Stage 1: Administrative Check
After we receive your application, our staff check it over to ensure it is complete and correct. Note that we receive about 800 applications per year (some of which are re-evaluations) and have a lot to process.
Here are the kinds of things we check and find to be common mistakes:
- Applicants adding courses in the wrong areas.
- Unsubmitted documents including transcripts, instructor credentials information (when required), and syllabi (when required).
- Incomplete instructor credentials forms. Sometimes institutions miss instructors or only give partial information.
- Unclear course numbers, institutions, course names, or credits assigned. You add these manually and might make mistakes that require clarification.
- Insufficient credit totals.
Stage 2: Credentials Specialist Review
Once your application has gone through the administrative check, it is sent to a delegate of the Registrar (such as a Credentials Specialist). Sometimes these reviews become quite complex and can take some time. Perhaps you think reviews should be swift, but consider the following:
- An application is long (at minimum 20 courses, usually 24+) and each course is evaluated separately. Some of these course reviews take less time than others, but most require an evaluator to look between multiple documents. For example, they might: check the instructor credentials from one document; review the syllabus in another document; check an internal guide to help determine course fit; check the Criteria to further determine fit and compliance with rules; check transcripts to make sure the information stubmitted is accurate and that the course was granted credit; and so on! This doesn't include other evaluations often needing to be made such as reviewing theses or programs as a whole.
- Evaluators often need time to consult with one another to ensure consistency across application reviews and between the Criteria and applications.
- The above doesn't even begin to factor in the time required for more complex applications, especially those where applicants attended multiple institutions or international schools where many more documents (often hundreds of pages long!) are reviewed.
Stage 3: Administrative Review
This stage is the most variable. CAP Staff review applications to ensure that they have been consistently and fairly assessed. As the evaluation process is complex, it helps to have a system of checks and balances to ensure consistency across reviews. Sometimes credits are missed, instructional hours are miscalculated, courses are assigned to the wrong areas, instructor credentials are misinterpreted, and so on. It takes a team aproach to ensure standardized consistent reviews, so we review applications before sending out decisions. Often, this causes a delay because, if a mistake is found, the application must be sent back to the evaluator and modified. Sometimes application updates require discussion, which can also take time. Your application status may show Review Complete or Sent for Review during this time, as the application will be sent back and forth between our admin staff and our evaluators. (This means it might say Review Complete and then Sent for Review shortly afterward, in that order, before it says Review Complete, again.)
Stage 4: Decision Letter Preparation
Once the application has been fully reviewed and checked, it is ready to be translated into a decision letter. These decision letters are written one-by-one (except in the case of approvals, which require much less applicant-specific information). In these letters, we have to explain course-by-course decisions in many cases, and indicate a rationale. This takes significant time. These letters are also reviewed to ensure correctness and clarity. During letter writing, your application status might show Review Complete, but it will also often show Sent for Review.
Stage 5: Decision Delivery
Once the letter is prepared and checked, we send it to you! You find out if your application was accepted, denied, or deferred. This sets in motion a whole other set of steps you might take, including submitting further/missing information, requesting a re-evaluation, and so on. Read more about those other steps here and in the FAQs.