One of the questions that has been burning up both our email and phone is, “When exactly is the deadline to submit my materials for the MIA, MPA, or MPA-DP program?” The answer:
11:59:59 P.M on Tuesday, January 5th – Eastern Standard Time in the United States.
So at the stroke of midnight in NYC on January 5th, please have Parts 1 and 2 submitted.
I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year and provide a bit of insight into what faces our office on Monday after our office was closed for the holidays last Thursday and Friday. As I type this it is late Sunday night and I just could not resist taking a peek at the Office Email Account. Since we closed the office on Wednesday we have received close to 400 emails and although I did not check our voice mail box, it is a safe bet that it is full and needs to be cleaned out.
Upon returning to the office on Monday my staff and I will do our best to respond to all of the email and voice mail, and I am pretty sure our phone will ring constantly and we will be visited by every express mail courier known to man on Monday and Tuesday. On top of all this, history shows that over 1/3 of applicants each year submit their application within 72 hours of the deadline and we will be printing thousands of pieces of paper in the coming week.
I am sharing all of this to give you an idea of the pace of activity in our office around the deadline and to provide some advice. While we do take our deadline seriously, we also understand that there are sometimes extenuating circumstances and the crush of inquiries around the deadline does not always mean that we can respond right away. Knowing this, we will work with applicants who we believe have made a good faith effort to submit their application and all of the associated documents by the deadline.
My number one piece of advice is that if you have a question or concern, please email [email protected]. We are able to respond to email in a much more efficient manner and it also provides a sort of paper trail for us to follow (I realize emails are not paper, it’s just an expression that old people like me who went to college when there was no Internet are attached to). Emails are much easier to track and respond to than voice mail, we can answer email any time, not just during business hours, and you can send an email any time regardless of what time zone you are in or what continent you might be on.
We appreciate your patience and look forward to reviewing your application. If in doubt about anything, make sure to submit Parts 1 and 2 of your application by the deadline (January 5th) and if you have concerns about anything please send us an email.
I want to provide a quick update on a few things based on my work in the office the past few days. I have been doing a bit of everything related to processing applications. Here are a few personal notes on some of the tasks, under the theme, “I am always amazed . . . “
. . . at how dry my hands get when opening mail (and we get a lot).
. . . at how extremely hot printer parts get. Note to self: When you are printing thousands of application documents and there is a paper jam, do not just randomly grab metal parts . . . touch them first to determine if they are white hot.
. . . at how quickly our email in box fills up. We get it close to zero, step away for a few minutes, and upon returning it is once again filled with messages.
. . . at how many countries and schools are represented in our applicant pool each year. Last year we received transcripts from close to 900 different colleges and universities from over 100 countries.
Now to some information that really is important to you.
First, I cannot emphasize enough that it is not important for an application to be marked as complete in our system the day after the deadline. What is extremely important is that all of the required information is received in our office or uploaded to the server by the deadline. Thus, it is completely normal for an application record to remain incomplete for two to three weeks after the deadline. We have several thousand printed documents and mail to get through and Admission Committee meetings do not start until late January.
Please do not let the fact that it will take us time to match and track everything concern you. The date an application is completed in our office has no bearing upon an admission decision. When your file has been forwarded to the Committee, you will receive an email from our office.
Second, please remember that when you submit Part 2, transcripts and test scores are not automatically marked as received. The personal statement and résumés are tracked as received immediately because we rarely have problems with the submission of these documents. But as far as the transcripts and test scores, we need to make sure that the correct information is entered and legible. Thus we will perform a manual check and then code them into the system as appropriate.
Third, as much as we would like to respond to individual requests concerning the receipt of documents, this does not allow us to work efficiently and quickly. Each person in the office has a job and we are set up as a sort of assembly line. If one person in the system tries to go around the process and look for a specific document, it slows the process down and complicates matters. As much as I can understand emailing or calling to ask for the status of a specific document, we would much rather you wait to hear from us.
I know the stress that accompanies admission deadlines. As someone with a graduate degree I have been through the process as an applicant, and as an administrator I have been through close to fifteen years of deadlines. We strive to provide the best service possible and by far the best thing you can do is follow this blog for updates on the process.
Rest assured that if we encounter a situation where a document is missing, we will work with applicants if we believe a good faith effort was made to supply the necessary document by our deadline date. There is no need to send a document a second time to us unless we reach out to you first (we will do so by email if necessary).
Thank you again for your attention . . . it is now time for me to find some hand lotion . . .
