This is BULL****

[drpsuedonym]

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I am so pissed off. I got an email from UCSF on Thursday, July 24 saying that I should fill out the secondary and that it had to be postmarked "no later than 21 days from the date of this message." At the time I was studying my ASS off for the DATs, which I took on August 4th. After taking a day or two to recuperate, I started working on the supplemental, staying up all night so that I could mail it out on Thursday, August 14. Within my 21 days, right?

I got a letter right now saying "Accept this letter as notice that your application to the UCSF school of Dentistry has been canceled and that you are no longer eligible to be considered for fall 2009 admission...Since you did not return a completed UCSF Secondary Application by the required deadline, we must assume you are no longer interested in attending the UCSF School of Dentistry."

I think this is some sort of mistake, because I mailed my application out on Thursday August 14. And on my online banking thing, it shows that the back of the check I sent them has some sort of bank stamp dated Monday, August 18. So how the hell did they get my stuff early enough to cash my check but not early enough for their deadline?

I am pissed off because their damn letter says "We must assume you are no longer interested in attending the UCSF School of Dentistry." No you dumb ****s, your stupid school is one of my top choices. And also I feel so stupid for not getting some kind of delivery confirmation or any other form of proof that I mailed it out by the deadline. It didn't even cross my mind. I sure as hell have learned my lesson.

I called their office and left a message. I hope this gets sorted out because I still want to go there. AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.

Advice and sympathy would be awesome.

 

[Orgodox]

Man that stinks! It could be they sent that letter to anyone who didnt respond but that doesnt mean its final. Im sure they have your stuff on record there and if you talk to someone there and patiently explain the situation to them they may be able to take care of it since you did send it back on time and they did cash your check. Keep us posted

 

[Bruinlove]

Sorry to hear that.
The only reason I can think of is that they might include July 24th into those 24 days. So, the deadline could have been August 13th.
Call them until they pick up and explain your situation. And try to keep your voice down when you talk to them on the phone. Good luck.

 

[eternalxdemon]

i'm sorry to hear that. you should try and call them and explain to them what happened AND about proof of the check. because i'm sure when you sign checks you have to date them, right? and be very polite to them. they're prolly frustrated with admissions/applicants calling all the time now. :-\ gl!

 

[ucla2134]

I am so pissed off. I got an email from UCSF on Thursday, July 24 saying that I should fill out the secondary and that it had to be postmarked "no later than 21 days from the date of this message." At the time I was studying my ASS off for the DATs, which I took on August 4th. After taking a day or two to recuperate, I started working on the supplemental, staying up all night so that I could mail it out on Thursday, August 14. Within my 21 days, right?

I got a letter right now saying "Accept this letter as notice that your application to the UCSF school of Dentistry has been canceled and that you are no longer eligible to be considered for fall 2009 admission...Since you did not return a completed UCSF Secondary Application by the required deadline, we must assume you are no longer interested in attending the UCSF School of Dentistry."

I think this is some sort of mistake, because I mailed my application out on Thursday August 14. And on my online banking thing, it shows that the back of the check I sent them has some sort of bank stamp dated Monday, August 18. So how the hell did they get my stuff early enough to cash my check but not early enough for their deadline?

I am pissed off because their damn letter says "We must assume you are no longer interested in attending the UCSF School of Dentistry." No you dumb ****s, your stupid school is one of my top choices. And also I feel so stupid for not getting some kind of delivery confirmation or any other form of proof that I mailed it out by the deadline. It didn't even cross my mind. I sure as hell have learned my lesson.

I called their office and left a message. I hope this gets sorted out because I still want to go there. AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.

Advice and sympathy would be awesome.

i do not understand, i think you have to take DAT first before you can receive the secondary since you need at least 3.0 and 17 DAT before they send you a secondary.
I have heard from most of schools about secondary except UCSF

 

[drpsuedonym]

i do not understand, i think you have to take DAT first before you can receive the secondary since you need at least 3.0 and 17 DAT before they send you a secondary.
I have heard from most of schools about secondary except UCSF

I was retaking the DAT, so they had access to my first scores, which met the above-17 requirement.

 

[dabramo]

OMG!! The same thing happened to me!! I dont understand how a school can reject you if the application is not complete?? They dont even have your DAt yet? Nova rejected me without having my recs or my dat yet!!

 

[ucla2134]

I was retaking the DAT, so they had access to my first scores, which met the above-17 requirement.

Dude then it is not your fault since you are retaking the DAT. You should have told them that. Your scores is really good it is not fair for you to be rejected like that

 

[Andrew324]

Yeah that sucks, thats to bad, I thought they would be lax on this 21 day stuff. I just sent mine back today actually and its way way past the 21 days. Its more like 40 or something. Thanks for the heads up on what I will be expecting in the mail!

