Admission: Not Impossible

You’ve filled out the Common Application and submitted it online, double and triple checking to make sure that you’ve attached your essay upload. You’ve filled out the paper work at your guidance office requesting that they send along your transcript and recommendation letters to Holy Cross (in Massachusetts, not Indiana). You’re positive that everything has been sent to us. We have it, right? You think we have it. You hope we have it. How do you know if we have it?

There’s no need to stay up nights worrying about whether or not we have your materials, you can now check the status of your application materials online! Simply go to our online checklist, click “register”, put in your personal information and you will be provided with a glimpse into our database. More specifically, you’ll see your application checklist as it appears in our records.

Furthermore, you’ll be able to tell exactly what (if anything) is still missing. A list of required application materials will appear along with notation of whether or not each item has been received.

***One caution – It takes some time for us to receive your materials in the mail, open our mail, sort our mail, and input the pieces of your application into our system.

DO NOT PANIC if you do not see all of your materials listed. You may be positive that you sent in that Verification Form, you know that you put the right postage on it, it should have been here, it’s not listed, you may check compulsively – it WILL eventually appear. Give it some time, and if after 10-14 days you still don’t see your materials appear, feel free to call our office and we’ll tell you whether or not we think you need to submit the missing piece again.

We wish you all the best of luck as you finish up those college applications over the next few months. You’re in the home stretch of your application season, and we can’t wait to begin ours!

Diane Soboski
Assistant Director of Admissions

It’s that time of year again! The warm temperatures are dropping, students are heading back to school, and admissions counselors are packing up their bags and getting ready to hit the road to meet prospective students all over the country.  I often think about how similar the fall season is for high school students and admissions staff. As you all are putting together binders for your classes, meeting new teachers, and mapping out the fastest route from gym to History, we’re doing very similar tasks. I just recently put together my travel binder for the season, I’ll be meeting new guidance counselors that I’ll be working with this year, and I too am trying to plan the quickest way to get from one school to another so that I can meet as many of you as possible in my travels this fall.

We can’t get to every high school, but we do our best to span a large part of the country. You can see what schools we’ve already committed to visiting this year on our Web site. Again, just as your schedule will be changing over the next few weeks while you struggle to fit in every class and extra-curricular you want to do, we too are continuously changing schedules to try to accommodate as many schools as we can. Please check with your guidance department as the date of our visit approaches,  and make sure that our schedules are aligned.

We know this is a busy time, but remember as you run from one class to another, hoping to sneak in before the bell, that somewhere there is an admissions counselor scrambling to get to their next visit on time and hoping that their GPS will hold a signal long enough to get them there. Best of luck as you begin your new school year; and we look forward to meeting you!

Diane Soboski
Assistant Director of Admissions

Hey, Juniors: What are you doing this summer?

We know you’re busy finishing up the school year. You probably have papers to write, exams to study for, and final projects to wrap up. It’s a hectic time of year, but as your thoughts turn to warm summer days, you have more to look forward to than just hitting the beach. We’ll be inviting you to visit us!

Summer is a great time to come and visit the admissions office here at Holy Cross. In addition to our regularly scheduled tours, information sessions (check website for details), and interviews (simply call the office a few weeks ahead of time to schedule), we’ll be holding our July Advisory Days (or JAD) every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday beginning on July 6th.

JAD is a great program and one that is not to be missed. Many schools will be offering to give you a tour of the campus and informational session on the college. Here at Holy Cross, we like to take your visit one step further by providing you with some general information on two topics that we’ve heard time and time again, cause students stress: the college essay and the admissions interview.

There’s no reason to fear either of these tasks and we’re here to provide you with some admissions insight about how to survive the college application process with minimal stress (and hopefully optimal results). So come join us for a visit this summer. We look forward to meeting you!

*For more information on the JAD Program, please visit our Web site:

Diane Soboski
Assistant Director of Admissions

Wouldn’t it be great if you could check the status of your application online?  Oh wait…you can!

Echoing the sentiments of my colleagues below, I too am consumed with “reading season.”  While we’re shut away in our offices pouring over letters of recommendation, transcripts and personal essays, we are also aware that you are anxious about your application and what’s happening to it.  Over the past few weeks, a lot of you have been calling in to make sure that all of your materials have been received. We’ve heard your concerns, and with the help of our lovely friends in IT, we are happy to introduce a new online system that will allow you to view your application materials checklist online!

