By NELDA MASCHMEYER
nelda@newsroom.byu.edu
The graduate studies office has developed a system wherein students applying for graduate studies can check their graduate application status through Route Y.
Lindsay Cottam, 23, from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., a third year law student and a graduate intern for graduate studies, said although graduate school applicants must go through AIM right now to check their status, they will soon have a separate connection on Route Y.
Cottam said they are developing the graduate application status online because students call the graduate studies office nonstop to ask if all their application materials have arrived.
'Every time, around graduate school application time, the front desk gets flooded with calls on their status,' Cottam said.
Melanie Grover, an Applied Technology Services employee at BYU who did the programming for the system, said the application status will enable students to check on it anytime of the day, with constant updates.
Grover said each application requirement is labeled as either needed or cleared. She said the online status checks promise up-to-date information around the clock.
'If at 9 a.m. a student checked their status and a requirement was labeled needed, they could get that missing requirement fixed or handed in and when they checked it again at 10 a.m., it would be cleared,' Grover said.
She said the office was trying to encourage students to use the online advantages, including applying for graduate school, because in the future online will be the only way to apply.
Janis Robinson, office manager of graduate studies, said she helped with the language wording that applicants will see on their application status screen.
Robinson said the status information, now online, was formerly only seen by graduate school employees and departments with graduate programs. She wanted to clarify some of the language to make it more user friendly to someone who doesn't work with University Student Information every day.
'If the information box says needed, you can click on the box for further explanation. So each box has its own description,' she said.
Robinson said although the application status information is only available as of now to BYU students with a net ID applying to a BYU graduate school, it will soon be available to students anywhere who are applying to BYU graduate schools.