To bad though, yeah call them, im sure you will get it all sorted out.

 

[DCeater]

I got the same letter today. I received their email the July 24th and sent in my supplemental on the 7th. They cashed the check on the 8th, which was well within the 21 day limit.

I figure they meant to deny my application somehow and maybe mailed the wrong type of rejection letter??

 

[Andrew324]

Snap I should have waited 1 day to mail it out...

 

[cjpark84]

from UCSF secondary website : "Your Secondary Application must postmarked no later than 21 days from the date of your email invitation to submit the application."
which means that there must have been some kind of mistake. (especially for you Dceater). Both of you should definitely call UCSF and patiently ask them if there was some kind of mistake.

hope it all works out!

 

[Raphael882]

Same thing here. They cashed my check on 8/5, and today I got this ridiculous letter. Will call them tomorrow. This is really annoying.

 

[Lopyswine]

everyone calm down.

a few things need to be mentioned:

1) To the OP: you mailed out the supp on the LAST DAY possible (by your math). You then find out its late and you have an issue? How about making a phone call to UCSF BEFORE the last day and ask for more time/ warn them of a possible late arrival. How about overnighting the supp app. How about NOT WAITING TILL LAST DAY!

2) MANY MANY schools send the wrong rejection letter by mistake. Last year I was rejected with the "wrong" format letter by 3 schools. One letter was addressed to me, but the letter name and info on the formal rejection was someone else. One school said I did not submit app in time, and I had. I called them, they said, oops wrong letter, you were rejected for not meeting our standards. The final school rejected me saying I didn't meet their DAT cutoff, I scored 22/23s across the board. I called them, they said they sent the wrong letter, the rejection was from my GPA.


moral of the story is 2 fold:

1) make a calm phone call. you'll definitely get an answer.
2) when schools are mailing out boat loads of rejection letters just to get past the "first cut" so they can move on to interview, its easy for stuff to get shuffled and for mistakes to be made.


on a side note: for the Indiana supp app it said 21 days was the limit. I mailed my supp app on day 17. I figured it would arrive about day 20-21. I CALLED IU on day 19 to inform them that my supp may arrive a few days late but was mailed within their time frame. They were incredibly polite and told me not to worry. They said it was very responsible to follow up on it.

 

[dr bojangles]

wait, so they say you were late, but they still cashed your check?
i assume the application fee pays for them to review your app, not tell you its late and discard it.

 

[drpsuedonym]

So I got a call back from UCSF this morning, and as it turns out there was no need to (patiently, politely, sweetly) make my case because they were really nice and told me what the problem was right away. Apparently there are two different addresses, one for the check and one for the application (how did I miss that???) and I sent both to the address for the check, which is a PO Box for the bank. The application needs to go directly to the dental school admissions office. They said that as long as I get it postmarked by today, they'll still accept the application.

Whew!

 

[DRHOYA]

So I got a call back from UCSF this morning, and as it turns out there was no need to (patiently, politely, sweetly) make my case because they were really nice and told me what the problem was right away. Apparently there are two different addresses, one for the check and one for the application (how did I miss that???) and I sent both to the address for the check, which is a PO Box for the bank. The application needs to go directly to the dental school admissions office. They said that as long as I get it postmarked by today, they'll still accept the application.

Whew!

I'm glad they worked with you to resolve any miss-information. The two-address thing was tricky to spot, especially when filling out many apps at the same time. Good luck!

 

[ddsbruin]

i also sent my secondary with delivery confirmation via certified mail and I live within a few hours from san francisco. the funny thing is, even to this day, they never scanned my delivery confirmation sticker. i submitted within 14 days to be safe, but after a week I was pretty worried b/c the delivery conf didn't say delivered yet. so I finally called the dean of admissions, I think his name was Bob McKinze or something, and he kindly looked up everything and told me the process...funny thing is, aadsas still says "received/awaiting additional info" and im wondering...waiting for what? you have everything...right? but hopefully you can get everything resolved with them as well. i thought I couldn't call them b/c they "accept only emails," but I tested my luck and it went well. good luck!

 

[massumeh18]

I am so pissed off. I got an email from UCSF on Thursday, July 24 saying that I should fill out the secondary and that it had to be postmarked "no later than 21 days from the date of this message." At the time I was studying my ASS off for the DATs, which I took on August 4th. After taking a day or two to recuperate, I started working on the supplemental, staying up all night so that I could mail it out on Thursday, August 14. Within my 21 days, right?

I got a letter right now saying "Accept this letter as notice that your application to the UCSF school of Dentistry has been canceled and that you are no longer eligible to be considered for fall 2009 admission...Since you did not return a completed UCSF Secondary Application by the required deadline, we must assume you are no longer interested in attending the UCSF School of Dentistry."

