More rants and raves

Friday afternoon, I logged on to Chabot's website to make sure that every last one of my transcripts had arrived in time to meet their nursing program's timeline. They require that each school mails transcripts directly by January 29th, which can be a scary thing. Leaving my nursing school future to the disgruntled, underpaid, overworked LaWandas of the local junior colleges gave me cold sweats at night. For good reason, too.

As I scanned through all of the schools that had managed to do their jobs and get my transcripts to Chabot in time, I wasn't immediately alarmed. But then, wait...one was missing! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! NO! This could not be happening! I had worked hard on my application and had gone to great lengths to get all of my paperwork in line and then BAM!, Diablo Valley College 's ineptitude took all of that away in a blink of an eye. I was certain Chabot would reject my application because it was incomplete. In this day and age of more applicants than program spaces, colleges are looking for any reason to narrow the applicant pool. I was literally in tears.

I picked up the phone and called DVC's admissions and transcript department. Some bitter, angry woman basically told me that it takes 10 business days to process a request. Today, Friday the 29th, was the eighth business day. EVERY OTHER SCHOOL managed to process my requests on time, but DVC held on to it for eight business days. I asked the unhelpful lady if there was anything I could do. She told me that this whole thing was my fault because I should have paid for the rush processing. I asked if I could do that right then and there. "No," she barked. "Rush processing takes 48 hours." Fuck my life. She basically told me that there was nothing I could do. I was shit out of luck.

Did I mention that I cried? Well, I did. LOTS. Like hysterically. With the impossibly low probability of getting into a lottery school , I couldn't afford to take myself out of the running of any of them! AAAH!

I called Chabot and belly-ached and blubbered my way through several phone messages to anyone in the nursing department whose answering machine I could get. I felt like I was screwed. I briefly scanned the original application and found several references to the fact that they do not accept late transcripts under any circumstances. *sigh*

By Saturday morning, I had come to terms with the fact that my application would be rejected. It sucked, but ultimately, it was my fault for not checking to see if my transcripts had been received earlier in the week. There really was nothing I could do at this point.

Monday morning, I got a call from Chabot's nursing department stating that they would accept transcripts up until Friday of this week (Feb. 5th). I IMMEDIATELY got on the phone with DVC again and was greeted by a friendly, incredibly helpful woman named Renee, who basically told me that she couldn't even find my original request and that's why it hadn't been processed. When I explained my situation, she apologized profusely and promised to help me out by putting my transcript in the mail that same day. When she said this, I honestly felt about 1500 pounds of stress lift off of my shoulders. Renee, my savior, hooked it up. The bitter woman from Friday made me cry...and Renee made me dance around with joy.