College applications messing me around

[metalangel]

I applied to two colleges for ASL & Deaf Studies.

My second choice has accepted me... but only told me last week! Apparently I got accepted months ago and had no letter or email from them specifically saying so, I just started getting other stuff off their mailing list and it was only when I called them querying one of these weird mailouts that it was revealed I was 'in'.

My first choice doesn't seem to have realized I have a university degree (it hasn't been taken into account as part of my application), which again I only found out when I called them trying to find out what was going on. I've since been told the course is now 'wait listed' because they had too many applicants. Really? You were continuing to advertise the course as having availability up until the middle of May! I'm now told 'Mid June' to hear what's happening.

I've explained over and over again that I live overseas, that I have a life: a job, a house, a spouse. The colleges seem to think that everyone's just some kid who's straight out of high school, spending the summer loafing around drinking beer and able to drop everything at a moment's notice once they find out what's happening.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable in expecting better notification than this, that it's unfair to be kept hanging when we're in the summer now, for courses starting in August or September. Even if I were to find out today, that would leave me just over two months to try and sell almost everything I own, quit my job, move across the ocean and try and find a new place to live and a new job.

I'm angry, upset and disappointed. My parents are now urging me to put everything off for another year because they think it's all rushed and not planned. I couldn't plan anything until I knew which city I was going to. Every day I sit here at my stupid job frustrated, feeling trapped and like I can't do anything about it.

Sorry for ranting.

PS: I'm in the UK still, the colleges are back home in Canada.

 

[Grummer]

its typical eh, maybe they are right..but yup i hear ya misleading advertising...and misinformation, unreal it happens here too

 

[naisho]

Ahh, I hear your pain man.
There should be a standard universal date for college decisions. For all class levels, undergrad, grad, and phd's. Instead, different schools have different deadlines, and give different decisions and wait on different funding deadlines.

AND... after applying, it's a terrible waiting time to wait for any kind of word forever. The worst waits of our lives. I know I can speak from experience and some others on here

Did the site for the school who decided months earlier not have an online login to check your decisions?
There's also another site we use in the USA for unofficial reporting of decisions, but I don't know if they cover your institutions in Canada. Check out www.thegradcafe.com.http://www.thegradcafe.com

 

[metalangel]

(all this refers to my second choice) They have a provincial site covering all institutions that you have to apply through. Once my application was submitted I don't think anything else is meant to happen (though I didn't know that at the time) and indeed it looks exactly the same today as it did back in March when I applied.

The college site itself has the ability to log in but you need to be assigned a student number and password first. For all I know the letter or email with these details is floating in limbo right next to the letter or email telling me I'm accepted. Again, this isn't something I was aware of until very recently.

Now, my first choice DID send me a letter acknowledging my application and with a student ID for their website but I couldn't have known if this was the second choice's policy too!

It's all well and good having these centralized application systems, because it means you only have to enter your information once and it can be sent to several institutions, like a car insurance comparison website. But, like a car insurance comparison website, each institution (or insurance company!) has their own internal filing system and policy which will never match up with the one size fits all application system. Which leaves me, stuck, again.

I'm missing some mail. By a coincidence, that includes two sets of my car insurance paperwork! I wonder if I have a letter from my second choice there too, dated early April, welcoming me! If so, I'm going to go postal on the postman!

 

[dereksbicycles]

Yeah, disappointing,

I would be curious to know if anything may have gotten lost in mail. It has happened to me.

Also, what is the rush of doing this. If you wholesale everything you have so that you can move across country, you'll regret it later. You may wish you had been patient and wait and get fair value for your stuffs.

You don't want to rush and have to run around and sell everything unless you want to auction them.

While I don't know your situation, I don't know what is so bad about waiting until next year and going to school?

If a person gets accepted in a school, do they have to go right now?? Check with your college. I'm sure your acceptance will be valid for at least a year or maybe 2.

 

[metalangel]

Well, I've emailed my first choice and asked them just that. Considering how they've scrupulously avoided answering my last query about whether I should bother getting my UK degree run through a International Credential Assessment or not, I'm sorry to say I'm not expecting much.

