Application season is one of the most important times of the year for counselors and students alike. As the first international university and careers guidance software provider to integrate with Common App, we've always been ahead of the game when it comes to document sending.
This year, based on feedback from counselors, we're completely redesigning the experience and adding new functionality to make your document sending journey (whether through Common App or Parchment) smoother and faster than ever before.
Our new changes give counselors the following:
Let's take a closer look at what you can expect...
Create a free BridgeU account for your school and see how BridgeU can help you manage all of your students' applications from one platform.
With a world of destinations available to them, students' horizons are growing increasingly broad, with some applying to 10 or more universities.
We're hard at work re-engineering our entire Document Sending interface to reduce the amount of scrolling required and speed up your workflow.
On the summary page, you'll now be able to see 20 students at a time, and filter by advisor or graduating year. You'll also be able to search for any student by name, as well as see a summary of their requirements and which are complete.
Mockup only, final design may differ.
From the summary page, you will be able to click through to each individual student, with applications split by Common App, Parchment, and Other. From here, you can view applications individually, as well as see whether students have sent off their own applications.
Mockup only, final design may differ.
The Common App section will allow you to add all documents and forms for a Common App application, as well as manage teacher recommendations.
Mockup only, final design may differ.
If you want to send different documents to different universities (possible for document submissions via Parchment and when sending teacher recommendations via Common App), our new send pages make this easier and clearer than ever before.
Mockup only, final design may differ.
This grid with checkboxes and timestamps allows you to easily choose which documents should be submitted to which universities, and lets you see which ones have already been sent.
In the example above, Harry's transcript has already been sent to the University of Illinois. By ticking the other checkboxes this same transcript, or other documents, can be sent to additional universities.
This also means that if, for example, a student has 3 teacher recommendations but some of their chosen universities only accept 2, you can choose which are most suitable for each application.
With dozens of students and numerous teachers, it's easy to lose track of recommendation requests. As well as the recommendation dashboard we released earlier this year, now the student, recommender and advisor will all be notified when teachers have uploaded recommendations to BridgeU, so nothing falls through the cracks.
At BridgeU, we’ve been working hand-in-hand with Common App to deliver more functionality within BridgeU. Starting this year, you’ll be able to do a number of new things:
Many of our counselors tell us that they send documents soon after their students have submitted their applications. Thanks to our Common App integration, you’ll be able to see on BridgeU as soon as a student submits their application via the Common App website.
Early decision agreements and fee waivers are two key forms that need your signature on them to enable students’ applications to be processed successfully. When a student requires a fee waiver or early decision form to be signed, these will automatically appear in your document sending interface.
In addition, you’ll get a weekly email summary of any new students that need these key forms to make sure you don’t miss them.
When your students make changes on Common App’s website - whether that’s adding new universities, adding or changing a key form, or sending off their application, that information will sync to BridgeU every 24 hours.
If you or your student want to see this information instantly, you can also refresh this manually.
As well as changing the design and adding new features, we’ve been hard at work behind the scenes to support the latest version of Common App technology in order to process applications as smoothly as possible.
With the high volume of documents you may be sending, there are times when you'll have questions and need support. Our support team will be automatically notified of any document sending issues so they can reach out to you with a solution.
We know that university application season is one of the busiest periods in an adviser’s year. As well as manning our live chat, our Customer Success team are planning webinars and detailed guides and resources to make sure you’re trained on every aspect of the new document sending features.
If you already have a BridgeU account, keep an eye on your email inbox for further training and support resources.
If you’ve not set up your free account yet and you want to see how our new Document Sending features could help you manage university applications, get started by clicking here.
Leave a comment
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *