Back in the 80s and 90s, a TV character named Jessica Fletcher solved the many mysteries that plagued the tiny town in which she lived.  Having a resident detective clearly worked well for Cabot Cove, Maine (and I’ve always liked the way that Jessica Fletcher borrows both my first name and the name of my workplace).  Maybe we should bring her in to solve the mysteries that we encounter in the admissions process in the Cabot Intercultural Center (the main building in the Fletcher complex).

Yes, dear blog readers, it’s true.  Sometimes we could use a detective to help us ferret out all the information we hope to find in an application.  This week, as our Early Notification applicants put the final flourishes on their applications, I want to encourage you beg you to ensure your application is clear.  Start with rereading all the questions.  Did you answer them?  (Hint:  “Refer to résumé” is not an appropriate answer to our questions.)

Next, put yourself in the shoes of our U.S.-based Admissions Committee.  We’re certainly accustomed to the evaluation systems at many, many universities in many countries, but maybe you shouldn’t assume we’ll know about yours.  Does your transcript provide an explanation of the grading system?  Or will we see a mix of 7s and 9s, with no information on whether the highest grade is 1 or 10 or 20?  If your college/university doesn’t use grades of ABCD&F, and a 4-point GPA scale where 4.0 is highest, and the transcript doesn’t include a guide (many of them do), please explain the system.  Without that information, we can’t evaluate your background fairly.

On an even more basic level, as you may have read here before, please ensure that all your documents have the same name on them.  If they don’t, please send us an email to tell us what to look for.  Whether the multiple names reflect a name change or a spelling error on the part of ETS, it’s your job to fill us in.

Another job for Jessica Fletcher:  figuring out choppy backgrounds.  Did you spend two years in a succession of six-month internships or contracts?  Did you transfer colleges more than once?  Did you spend a year after graduation working at a Target store so that you could pay your bills while waiting for a more relevant job?  Please don’t leave it to us to figure out what’s going on in your background.  You wouldn’t want us to assume the worst, would you?

Given that Angela Lansbury has moved on to other roles and Jessica Fletcher may be unavailable, we leave it to our applicants to keep their applications clear and easy to understand.  Putting in the time to consider how your background and credentials will be interpreted by an outsider will serve you well.

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Yesterday, I posted an entry on standardized tests, but I actually wrote it — and intended to post it — on Tuesday afternoon.  It was about 1:15 and I needed to leave the office in time to reach Boston College for a 4:30 information session, with a stop mid-route at Kayla’s school for parent-teacher conferences.  I proofread the post and hit “publish.”  The little “I”m working on it” swirly icon kept swirling.  And swirling.  And swirling.  Finally, a message about something-or-other “timing out.”  Aaargh.  Hit “publish” again.  This time, I’m packing up the things I need while the swirling carries on, but the result was no different.  Now I really need to leave, so (for insurance) I cut the blog text and pasted it into an email to myself, turned off the computer and left.  The draft was still there on Wednesday and the publish button was much more agreeable.

Last Friday was the deadline for students to apply for positions on the Committee on Admissions.  There aren’t many classes on Friday afternoon, so it’s completely understandable that students would leave the task to the last minute.  How could they know there would be a huge explosion and fire in Medford Square that knocked out electricity on campus until the next day?  Not a lot of printers will work without electricity.  While the applications reached us in time (and we were grappling with the black-out as well, so it was easy to sympathize), the students were sweating over it much more than they needed to.

Dear blog reader, you’re probably wondering why I’m telling these little stories.  The reason:  to remind you that there are forces beyond our control that occasionally pop up to thwart our wishes to meet a deadline.  So many of our applications come in date/time-stamped 11:59 p.m. on the day they’re due.  Please don’t do this to yourself.  The Early Notification deadline is November 15, but you really can send us the application on November 14.  Really.  Leave yourself a little time to solve any problems that come up.  Line up your recommendations and take your standardized tests well in advance of the deadline.  If nothing goes wrong, you still get to breathe easy.  If you hit a snag, you’ll be glad for the breathing room.

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Last week, my daughter Kayla took her first of (sadly) many standardized tests.  Up to now, she has taken the Massachusetts assessment tests that seem to be given to school children every-other-day from March to June each year, but this was her first of the fill-in-the-bubble college entrance exams.  Fortunately, the PSAT doesn’t count for much, particularly for 10th-graders like her.

We’re very aware, from both personal and professional experience, how annoying, daunting, nerve-racking, irritating, (fill in your choice of adjective here) the graduate-level standardized exams can be.  As I may have written before in the blog, when I started to work in admissions, I had hoped I’d find the GRE and GMAT to be useless.  As it turns out, I learned that the exam scores help us interpret the endlessly diverse education backgrounds reflected in the applications we receive.  Fortunately for applicants, we don’t have minimum acceptable scores, and we don’t assess applicants against the mean or some other statistical basis.  While (probably I don’t need to say this) higher scores are always better, we evaluate test results in the context of the applicant’s overall application.

