Email COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog

Email COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog Along with processing applications a major job these days is answering email.   Email is actually our preferred method of communication because it offers us a digital trail to follow.   While you might be tempted to call, and calling is okay, in the long run an email might be more effective when you have questions regarding your application. In addition to providing us, and you for that matter, with a traceable communication chain, we can answer emails at all hours of the day and you do not have to wait for us to get back to you via voice mail.   We certainly check our voice mail and respond as quickly as we are able, however on the efficiency scale voice mail is far below email. Let us say you call and leave a voice mail.   Let us also say that our phone is ringing non-stop.   What this means is that we will answer the phone as quickly as we are able and we will likely not check voice mail until after or before business hours.   This means that if you call and get voice mail, you are likely to receive a delayed response due to the fact that is impossible to keep up with voice mail when the phone is ringing all of the time. Unlike the phone, our email box is always open and ready for your message.   Many people in the office can view the same box and it is much more efficient for us to deal with.   Those of you that have emailed us know that we have an auto-response that indicates we will try to respond within five days.   Our goal is to respond must faster than five days, especially during the time around the application deadline. On this topic, the University I.T. department scheduled maintenance on the email servers for January 3rd.   The message to us stated that systems updates, hardware repairs, and general maintenance would leave email unavailable for extended periods of time on January 3rd. I am sure it seemed like a good time for the I.T. Department because of the holiday break, but it was not the best time for our office considering the deadline is almost upon us.   So if our response has been delayed we apologize.   We will keep checking for email availability and answer questions as soon as possible. One more side note please resist the urge to copy multiple parties on the same email (this is often called CCing).   Please only send emails to one address.   Copying multiple parties on the same email can lead to confusion and slower processing time.