USAFA Admission Counselor Advice

I am looking for a little adviceon how to deal with an unresponsive counselor. My son has been trying to make contact with his counselor for 3 weeks now and is yet to get a response. He has called multiple times and left voice messages as well as sent numerous e-mails. He has yet to get a single response. The counselor is there because he did receive an e-mail a week ago asking him to expand on his answers to a couple of questions on the application. He did this immediately and e-mailed it back and has to assume that it was received because no acknowledgement was given. The reason he is trying to contact the counselor is he had USMA send his CFA scores to USAFA 3+ weeks ago and they are still not posted on his portal. Did they receive them? Is there a problem?
His ALO has said they are busy, give it another couple of weeks. I understand busy but 3 weeks without responding is a bit tough to take.

Any advice?

While I understand your frustration, at the moment, the counselors ARE "buried" in work.

SHORT reason: the entire world is divided into 5 regions for counseling purposes. There are TWO counselors per region; for a total, yes, of 10 counselors. Currently I think there is one "vacancy" that is being covered by the admissions department.

10 counselors to handle ALL the candidates, potential candidates, applicants, "just curious" folks, etc. And they also deal with DODMERB, CONCORDE, etc.

I would NOT want their job! They're buried for about 7 months out of the year.

Ask the ALO to call, if they wouldn't mind, to ask the question about the CFA scores. We ALO's have a little more "ability" to reach folks. And understand the ALO, this early in the process, may not think it necessary to call. And I wouldn't disagree with him. After the middle of September...I would call for any of my "kids." However if USMA says they sent the scores to USAFA, I would believe they're there, they just haven't been "posted" yet.

I know its hard to "wait" but this might be one of those times to do just that.

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83

Ok, thanks. We will give it another couple of weeks. I think my son was going to request USMA resend the CFA to be sure USAFA had it. Shouldn't create any trouble if they receive it twice?

It would be less frustrating if USAFA wasn't his first choice.

Packer said:

Ok, thanks. We will give it another couple of weeks. I think my son was going to request USMA resend the CFA to be sure USAFA had it. Shouldn't create any trouble if they receive it twice?

It would be less frustrating if USAFA wasn't his first choice.

Click to expand...

Trust me, I understand completely!

And no, they would simply "assume" that the system said "failed attempt" when USMA tried the first time. Not a problem at all.

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83

Packer said:

It would be less frustrating if USAFA wasn't his first choice.

Click to expand...

Packer, as a parent who went through this last year and just dropped my DS at NWPrep, I totally get where you are coming from. But this is the longest and most complex college admissions process possible. Just keep that in mind and it will help, along with some deep breaths. My bet is that within a month your DS's admission page will be updated. Sounds like you all are focused on doing all you can as quickly as possible. This is good but now you get to wait. Most USAFA appointments won't go out until like April 1 if it is like last year and that assumes that the new admissions computer system doesn't cause additional delays. Sorry.

Sort of the same subject. I had DS send in his Presidential Nomination one more time. We even sent it Delivery Confirmation. It still took three weeks to process it. I had sent the original in April and had a letter returned saying they would hold it until they posted them. I saw several others on this forum get their nominations and thought, HMMMM! what is going on. Low and behold, just as I was about to call, waited through the weekend, first thing Monday morning. I checked and it was posted. What a relief, cause I hate the phone. Patience does pay off sometimes. Now if I could get that last teacher to put in his recommendation in a week I would be happy. If not, we will choose another teacher who is a little more responsive. The Math and English teacher were very punctual. =) Yea!

We had somewhat the same problem - for whatever reason the School District's firewall wouldn't let in the USAFA eval mail and we then had to go to personal emails for 2 teachers - turned out one did not have a personal email so we then had to print off the form and have her fax - took almost two weeks.

We're just waiting on 2 more letters of rec and we're done. They're in the pipeline but the Coach and Counselor are swamped. In a way it's a good thing because we can have the letters re-addressed to the VP for that package because our counselor told me that USAFA didn't care who the letters were addressed to, only that they had 3.

I know some people have had some difficulty getting hold of their counselor, but I have to put in a kudo for ours, she's been terrific.

Best