So what’s a test-taker to do?  At a minimum, follow the advice I gave to Kayla:  prepare yourself by becoming familiar with the test format and the many different question types that tend to recur on exam after exam.  And you really should time your practice tests.  So often I hear that nerves and time-management difficulties are what kept an applicant from doing as well on the exam as he had hoped.  Whether you should study for months on end, or sign up for an expensive test prep class, is a judgment you’ll need to make, but I certainly believe it’s a mistake to hand over your money to the GRE or GMAT people and not try to do as well as you can.

And what about re-testing?  In general, for Fletcher anyway, there’s not much point in re-testing if your scores will only change by ten or 20 points.  (And that’s assuming they’ll go up — scores can also go in the other direction.)  But if you were sick on the exam day, or your car had a flat tire on the way to the test center, or any other circumstances prevented you from doing as well as you believe you could have, then consider taking the test a second time.

Once the tests are taken, make sure you  have had the scores reported to Fletcher, and then think about other aspects of your application.  I can assure you that we never make decisions solely on the basis of GRE or GMAT results.

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We like to do our part to help our applicants put together a good application.  It may seem strange that the Admissions Office drops these hints, but we far prefer reading well-crafted applications to those that are, well, tossed together.

Over the last couple of years, we’ve compiled a bunch of tips that you can scroll through by clicking on the “Admissions Tips” category.  There are some that are so important that I won’t wait for you to find them on your own.  The first is:  Make sure that all your documents come to us with the same name on them. There are many reasons why applicants have different names on their documents:  change of surname following marriage; error by the testing services; different transliterations of spellings in another writing system; etc., etc., etc.  But the bottom line is that you should not leave it to us to figure out which documents go into your application file.  You need to tell us!  Send us a note that says your transcript will have a different name on it.  Then we’ll have the chance to pull everything together and make your application complete.

More tips will be coming.  Meanwhile, check out what’s there already.

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In the summer, our attention is pulled in many different directions.  Each of us is working on some special projects — the type that require a little more time and a little more focus than we have at other points in the year — but we are also starting up the day-to-day nitty-gritty admissions work for the next cycle, even as we conclude our work with September’s incoming students.  That workplace schizophrenia will show through in the blog, too.

Today’s post is the first of the 2009-2010 admissions cycle.  While Roxana finalizes changes to our application for 2010 admission, I thought future applicants might want to take a peek at the application essays.  Before you peek, note that now is NOT a good time to start your application.  What you’ll find on the Admissions web site today is the past year’s application.  We’ll switch over to the new application in August.

The changes to the Personal Statement aren’t major, though we’ve increased the word limit a bit.  But we made significant changes to the Supplemental Essays.  Every few years, we need to shake things up — there are only so many hundred essays on the same topic we can enjoy reading.  So here you go:

Personal Statement (600 to 800 words. Times New Roman, 12 point font)

Fletcher’s Committee on Admissions seeks to ensure that there is a good match between each admitted student and the School.  Please tell us your goals for graduate study at Fletcher and for your career.  Why is The Fletcher School the right place to pursue your academic objectives and to prepare you to meet your professional goals?  Why have you selected the degree program to which you’re applying?  If you are planning to pursue a joint degree, please be sure to address this interest in your personal statement.

Supplemental Essay — Choose one of the following essay topics to tell the Admissions Committee something about you that does not fit elsewhere in the application. (500 words (maximum) Times New Roman, 12 point font)

-Share something about yourself to help the Admissions Committee develop a more complete picture of who you are.

-Tell us more about how you first became interested in international affairs, or in pursuing an international career.

-Describe the elements of your personal, professional, and/or academic background that have prepared you for your chosen career path.

As you think about the questions, here are some tips to keep in mind.

1.  Make sure you answer the question.  Might seem obvious, but every year there are applicants who miss the mark.

2.  Keep to the word limit, and use the type size/font we request.  Really, this is a very small techno-task for you, but it is a huge help in saving our eyes and paper.

3.  Don’t waste space in the Personal Statement with information that would fit nicely into one of the Supplemental Essays.

4.  Remember that these essays are about YOU.  Don’t waste space with details about your university professors, famous world leaders, or anyone else.  Everything you write should point straight at you.  When we ask why Fletcher is “the right place,” we want to know what makes it best for you — there’s not much value in quoting our own marketing language back at us.

We’ll have more tips for you during the year, but these should help you get started.  Go ahead and write a draft of the essays.  I’ll try to post a note when the new application is up and ready for you to upload what you have written.

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The Admissions staff was alternately productive and relaxed over the weekend.  Mother Nature cooperated this time, providing us with two fantastic spring-like days.  Today she’s back to her wily ways, dropping big heavy wet snowflakes on the morning commute.

