad, so sad for her. No retroactive reimbursements. It’s the way of the world.</p>
<p>This sort of thing happened with both my older girls. With my second daughter, the university’s error made her ineligible for an early rolling decision and merit aid. Both girls also ran into online statuses that reflected missing materials but when they contacted the admissions office, they were told that the applications were in fact complete. I found it annoying too but nagged my girls to resend materials even if it meant duplicating what was already received and to stay on top of the their online status.</p>
<p>The one time I had to call a school, I too was annoyed by the dismissive attitude of the person working there. I confess I launched into a lecture about treating young people with respect no matter how overwhelmed with applications they were at this school. I am sure I came across as a cranky old lady. </p>
<p>OP, I don’t blame you a bit for feeling disappointed for your son and annoyed at the school. Lucky for him, he has great choices.</p>
<p>My daughter kept getting snippetty letters from one school she applied to, saying that they still hadn’t received all her materials. She tried, by mail and phone calls, to explain that the school mis-entered her name in different databases: Daughter’s last name has an apostrophe in it – think O’Malley, O’Brian, etc – and it was with an apostrophe in one database, without in another (in yet another, the O’ was left off altogether.)</p>
<p>Finally, she gave up. I told her, look, if it’s this hard for them to enter you correctly into their computers, think how hard it would be to graduate on time from that school. </p>
<p>In the end we got a snippetty letter saying they closed her file due to insufficient materials. Sheesh.</p>
<p>It sounds like there really is nothing your son did wrong or could have done to prevent this. He said he checked the online tool and it said they had everything. Your GC said their records indicated (at least at some point) that everything had been received. So from the sound of it, the college communicated they had everything and then later on some mishap occurred, on their part. If it were me, and I had email confirmation/status confirmation of everything being complete, I’d take it at face value and find no reason to keep checking and checking the same thing… that sounds a little OCD to me. </p>
<p>I would be frustrated and disappointed with the college. I’m frustrated at my cable company right now because they hosed something up, too. Organizations screw things up, it just hurts when it’s this important to your child. On the bright side, I had a friend who had a similar experience. The college that messed up her daughter’s stuff bent over backwards to expedite the correction and she ended up with an acceptance within the week. She believes to this day that the mistake might have actually tipped the acceptance in her daughter’s favor. So I’d just be proactive in a positive way, have your son contact the people himself so they actually talk to him. While he speaks to them, make sure he reiterates at every possible chance how important this is to him because they are his first choice. It could actually end up being a blessing. Fingers crossed!</p>
<p>What else would any of you expect the kid to do? He checked his email and he checked his online status. What was he supposed to do - hire a psychic???</p>
). This was his responsibility and even with being a very busy high school student there is no reason between email and a helpful GC a student should not be able to make contact during regular business hours for all but the most extreme matters (usually those involving financial aid).</p>