Portal Astrology

[Anonymous]

Anyone engaging in this now? Anyone notice any changes for any schools, especially ED1s?


(Urban Dictionary: “When anxious college applicants believes that any changes in their college admissions portal indicates whether or not they have been accepted or rejected. Commonly discussed about online on college-admissions forums.“)

This is just for fun - no need to argue over whether it’s real (but on occasion it is)

[Anonymous]

I don’t have access to my kid’s portals but if I did I would check more often then they do

[Anonymous]

I wrote about this 2 years ago in RD, and it was accurate for a few colleges. It's too early now, and I don’t think it was as prevalent in early rounds, and colleges may have changed systems, but here is my anecdata and what I found.

The tell for us was in FA. Yes, they are separate from admissions, but no FA ofgice is going to compute full packages for every applicant.
Colleges did an initial download when documents cleared css/idoc in Nov even though she didn't apply until Jan. After DD added some additional honors to her apps early Mar, her FA portal showed downloads of various specific tax forms (about 2 days later) for 2 colleges.

At the time, I looked back through previous years of reddit and cc at the 2 colleges and found several similar cases. (Yup, the stress got to me)! Anyone with later downloads of specific forms (not just completing submissions) was accepted or waitlisted.

This was at 2 of about 8 highly competitive colleges. The others did not have a similar reveal. She was admitted to 5 of them and waitlisted for another, so this was clearly not a general thing across the board. And, those colleges may have changed what can be seen since then.

In the same boat this year with one of the same schools, but ED this time. Idoc processed everything separately by form, so the tell may be gone. But it's not that long to wait.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Interesting! I can see a group of specific forms being processed this week on Idocs. There hadn’t been any action in awhile in Idocs and everything else had been processed awhile ago. I wish I knew what it had looked like originally. But I’m not sure why there would have been that delay in processing just this one group of forms? They haven’t been sent yet to requesting college. Any way to see who requested it?

[Anonymous]

PP here. That could the result of idoc backup. They literally took 3 weeks to process forms this year though they said 5 business days. The tell I noticed 2 years ago was unrelated to idoc. It was in the university's FA system that dd accessed through the portal. Showed fafsa forms on like 11/15, then suddenly a bunch of specific downloads on 3/4 a couple days after updating with a couple regional awards and NMF. Everything had been submitted to fafsa and css/idoc in Nov.

Hang in there!

[Anonymous]

Also, for this year, idoc showed the college requesting some additional forms for us at the top. I think in italics? I'm assuming other colleges want them too, though. We sent css to about 4 colleges, but only one shows as requesting docs (full 1040 w/forms + W2s)/forms. Maybe they were just the first to submit the request?

[Anonymous]

I see all the colleges we sent the CSS to as requesting forms in that top box. I don’t think it means anything because I know one hasn’t looked at them yet as we can see that in portal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here. That could the result of idoc backup. They literally took 3 weeks to process forms this year though they said 5 business days. The tell I noticed 2 years ago was unrelated to idoc. It was in the university's FA system that dd accessed through the portal. Showed fafsa forms on like 11/15, then suddenly a bunch of specific downloads on 3/4 a couple days after updating with a couple regional awards and NMF. Everything had been submitted to fafsa and css/idoc in Nov.

Hang in there!

How does the Idocs backup up work with ED1? Expecting a decision later this week but some of the docs were just processed today and not yet sent on to the college. We filed everything timely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here. That could the result of idoc backup. They literally took 3 weeks to process forms this year though they said 5 business days. The tell I noticed 2 years ago was unrelated to idoc. It was in the university's FA system that dd accessed through the portal. Showed fafsa forms on like 11/15, then suddenly a bunch of specific downloads on 3/4 a couple days after updating with a couple regional awards and NMF. Everything had been submitted to fafsa and css/idoc in Nov.

Hang in there!

How does the Idocs backup up work with ED1? Expecting a decision later this week but some of the docs were just processed today and not yet sent on to the college. We filed everything timely.

Not totally sure, but when I talked to idoc (after an hour on hold!) a couple weeks ago when ours has not been processed, they said that colleges could still access the uploads even though they hadn't "processed " it. Ours have now processed, and I guess that was about separating all the various forms from 1040. I think 2 weeks is enough time for FA to generate an aid package, but if they really wanted, they could access the uploads themselves (if the idoc lady was accurate).

[Anonymous]

Just saw the part of decision this week. Maybe you woll get a decision first and aid package later?

I was appalled at the backup. Submitted css on 11/1 and everything as soon as requested on 11/7. Idoc took 3 weeks to process and pawned me off with "this is our busy season " when their site still says 5 business days. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

What if you never submitted any forms for financial aid because you’re not applying for aid?

Will there be similar movement in the portal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if you never submitted any forms for financial aid because you’re not applying for aid?

Will there be similar movement in the portal?

I can't imagine how or why there would he FA docs up/downloaded if your kid did not apply for FA!

[Anonymous]

Read the stars for me, portal astrologists! What (if anything) does "portal inactive" mean? Glitch? A Sign of Something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read the stars for me, portal astrologists! What (if anything) does "portal inactive" mean? Glitch? A Sign of Something?

For an EA school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read the stars for me, portal astrologists! What (if anything) does "portal inactive" mean? Glitch? A Sign of Something?

Probably that decisions will be released soon, so they’ve inactivated the portal to prepare.