It's not just across country, it's intercontinental moving. Shipping isn't cheap, and unless you fill a whole container, you have to wait until someone else's stuff fills the rest before they'll load it onto the boat. Even if it were to be sent right away that would mean many weeks before it arrived. Our furniture is almost entirely cheap Ikea garbage anyway that's served us for six years but won't be missed and would not survive a transatlantic voyage. So, I'd just go and buy some new stuff immediately when I arrived, and in the meantime it would just be me, two suitcases of clothes, and my laptop. That's just how it goes sometimes.

I am just going to have to accept it if it becomes impossible to do it this year. What I'm not happy about is how it's been handled. First choice sent me a 'thanks for the application letter' and then NOTHING until I called them. Second choice sent me nothing but strange newsletters and 'like us on Facebook' and only when I called them did I discover that I was on that mailing list *because* I'd been accepted. With the economy tanked I don't know how long it will take our house (the biggest issue holding things back) to sell.

I'm just mad that I did my best to give myself plenty of time for this to happen and a succession of administrative issues on their part is what's spoiling it. You've also gotta remember that I've been trying to come up with a way to get back to Canada without leaving my (British) missus for the best part of a decade, and this was finally going to be the way that would enable us to do it.

Now to go shoot some people online and let the stress out

(note: I really don't want to name the schools here, I'm sure the staff on the courses themselves are great but they're being let down by their bureaucrats)

 

[Anij]

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry Bold )

What provinces are the schools in?
There are a number of Eastern (ans Western) universities where students (and some admin) have been protesting etc for the last few months. If you applied to anything in Quebec, and some locations in Ont the delay/issues may be related to that.

 

[Reba]

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry Bold )

What provinces are the schools in?
There are a number of Eastern (ans Western) universities where students (and some admin) have been protesting etc for the last few months. If you applied to anything in Quebec, and some locations in Ont the delay/issues may be related to that.

What are they protesting?

 

[naisho]

What are they protesting?

Looks like it's been going on for 14 weeks?
Canada News: Protest gangs storm into Montreal university classes, force students out - thestar.com

Above is a Toronto news source.

Seems like it's correlated to tuition protesting. CBS' reporting says:

May 24, 2012 8:04 AM
PRINT TEXT
About 400 arrested in Canada tuition protest
Police watch demonstrators as they protest against tuition fee hikes in Montreal early Thursday, May 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Ryan Remiorz, The Canadian Press) (Ryan Remiorz)
MONTREAL — About 400 people have been arrested overnight in the latest protest in Canada over higher university tuition.

Weeks of protests in Quebec have at times turned violent. The provincial government last week passed emergency legislation meant to end Canada's most sustained student demonstrations ever.

Protesters on Wednesday night threw objects at police in Montreal as what started as a peaceful march fell apart. Police encircled the thousands of protesters and squeezed them into a tighter space.

Arrests were made in Montreal, Quebec City and Sherbrooke.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest has refused to roll back the tuition hikes of C$254 (US$249) per year over seven years. Quebec has the lowest tuition rates in Canada, and they would remain among the country's lowest.

About 400 arrested in Canada tuition protest - CBS News


The whole issue sounds like it's all CA protesting all over again.

 

[Reba]

Looks like it's been going on for 14 weeks?
Canada News: Protest gangs storm into Montreal university classes, force students out - thestar.com

Above is a Toronto news source.

Seems like it's correlated to tuition protesting. CBS' reporting says:


About 400 arrested in Canada tuition protest - CBS News


The whole issue sounds like it's all CA protesting all over again.

Have the protests closed down the schools?

 

[Reba]

Re your linked story: Was the protestor's sign intentionally misspelled?

The violence on campus and in the classrooms is awful! I would be very upset if my classes were disrupted.

 

[naisho]

Have the protests closed down the schools?

