2 weeks down, infinity to go
It's been a much longer break from cgbvb than I'd planned on, certainly. Part of the reason for my absence was work on my graduate course, which has gotten off to a pretty strong start. But a big part of it was the decision I made to hold advising appointments with all of the students in the program at precisely the same time as I've had to read applications from prospective students. Not the wisest of decisions, I suppose.
And for obvious reasons, I can't write much about either activity. The admissions process, though, has been especially frustrating for several reasons:
- The absence of clear-cut information concerning deadlines for application
- The institutional decision to centralize the graduate admissions process, channelling all materials through our Graduate Enrollment Management Center
- The inability of the GEMC to process materials in a timely fashion
- The depressingly small stretch of time from deadline to decision, necessitating frantic requests for materials, nagging, and frustrated attempts to read files that are incomplete, through no fault of the applicant or our own program.
Starting to get the idea? The initial deadline (for fellowship nominations) in the college is February 2nd, and in some places, our deadline is listed as February 1st. This is inconvenient, to say the least. And while I understand the desire on the part of the University to centralize the process, thereby giving them access to pretty important data, we are in the position sometimes of receiving materials 2 to 3 weeks after they arrive here. Also inconvenient. Finally, all of this is happening according to a very strict schedule, which requires a great deal of committee time at the point in the semester where we are all trying to get into a groove in terms of our classes, schedules, etc.
I'm not looking for pity or anything. Truth be told, this is part of what they pay me for. But I am looking for ways to tweak this system in such a way that we can give the process the attention and energy it deserves. That'll go on my long-term projects list this week.