How and when to enroll?

Beloved reader,

in my last post I informed you of my reasons to start studying via distance learning, today I want to tell you about my experiences with enrolling at the University of London.

After I had made up my mind that the BA in English would be the perfect program for me, I tried to gather information about how and when to enroll. As with everything else (so far), the homepage provides detailed information on enrollment. (Link) They have a fixed date by when you must have sent in your application and by when registration must be finished in order to sit exams the following year.

I found out about the course some time in November 2010. As the application-deadline for EU-residents is October 17 (non-EU-residents September 17; both dates for BA English. Dates for other courses may vary!) I was about three weeks late for it. Damn it, I thought. What a 'lucky' girl I am. (In hindsight this wasn't too bad after all!) Well, I thought, that will give me enough time to get my life back in order and actually give this course some thought. (Even though I have to admit that I had already made up my mind that this actually WAS what I wanted to study when I first found out about it.)

After disclosing my plans to my family to quit studying in Eichstätt, where I had lived and studied for the past year and then some, I started to fill out the online application form (Link). This is fairly easy when you have all the necessary information and documents ready (i.e. certified translations; scanned documents). If you do not have everything you need, you can just save your application and finish it later. That's what I did. I added bits and pieces of information over the course of time and worked on and rewrote my supporting statement.

Once I was satisfied with everything and had gathered all necessary documentation, I wanted to finish my application, pay the fee and then wait for the University to contact me and tell me that they had accepted my application. So I triple checked every single entry that I made, reread my statement, made sure I had uploaded all necessary files and proceeded to "check out". The only thing left was paying the fee. I typed in my credit card info, clicked "Pay now" and then waited... and waited.. and waited.. until my browser told me "your request could not be processed" (or something like it, whatever browsers tell you when something doesn't work).

Fortunately I had saved the application data before - guess how much it sucks when you fill out a detailed online form and then everything's gone because of a server error. As I wasn't sure whether or not it had worked, I did not reload the page, in order to make sure that they wouldn't charge my credit card several times in case it did work. I decided to wait for some days and try it again later. When I tried it again - some weeks later (this was probably January 2011 already), the same error occurred. So, again, I waited. I gave it several other tries over the course of the following months but it never worked.

As I wasn't under too much time pressure to register, however, I decided only in May to stop trying to apply online and hand in my application by mail. So again I went through the process of filling out forms, gathering documents and preparing the application. By then I was even able to rewrite the statement yet again, as I could add some important study-related information.

Some time in June, after I had mailed out the application I received a letter and an e-mail from the University telling me, that something was missing for processing my application: A transcript of records from the KU Eichstätt where I had studied before. When applying, I had not thought it necessary to send any such thing, as I did not want to skip any Units anyway. Mr Harry Evans, my contact at the admissions office of the University of London, was very helpful in this matter and quickly answered all my questions regarding this document.

So, I found out how to get hold of this transcript of records. The process was fairly easy, only the examination office in Eichstätt took their time. I waited, and waited, and waited, and then waited some more. Finally some time in August I received my copy of this transcript of records. I had the examination office send another copy directly to Mr Evans in order to speed up the progress.

Then again I waited and waited and waited, as I thought the UoL would write me a message once they had received the document. Yet, nothing came, so I contacted them and Mr Evans informed me that they had received it and had already sent me the offer letter via e-mail some week before. In case I couldn't locate this offer in my spam folder (which I couldn't as my spam folder deletes mails after 24 hours) he'd arrange for it to be sent to me again.

Now (it was August 22) I started to get nervous and kept on checking my spam folder every hour or so.  Nothing came. Eventually I received the offer letter on August 25. Waiting for three days can be a veeeeeeeeery long time, I assure you!

Once I had received the offer letter I started the online registration progress for my classes - this actually worked - and subsequently I am now enrolled as a student with the University of London! How cool is that, huh?

To sum up my experiences with enrolling: Inform yourself as early as possible about the dates and the necessary requirements, try to get together all necessary documentation, and in case the online registration doesn't work, pen and paper will do just as well!

For me, enrolling was easy but time consuming in a way. Despite all the trouble, it got me where I wanted to be: A student with the UoL International Programme.

That's it for now. Check back to find out in my next post what kind of preparations are necessary and how I tackle them.

Yours faithfully,

Kris

P.S: Always make sure to check your spam folder regularly :-)
P.P.S: I do not know why there was always a server error with the online application. I never cared to inquire. Maybe they have fixed the problem. Or maybe nobody but me has had this problem. Who knows?