Hi all, I just received my supplementary packet. I was looking over the dean of students' evaluation.
Considering I've never met the dean of students, will this work against me? It seems to be a very personal, subjective form, instead of a evaluation of my academic honesty and things of that sort.
Anybody else wondering about this?
Thanks, and good luck.
I did too. To complicate the issue: I only have a year at my post-bacc university, and I am a long time out from my undergraduate. Even if I was still a student at that Big Ten school, I'd be a nobody to the dean.
But if your read the form literally, you are going to waive the right to see the evaluation, and therefore it is out of your hands anyways. If they fail to fill out the form, not your problem, right? Furthermore, they stress that you must give it to someone on your campus who meets their definition of overseeing student records. So you are sort of obligated to give it to them anyways. If you have no choice, don't sweat about it, okay?
Also, since there are a few forms to send in, I used the single labeled return envelope they supplied me for the dean's letter. I stamped it and handed it in with the form, so that there was a minimal probability of it getting lost in the mail. Plus, the more convenient you make it for the office, the quicker it will be sent.
Monday morning I walked into the office and talked to manager of the dean of student affairs. I went early when they opened up because I wanted to see her reactions when she wasn't rushed. She chuckled, and implied that this isn't unusual. They have a canned statement that says "our policy is that we can only state that there is nothing adverse in the records of this student" or something to that affect.
It boils down to this: In the past they were probably looking for a signed third party statement that you haven't been disciplined. They likely wanted to just have their form filled out (remember the office is already swamped with letters of eval, personal statements, etc...) However, in response they received a substantial amount of personal letters back from some deans (probably from smaller liberal arts colleges, which is cool). They don't want this to be an open invitation for more letters. To avoid inviting more non-uniform paperwork to their office, they likely decided to just allow for space on the form (notice it encourages them to write additional information on the backside? As someone who has had to make forms for business in the past this is a not-so-subtle clue that they don't want anything else attached)
I could make a loose analogy to how nicer restaurants give kids paper to doodle on as a "premptive strike" to avoid having them destroy their fine tablecloths or bring other books and toys in...but that would be patently offensive.
The goal is to have their form signed with no indication of disciplinary actions against you first and foremost.
In some ways, this is also a courtesy to the deans: it frees them from having to write more than a few words on a form.
I am sure that if a dean knew a student really well, then he would have submitted a letter in support of his application anyways.
Sorry for the free-flowing thought stream.
-vc777
