Graduate School Applications Also Appear on Rise by Daniel J. Fitzgibbons Chronicle staff Feb. 25, 2000 The numbers are also looking good over at the Graduate Admissions Office, though it's too early to tell how the number of applications will stack up against last year's, according to graduate registrar Bob Swasey. By early last week, Graduate Admissions staff had processed 8,125 applications, an increase of 16.1 percent over last year. But Swasey said the numbers are hard to compare because this year's application deadline was moved to Feb.1, a month earlier than last year. Based on the current numbers, said Swasey, his office expects to receive about 8,800 applications. Last year, 8,586 applications were received. Of the applications processed so far, 55.9 percent - or 4,540 - are from international residents and 2,388 were submitted by out-of-state residents. On the technological side, Graduate Admissions is ahead of the game, having introduced some online features, including Web-based links for prospective students to request information, apply for admission and check the status of their application. Development of the status check system began as an in-house project in late 1997, said Swasey. Working with University Information Systems staff and students in the School of Education, the status check Web site was introduced more than a year ago. Using the Web page, applicants to the Graduate School can see if their official transcripts, letters of recommendation, standardized test scores and other credentials have been received. The page, which protects confidentiality by requiring an official identifier and access code, can also tell applicants whether they have been accepted. There is, however, a three-week delay before an admissions refusal is posted on the page, said Swasey, "to allow the person to be notified in writing." Acceptances are posted almost 'immediately," he added. Like its counterpart at Undergraduate Admissions, the status check system is proving popular. Since September, there have been 14,442 hits on the Web page. This month, the page is getting about 300 daily, said Swasey. "We came into PeopleSoft with that in hand," Swasey said, so the existing system was adapted into the PeopleSoft database of prospective students and applicants. "In the old system, you could call and request a catalogue and application and we'd notify the department when you applied," he said. "Now we enter your name and address and create a permanent record." That database has improved communication with prospective students and applicants by allowing Graduate Admissions to generate personalized correspondence, said Swasey, instead of using mailing labels. The admissions data will eventually be part of a larger archive of information shared by Human Resources, Swasey said. "The prospect record is retained - that person could in the future be an employee and that information will be available to Human Resources." In November, Graduate Admissions also began using an online application form. By last week, 833 online applications had been processed, about 10 percent of the total number of applications received to date. The hope is that between one-quarter and one-third of applications will come in electronically next year. This year's number is small, said Swasey, because the online process wasn't available until halfway through the application period. "But that's 10 percent that we don't have to do data entry." And right now data entry is a bear of job with PeopleSoft, said Swasey. "It's absolutely a factor of five to six times more difficult," he said. "It takes more time to enter an application." Under the old system, he said, it took about three minutes to enter an application. Now it takes three times as long. But when the PeopleSoft systems are fully integrated to include Financial Aid Services, the Bursar's Office and other operations, said Swasey, "that's when we'll see the benefits." Meanwhile the five full-time staff and a temporary worker at Graduate Admissions have been working seven days a week since mid-November to accommodate the new records system and the more frenzied processing period resulting from the Feb. 1 application deadline. "We would've been pressed even without PeopleSoft," Swasey said. "My staff's been busting their humps to make this work."