I very nearly had one of my applications dismissed out of hand because of something that amounted to a slight administrative oversight.
One position, like many others, requested a copy of my graduate transcript among various other documents. I sent it along, like you do.
A few weeks later, I heard back from them that my application was incomplete. "We're missing your graduate transcript!" they said.
"Qua?" said I, in return.
And then, for several weeks, nothing. No reply.
So I called. I hate to do that, but really, email clearly wasn't working.
The administrative assistant to whom I spoke was on top of her shit. "Oh!" she said, audibly flipping through my file. "You did send that, didn't you? Well. I'll make a note of it, and I'll put you in the pile of applications to be considered."
Done. Just like that.
But had I not called? My application - even though complete - wouldn't even have been looked at.
Sometimes, this whole process frightens me.
5 comments:
And well itshould, despite most people's honest efforts. :(
As an undergraduate who just submitted grad school applications for Classical Archaeology, I feel the exact same way.Thank you for the validation.
Anon - While there's always room for clerical errors, I think that there's significantly less rolling of the dice when it comes to getting accepted to grad school as opposed to getting hired for a job.
Just make sure that there's someone in the program you're looking to work with and whom you could imagine looking at your application and then defending/suggesting your admission based on it.
You'd think that, Harker, but I had to do the same call on one of my grad student applications. Part of my file had slipped down between two other files... yeah. They had it. ARGH.
A similar error in the bursar's office nearly got me kicked out of student housing in my junior year. After being dismissed over the phone several times, I eventually had to both go to the office in person and invoke the Angry Mom Call before they realized our check had been sitting in the "to process" pile for 6 weeks.
I'm glad your situation was solved comparatively easily. :)
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