We are rapidly approaching the admission deadline (January 5th, 2010) for our two-year, full-time MIA, MPA, and MPA-DP programs and the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid is a flurry of activity. As expected our phone is ringing, postal letters are arriving in massive quantities, and our email box is full as soon as we clean it out. The purpose of this post is to give you a few pointers during this busy time of year for our office.
The first pointer has to do with email. If you email our office we please ask that you send your message to only one email address. Some applicants will copy several accounts or personal addresses on a single message and this can lead to confusion and extra work in our office. We highly recommend that you use our main account for your inquires. The address is: [email protected]. Using one account will allow us to answer inquiries much more quickly.
The second pointer has to do with phone calls. If you call and get voice mail, rest assured that we will get back to you, but it may take us some time. If you do leave a voice mail and call again, it is helpful to let us know that you left a voice mail so we know that your question has been answered and can cross the voice mail message off of our call back list. Also, when you do leave a voice mail, please speak slowly and clearly, state you telephone number twice, and also please state your location. With calls coming from all over the world, knowing what time zone you are in will allow us to call at an appropriate time.
Third, realize that we do need to manually check each and every application. This means that when an application is submitted, it will be printed and double checked. So for example, after you have self reported your test scores in Part 2 of the application, we will check to make sure they have printed out and then mark them as received on the application site. Thus do not expect that your application will show as complete immediately after submitting it. We will process it as quickly as possible and reach out to applicants if there are any issues with documents. For more details, please see this past entry.
Fourth, this time of year we receive hundreds of pieces of mail per day. We try to keep up but each year we will open mail after the deadline passes. As long as the documents were received prior to the deadline they will be considered on time. Please understand that we are not able to respond immediately to inquiries about the receipt of individual documents due to the extremely large volume of mail we receive.
We are very excited to begin the review process and appreciate your understanding regarding this issues. Thank you in advance for your patience and we will update your application on line as quickly as we are able.
Some applicants have contacted our office and asked how they may submit supplementary materials with their application. At SIPA we only include the materials we ask for on the application site when we forward a file to the Admissions Committee. We therefore do not accept supplementary materials such as writing samples from applicants. There are two main reasons for this.
First, we wish to be fair to all applicants. To use a common expression, the Committee wishes to “compare apples to apples.” If we allowed one applicant to include supplemental materials it would not be fair to the rest of the applicant pool. In evaluating applicants it is important that each applicant be judged upon the same criteria.
Second, the Committee must read several thousand applications in approximately a six week period and we are confident that we can do so based upon the current materials we require from applicants. Although an applicant may wish to include a writing sample or a copy of a thesis completed at the undergraduate level, perhaps copies of certificates earned, or achievements noted in publications of some sort, the Committee simply would not have the time to read and/or review such materials.
While the Committee does not allow for the submission of supplementary materials, there is a way for applicants to inform the Committee of personal achievements. Instead of sending in full copies of supplemental materials to note personal achievements, applicants may include such information in the résumé/CV.
At SIPA we are not concerned with the length of your résumé/CV. This document may be as long as you believe is necessary to summarize your qualifications for our program. Applicants should also not feel pressure to conform to typical résumé/CV standards that might be associated with applying for a job. When applying for a job it is common to limit your résumé to a page or two – but when applying for graduate school the process is different and the typical résumé we review is three to four pages in length.
The résumé/CV may include whatever information you feel is important to informing the Committee of your qualifications as well as circumstances that may have impacted your academic or professional record. For example, let us say that an applicant suffered a serious illness while completing their undergraduate degree and dealing with the illness impacted academic performance. This is something that could be noted in the résumé/CV in a section labeled “Miscellaneous Academic Information.”
Or perhaps an applicant is particularly proud of their undergraduate thesis – maybe the applicant won an award or was invited to a conference to present their thesis. While we will not accept a thesis to forward to the Committee for evaluation, an applicant would be welcome to briefly summarize their thesis and any associated awards or recognition in the résumé/CV.
So while the application process at SIPA does not allow applicants to submit supplemental materials, you may exercise discretion by including information that you feel is pertinent for the Committee to be aware of in the required résumé/CV.
"The most global public policy school, where an international community of students and faculty address world challenges."
—Merit E. Janow, Dean, SIPA, Professor of Practice, International and Economic Law and International Affairs
Office of Admissions & Financial Aid
514 West 113th Street, New York, NY 10025
Main: 212.854-6216
Fax: 212.854.3010
[email protected]
[email protected]