Before I get to those instructions, I want to briefly tell you what happens to your application in between the time you hit submit on your computer and we receive your folder on our desk. There are actually more steps involved than one would think and our clerical staff work hard to make sure that every piece of information that you submit is recorded in our records. Here’s a glimpse of what they do “behind the scenes”….

1. You happily (nervously?) submit your application online or put that big envelope in the mail to us (either way is fine!).
2. We receive your application. If you submitted it online, it goes into our queue to be downloaded.
3. Once downloaded, we send this batch off to be printed. (This time of year, we are receiving hundreds of applications daily, so the process of downloading the applications and printing them out can take a several days. Please be patient.)
4. Once the application and any attachments (essays, recommendations, etc) have been printed, a folder is made for your application.
5. The folder is then given to one the members of our operations team, and they have the task of entering your application into our system. They will assign you an identification number and create a checklist for you in our system.
6. We then go through all of our materials to make sure that any information that has been received separately for you (interview write-ups, recommendations, e-mail correspondence that we’ve printed out, etc) is put into your folder.
7. That information than needs to be recorded in our system.
8. Your file will then live in the drawers and this process of matching and entering will continue until we have all of the pieces of your application.
9. When your file is complete, a member of the counselor staff will snatch it up and happily add it to their “to be read” pile that teeters on the edge of each and every desk.

It’s quite a process. Why am I telling you all of this?

Because if you check the status of your materials online and see that we have not received an important piece of your application – do not panic. Do not call the office; we won’t have any more information than you have. IF a piece is not listed as received, it probably means that whatever you submitted is being processed. Please check again after a few days and hopefully it will appear.

It can take anywhere from 3 – 10  business days for this miraculous process to be complete (remember – hundreds of applications are processed every day). So, please be patient and we’ll do our best to keep things moving along.

And now…the Web site link!
To check the status of your application materials, please go to the following link:
https://apps.holycross.edu/checklist
You’ll be asked to either login or register. First time users, please register with our system, and put your login name and password in a safe place!

*Note – this Web site will not provide an update on your acceptance status.  It is merely for application materials.   All decisions made for those applying in our regular decision pool will be mailed out at the end of March.

Thank you and we look forward to reviewing your application!

Diane Soboski
Assistant Director of Admissions

It’s about that time of year – applications are pouring in, the phone lines are flooded with calls, and admissions counselors are buried under stacks of files.

You’ve sent in your Common Application, checked with guidance to make sure that they’ve sent along their packet, what’s next?

Verification Form!

Here at Holy Cross we require one final piece of information from you, a verification form. This magical piece of paper will arrive to you in the mail 7-10 days after you send in your application. Enclosed with a letter thanking you for your application, you will find a light purple sheet of paper.

When you receive the form, you will need to do the following:

•    Check over the information at the top and make sure that it is accurate
•    Provide your social security number and birth date (we often have duplicate names in our system, and need to make sure that we can match you to your application)
•    Answer the questions regarding standardized testing, contact with Holy Cross, and limited enrollment programs (*note – we will not use your testing unless you check off the “Yes” box on this form, nor can you be considered for biology or premed with out returning the form)
•    Mail the form back in as soon as possible!

It’s simple, quick, and easy! It will take two minutes and I’d highly recommend filling it out as soon as your receive it, before it makes it’s way to that universal “to be answered” stack of papers in your house.

That’s it from me. Have a great holiday, and enjoy your break from school!

Diane Soboski
Assistant Director of Admissions

My name is Diane Soboski and I am an Assistant Director here at College of the Holy Cross. I’m new to the staff, having just graduated with my master’s degree in May. I grew up about an hour east of Worcester in Winchester, MA and am a New Englander through and through. I love spending time outdoors, and especially enjoy being by the water. I come from a family of sailors, swimmers, and beach enthusiasts so I’ve never been able to keep away from the waves for long.

This year, I’m thrilled to be trying out some new travel territories and seeing parts of the country that I have never visited. If you happen to live in: Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, Nebraska, or Minnesota – I hope to see you on the road! I’ll also be swinging by schools in the Albany/Saratoga Springs area of NY which is not new to me, but an area that I never tire of exploring.

I wish you all well throughout this process. And don’t forget to swing by and let me get to know you better!

Diane Soboski
Assistant Director of Admissions