Back in the office, we’ve reached a landmark point:  We’re ready to alphabetize the application files for admitted applicants.  Right now, everything is lumped in distressing piles on the floor.  (Well, not distressing to us — we’re used to it.)  We alphabetize them only when we’re sure we know exactly who is going to be admitted, and the decisions have been entered in our database.

While you’re waiting for us to finish our work, you may want to do a bit of preparation of your own.  Back when your application was first complete, you received an email with the information you would need to log on to the Tufts Application Management System.  Many of our applicants have already logged on.  If you’re not among them, you may find the original email stored in some super special secret place.  Now is the time to dig it out of that secret place, because you’ll need to log on to access your decision.

I’m raising this now because, every year, there are applicants who contact us in April:  “I still haven’t received my decision.”  It turns out they lost the login information.  The decision is there for them to see, but they can’t access it.

So check your email inbox and find that message.  (It would have reached you when your application was uploaded, complete with all online recommendations, not the day you first submitted it.)  If you can’t find it, go back to the Application Management System site, where you can click “Don’t know your username and password.”  You’ll soon be in business.

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Roxana is our systems guru.  The information she provides below tells you just what happens after you submit your application (whether or not you have waited until today’s deadline).  Refer back to this information when you’re feeling nervous next week!

For those unfamiliar with the behind-the-scenes work of an Admissions Office, you may be surprised at how time consuming it can be to process over 1600 applications. Though the on-line system is a huge time-saver, we also devote countless hours to opening mail, answering phone and email inquiries, as well as updating applications in our system.

Here is a run-down of what happens once you hit the “submit” button on your application. Be aware that most things happen simultaneously:

•You hit the submit button online.  Your application will be “stamped” with the date/time that you hit submit.

•The application waits within the Embark system for your registered on-line recommenders to submit their letters, which are then attached to your application.

•Once letters from registered recommenders are attached, the application is uploaded by an Admissions representative (aka Roxana).

•As applications (with attached recommendations) are uploaded in our internal admissions program, you receive an automatic email stating that we have received your application (hooray!), and that you should wait 10 business days before contacting the Admissions Office about missing materials. This email also provides you with a username and password to access the Tufts Graduate Application Management System (GAMS).  GAMS is the best way to find out the status of your application throughout the whole process.  Decision letters are also posted to your GAMS account.  Hang on to your username and password!

•Uploaded applications are printed and placed in files.

•Meanwhile, the Admissions Office is bombarded with bags and bags of mail which include test scores, transcripts, letters of recommendation from recommenders who weren’t registered on-line, writing samples, etc.  Our staff sorts and files the mail.  If the application has not yet been uploaded, the paper materials will “wait” for it to emerge from the system.

•Once we have your application in a file, we dig out the mail that has already been received for you, and include it with your application.  Then we update your record in the admissions system to show what materials have been come in by mail.  You should track your application through GAMS, but we’ll also email you if there is a document missing.

•Though nearly all applications arrive via the on-line system, there are a few each year that arrive in hardcopy form.  In that case, we enter all the details manually.  VERY time-consuming.

•Your completed application is then given to Committee members to review.

•You receive your admission decision in late March.

The process requires multiple steps, and much patience and organization.  I am grateful to have the help of our student workers to update files, answer phones and emails.  If I didn’t have their help, we’d never complete the process on time!

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My son Josh, to whose college application process I occasionally referred last year, is home from school.  It’s great to have him around, and it’s also great to see his friends, who tend to show up whenever he’s in the house.  There were fourteen 18-year-old boys hanging around my living room on Saturday, playing poker and video games, eating pizza, and generally enjoying their reunion.

I had a chance to ask a number of the boys how they enjoyed their first semester of college, and the early reviews are pretty positive.  But nearly all of them described a challenge they faced — first-year chemistry; a busy class schedule; keeping up with reading throughout the semester, rather than just before exams; dormitory living; uninspiring teachers for entry-level courses; etc.  Clearly, they’re all hoping that the fall was their stepping stone to greater success in the later years of their education.

And how about you, blog reader?  Do you cringe just a bit when you look at the grades from your first semester or two?  Depending on how much you cringe, you may want to provide a little explanation in your application.  A sentence or two (no whining, please!) in the “additional information” section of the application (not in one of the required essays) could be just what you need.  Acknowledge your challenge, and, if possible, point us toward information that redirects our focus away from the lower grades.  For example:  “Although I did not do well in calculus in my first semester at XYZ University, I would like to point to the A’s I received in micro and macro economics, as well as the strong score I received on the quantitative portion of the GRE.”  Or:  “I found the transition to university life to be difficult and my first-year grades were disappointing to me.  I hope the Committee on Admissions will note the strong grades I received in my last three years of study.”