In CA, for most campuses I reckon they don't close down, but NorCal/Berkeley area is always the most liberal crowd/youngsters in question. You remember the pepper spray incident at Davis not too long ago back.

Tuition hikes are actually going really bad with the price of housing in CA. Some guy did an analysis on it before and I found his reports very thought provoking. Our tuition rates can be seen as are nearing the pricing of buying a house.

Financial land of perpetual bubbles

 

[Anij]

Re your linked story: Was the protestor's sign intentionally misspelled?

Are you referring to "INJONCTION" ? If so, it's not misspelled. The photo is from protesters at Université du Québec à Montréal (The University of Montreal in Quebec) and is written in French, not English.

 

[Reba]

Are you referring to "INJONCTION" ? If so, it's not misspelled. The photo is from protesters at Université du Québec à Montréal (The University of Montreal in Quebec) and is written in French, not English.

 

[Anij]

no problem
I figured that was what you were looking at ... figured I'd post so everyone would know it's not a typo

"injonction" = "injunction" in English ... although it's used a bit differently.

 

[metalangel]

It's not in Quebec. There's no college in Quebec that does ASL. There's only five courses in all of Canada to do this in, so I won't give it away by saying the province Just in case the people running the course see this and put two and two together. As I said before, I have no problems with the course itself, it's getting past the admin staff that's the problem here.

I said to the missus last night, it's amazing how a tiny bit of carelessness or negligence by someone working in an office can screw up someone else's life.

 

[metalangel]

Did the site for the school who decided months earlier not have an online login to check your decisions?

Slight update, yes, second choice has a login to look at things. However, it turns out I shouldn't have had a login yet anyway so I couldn't have gotten in there and found out earlier even if I'd wanted to.

 

[naisho]

That's good for some guidance.

What are you plans now that you have some answers out of this mess? It's a lot of work to pack up and go straight back to the Americas if you've already settled down in UK.

On the other hand, you get started with your new career sooner.

 

[honey.toronto]

I've been accepted to metalangels' first choice college (same program), and there have been no delays with regards to applications and acceptances; those are handled by an entity completely separate from the schools and is all done online. Any protests have no effect upon that.
Basically, because he's living overseas, despite being Canadian, they're jerking him around from what I'm understanding. I guess they're waiting to see how quickly first applicants pay their tuition before sending out secondary confirmations? I find it suspicious that they're full so early this year, after the program was open until August last year for applicants (I chickened out of applying for last year).

 

[metalangel]

That's good for some guidance.

What are you plans now that you have some answers out of this mess? It's a lot of work to pack up and go straight back to the Americas if you've already settled down in UK.

On the other hand, you get started with your new career sooner.

Well, I need to make the decision, and soon. My parents think it's rushing it, but the thought occured yesterday that I'll still be dependent on being accepted sooner rather than later or I'll have gained nothing except being another year older. I seem to recall the deadline for 'equal consideration' was February and for accepting an offer if you'd gotten one already was May (honey.toronto might be able to correct me on this if I've got it all wrong) so it could mean I'll have a whole extra month at worst.

The house is the biggest thing: until it sells, we're paying the mortgage on it.

Basically, because he's living overseas, despite being Canadian, they're jerking him around from what I'm understanding. I guess they're waiting to see how quickly first applicants pay their tuition before sending out secondary confirmations? I find it suspicious that they're full so early this year, after the program was open until August last year for applicants (I chickened out of applying for last year).

I find it suspicious too, especially as it was open past the February deadline, past the May one, only for them to now say they're oversubscribed.

(for the benefit of everyone else reading) I did PM you about this wondering about why, if they had so many spaces, I hadn't been accepted. I've been told they've only considered my English grade from high school - all my other grades (including a 'writer's craft' class I did in high school, surely also demonstrating my command of the English language) have been ignored as has my Journalism degree (again, something that English is central to). I don't really know what their criteria are but would love to know!

Anyway, she told her mother yesterday (her mother approves and says she can picture me as an interpreter) and we're going to see my parents this weekend to discuss things. Not looking forward to that, but hey ho.