Lost in the mail, Northwestern secondary :(

[greggth]

I was out of town for a week. When I got back, on the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 14, I got my mail and I received an invitiation to fill out a secondary for Northwestern. The deadline was Nov. 21-- to be received by Nov. 21. I mailed it Monday Nov. 17, by certified mail through the US Postal Service.

It's now Nov. 25 and the tracking page at usps.com says they have not delivered the letter to Northwestern yet . The USPS ads say they will deliver it in 1-3 days. But it's not guaranteed unless you use Express Mail.

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[omores]

Just call them up and explain the situation. Offer to fax them the tracking information if they like. Chances are good they'll be understanding -- these things happen.

 

[jlee9531]

yeah man. im sure they will be understanding.

next time. just use express mail. i did for loyola and everything went fine. its like triple the price but the feeling oh so nice.

 

[exmike]

it randomly happnes that the tracking systems fouls up. I'd call NW to see if they got it. This happened at a couple of my schools.

 

[topherius]

ditto. NU has those draconian turn-around times because they want to screen for people who are serious about applying there. if you let them know what happened they'll know you're serious, and they can see from the tracking evidence that you did in fact send it in time for it to get to them. call them quickly and you should be okay. they're pretty nice.

 

[OZ2003]

Actually I would not worry about this too much. Of the 17 applications that I sent by cerfitified mail (w/o return receipt) only about 1/2 showed delivery properly online. Even about six weeks after mailing nothing would show up on the online tracking. I took my receipts to the post office and was reimbursed for all of them!

In the cases where I was not able to track my package, I simply called the schools within a week and each and every time the package arrived without problem.

 

[OZ2003]

Also, if this situation should arise again. FED EX. I had week tat on an app as well. Fed Ex does not fail EVER (unlike USPS). You can easily set up your own account off of their website in a matter of minutes. Plus I have found that it is often cheaper than Express.