Right on Schedule COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog

Right on Schedule COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog Numbers are definitely a big part of the life of anyone that works in an admission office.   Here are a few insights into what has been on my mind lately . . . Each year at SIPA roughly half of the people who apply submit their application within 72 hours of the deadline.   A recent report I ran indicates that this year will be no different. 120 hours prior to the January 5th deadline approximately 25% of those in the system had submitted their application.   Roughly 75% are still working away and it would not be surprising to see another 25% submit within a 48 hour period leaving us with 50% remaining for the final 72 hours. The story is really no different for letters of recommendation.   In the last 24 hours of 2010 there were some busy people.   We received 224 recommendations in the 24 hours prior to the new year and there are still roughly 1,000 that need to be submitted in the final few days. For those that did submit the application early, now maybe you can understand why we do not start printing applications as soon as they are submitted.   When we print applications, we tell the system to print any submitted recommendations letters at the same time.   Thus, in a perfect world, if you as the applicant submitted all of your information on the application site and your recommenders submitted their letters online as well, everything would print at a single time. If we print your application and a letter has not been submitted (or any other document for that matter) we have to run a sweep at a later time to look for the documents required to complete your file.   The dreaded sweep is filled with peril.   Looking for documents that have been submitted separately can lead to all sorts of paper cuts and staple gouges. So if you have submitted your application please be aware that it can still take us some time to complete your file.   And if you have yet to submit your application and do so within the next few days, please understand that it might be a few weeks before we certify your file as complete.   Please carefully review this post for important information on how we track application in our office. All things considered, we appear to be right on schedule.