During both the week before and the week after a deadline, life gets fairly crazy in our office. We are receiving tens of thousands of documents, both online and through the mail, and we have a number of people trying to match these documents as quickly (and accurately) as possible. And while we know that you want to check and see about missing items, I ask that you hold your phone calls, emails, visits, etc. for a little while, as you need to give us time to match up items. Over the past two days, I have had two people contacting me wondering why something that was submitted an hour or two ago is not showing up on the myStatus page. So here are a few tips and explanations so that you will understand the process.
- The myStatus page was updated on 1/13 at 4:00 p.m., and will not be updated until the morning of Tuesday, 1/17. Items that arrived at the end of this week or later may not show up until later next week.
- While the deadline is 1/17 (extended due to Sunday and holiday), we will be accepting supplemental documents for a few weeks after this date, as we know that some schools, counselors and teachers are somewhat overwhelmed at this time of year. That does not mean that you should wait to have things sent in, but that we try to work with schools on the documents.
- The myStatus page does not work on a live feed. It is updated at about 3 a.m. or so every business day, so something that is submitted today will not show up automatically.
- If a school evaluation is submitted online through our system, it will show up in 1-2 business days, as it goes straight into the student’s file. If a teacher recommendation is submitted online through our system and the teacher uses the link off the email (it self-populates the information of the applicant), it will also show up in 1-2 business days. If the teacher just goes to the form and enters in your information, it will have to be hand matched, and it will take longer.
- If an item is sent through the mail, through GA411, or through Naviance, it has to be hand matched, and it takes a few days.
- If you had something sent in before you applied, it gets put into a holding file for documents awaiting matching, and then can only be matched after you apply. When we have 2,000 people apply right at the deadline, which is a lot of applicants to check against our holding file, so be patient.
- We generally say to give us 8-10 business days (not just days, but business days) to get something into your file after it has been sent/submitted. It usually takes much less time, but you never know.
- Make sure your teacher/counselor uses your full name, as I have seen first/last names reversed, nicknames instead of first names, or even the occasional letter with only a first name on it. These will take much longer to match up (if we are able to), as we have your official name on the application and go with that name. As well, there are a number of students with the same name, and if there is no birthdate or middle name on the letter, we may have to double check the different files for accuracy (I once had a set of twins with the same first name!).
- Test scores are loaded several times a week, but your scores need to be sent officially by the testing agency, and UGA does not control when they are sent to us. As well, if the scores arrive today, it generally takes 1-2 days to then load them into our system.
- If you send a fax, I will shred it. Faxed official documents are not acceptable. I don’t think I can make that any clearer.
- Fee waivers and checks must go through a specific financial tracking process before they are entered to make sure there is no financial misconduct, so be patient with these items getting into the system.
So my best answer is that the word of the day is PATIENCE. We hope to have a first pass of all materials matched with files within the next two weeks, and we will then search for missing items. These usually are items where there are hyphenated names, nicknames, etc., and we did not catch them the first time around.
Right now, just breath, know that we are doing our best to match up items, and have patience.
Go Dawgs!