I think this is some sort of mistake, because I mailed my application out on Thursday August 14. And on my online banking thing, it shows that the back of the check I sent them has some sort of bank stamp dated Monday, August 18. So how the hell did they get my stuff early enough to cash my check but not early enough for their deadline?

I am pissed off because their damn letter says "We must assume you are no longer interested in attending the UCSF School of Dentistry." No you dumb ****s, your stupid school is one of my top choices. And also I feel so stupid for not getting some kind of delivery confirmation or any other form of proof that I mailed it out by the deadline. It didn't even cross my mind. I sure as hell have learned my lesson.

I called their office and left a message. I hope this gets sorted out because I still want to go there. AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.

Advice and sympathy would be awesome.

I would be p***ed off!!! I hope things work out...

 

[Shunwei]

I am pissed off because their damn letter says "We must assume you are no longer interested in attending the UCSF School of Dentistry." No you dumb ****s, your stupid school is one of my top choices. And also I feel so stupid for not getting some kind of delivery confirmation or any other form of proof that I mailed it out by the deadline. quote]

That's why for important documents, you always should send by certified mail with a tracking number with USPS. Even better, just spend a little more money and send via UPS or FedEx 3 day delivery. You get a tracking number, and these guys are very reliable. You can't rely on "postmarks" nowadays or the admissions office's speed on receiving your material. Then it becomes like what the situation you are in right now.

 

[bjhath]

That's why for important documents, you always should send by certified mail with a tracking number with USPS. Even better, just spend a little more money and send via UPS or FedEx 3 day delivery. You get a tracking number, and these guys are very reliable. You can't rely on "postmarks" nowadays or the admissions office's speed on receiving your material. Then it becomes like what the situation you are in right now.

Unfortunately, the UCSF secondary instructions specifically tell you to send it via first-class mail. They say anything requiring a signature will further delay your application.

My 2¢: In a situation where your life and future career hang in the balance, manage your time and put in the extra effort to send it in early. That way there is no question or worries about missed deadlines.

 

[Bruinlove]

My 2¢: In a situation where your life and future career hang in the balance, manage your time and put in the extra effort to send it in early. That way there is no question or worries about missed deadlines.

And please read every instruction carefully and thoroughly. I'm glad that UCSF people were nice enough to give OP another chance, but we could have saved this thread and our time if he/she read the instructions more carefully.

 

[drpsuedonym]

It was definitely a dumb thing to miss. I honestly don't know how I could have read the instructions so many times and not have read the addresses properly even once. Or missed the fact that there were two separate addresses.

And it is definitely awesome that they were being so cool about it, because even though I would have been pissed if my application really was thrown out, I would know that the blame would have 100% been on me. Which would have sucked.

And thank you so much to everyone for the support, having a place to rant when things don't go as expected makes dealing with this entire process so much easier.

 

[jlee1986]

.

 

[Bruinlove]

sooo the same thing (as OP) happened to me...i just realized this when i got a letter yesterday saying that my application was cancelled. i just called ucsf (bob/delilah) and they said a lot of people have been sending their applications to the PO box along with their checks. they also told me that they were going to have to get back to me with their decision on these applications because they had a "large volume" of applicants who did the same thing. that's pretty lame seeing that they allowed at least one applicant (the OP) to go ahead and send their secondary to the school without any penalty. does anyone else think that this seems a bit unfair?

oh yeah, and they cashed my check too.

Maybe they got sick of getting these calls and someone came up with an idea that this might be a good excuse for rejecting several out of million applications. There is no doubt that those who sent apps and checks to the same address didn't read all the instructions carefully. But, jlee1986, you are too good an applicant for them to reject.😉

 

[jlee1986]

.

 

[DRHOYA]

Look, it seems that many people have made an error, or have had problems with this secondary. The instructions were clear and simple, and when I saw them, I took it as a stern saying to be responsible for this secondary. That means; not waiting until the last possible day to send it out, double checking responses, double checking addresses, sending certified mail with return receipt. Now, if you did manage to send it to the wrong address by mistake............we are humans and all make stupid errors. Just calmly call the schools and explain the situation honestly, and don't try to make up an excuse. I'm sure they would be able to work with you. In the absolute worst case scenario that they don't, then look at it this way. UCSF just taught you a lesson...........and I'm sure you'll never EVER forget it.

 

[UCSF2012]

If I were on the UCSF admissions committee and saw this thread, I'd be concerned about the namecalling, esp with regards to the "****" 's on here. I hope you lied about your scores and info on predents, because leaving traces to you isn't going to help your cause. Our deans come on here to read what's posted, fyi.