With two simple sentences, you help the Committee to understand a shortcoming in your application, and move on.  Sometimes I have the feeling that the applicant is thinking, “If I just bury my head in the sand, no one will notice that I have a low GPA.”  Sorry…we notice.  That’s our job.  So help us out, and don’t make us guess what was going on.

Schedule notes: PhD applications are due January 1.  The regular deadline for all other programs is January 15.  Please note that the University (including our office) will be closed on December 24, December 25, December 26, January 1, and January 2.

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During our on-line chats earlier this week, we were asked several times about the preferred format for the résumé that applicants include with their application.  And to be honest, while we do leave the choice of format to the applicant, we readers certainly have preferences.  Here are some of mine, along with those of my résumé-reading Admissions pals.

First, the role of the résumé in the Fletcher application is to provide a relatively complete chronological account of work and academic experience.  Though the application form has questions that touch on these topics, your résumé is the place to provide detail and dates.

Second, everyone in this office would agree that there’s only very rarely a need for a résumé running more than three pages.  Constructing a résumé is an exercise in synthesis.  There’s an art to transmitting significant amounts of information in a small space, and I don’t mean that you should resort to teeny-weeny type size!

To help you out, here are some categories of information that are not relevant to your Fletcher application:

1.  As Roxana puts it:  “Do not list activities you did in high school.”  The only exceptions I can think of would be study abroad/exchange years, or if you win a national prize of very high stature.  There aren’t too many awards like that in the U.S., so the award you’re thinking of probably doesn’t fit the bill.  And the few relevant high school notes should be included with “Additional Information” at the end of the résumé.

2.  All the different articles you have written for college publications.  Simmer them all down to a single line within the academic portion of the résumé.  Please don’t provide the name of every article.  For that matter, even professional publications don’t need to be listed individually.  It isn’t that we don’t value writing — it’s that you can transmit the information, that you write for op-ed pages or journals, without listing every article.  Pick out the most recent pieces, or the most relevant, or the ones written for the most prestigious publications.  If you have written any published books, certainly include those titles.

3.  Every single award you received as an undergrad.  Stick to the prestigious ones.

4.  Every meeting of Model UN you attended.  Boil them down to a statement in the academic notes.

5.  Work experience of very short duration or involving very few hours per week.  If you have several such jobs, group them together somewhere.

I think the overall message here is that listing every iteration of an experience takes up tons of paper, but tells us little.  Make sure you’re using the space effectively!

And here’s the answer to a question that may not have occurred to you:  Yes, if you were working as a barista, camp counselor, wilderness guide, or computer sales person to save money while searching for work or before entering the Peace Corps, you should probably include that information somewhere.  Particularly if it will help to explain an extended gap in your chronology.  You don’t need to go into detail, but sometimes info on a pay-the-bills type job is much more helpful than leaving an extended gap unexplained.  On the other hand, if you have a part-time irrelevant job at night while working days at a relevant internship, feel free to omit details about the part-time job.

Here are a few last notes from the office.  Liz says, “Don’t lie or make stuff up.  It’ll come back to get you.”  Oh, yes.  It will.

Laurie says, “The résumés for the application can be longer than job résumés, and should include items such as travel and skills.  The dates should be clear and the order should be chronological.  Spell out acronyms.  Be descriptive.  Label sections clearly.”  (Note:  Job résumés in the U.S. are one to two pages!  When Laurie says “longer,” she means two to three pages.  Not twelve.)

I hope these tips will help get you started as you shape your résumés.  When you have completed your first draft (remember — these are works of synthesis and synthesis takes time…and editing), take a step back and ask yourself the question:  Will they easily be able to see what I have done, and when/where I have done it?  If not, try again.  I can tell you that it’s very frustrating when the Admissions Committee needs to spend time figuring out your chronology.  You don’t want your application readers to be frustrated.  Make us happy with a clear résumé, of three pages or less!

P.S.  Weren’t invited to the chat but want to participate in the future?  Make sure you have connected with us!

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I know I said this last year, but I’m going to say it again for this year’s applicants:  you don’t need to wait until the application deadline to submit your materials.  The deadline, after all, refers to the final date on which you can submit your application.  Waiting until the last minute means that any problems you encounter may not be solvable in time.

I certainly encourage you to take the time you need to write your essays, but I suggest that you aim to press the submit button a reasonable period in front of the deadline.  And, you should already have nagged your recommenders, taken your standardized tests, etc.

The first of the upcoming deadlines is January 1 for PhD applicants.  If you’re one of these prospective students, you should also take into consideration the time it will take for your thesis to reach us by mail.  Please don’t hold those supporting materials until the last minute — you’ll want to give us the time we need to review your application carefully.

Everyone else has at least until January 15 but, as I’ll say each year, don’t wait until the last minute!

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