You are receiving this email because you have expressed an interest in LASA. These emails are designed to help you navigate the application process and keep you up to speed with admission related events. If you do not want to receive emails from LASA, please fill out this form so I can take you off our email-list.
By now, everyone who submitted their supplemental materials form by noon on Monday, January 29, 2024 should have received either an application status update email, or the email letting them know that their application is complete. (By now meaning sometime between Monday, January 19 and yesterday, Wednesday, January 31, 2024.)
If you haven’t seen it, please search your inbox for donotreply@lasahighschool.org. If that search does not bring anything up, email me at LASAadmissions@austinisd.org
I am currently working on checking everyone who submitted their supplemental materials form between noon on Monday, January 29, 2024 and 8 AM today (Thursday, February 1, 2024). That’s 63 applications to go through with all their materials.
I am hopeful that everyone in this latest batch will see an application status or complete email by end of day Friday. It depends a little on how busy my day job gets! (Aka my principal secretary duties for those of you who are new to this email-list.)
For those of you who have received the application status update email and been asked to resubmit something, please make sure that in addition to reuploading it to Enroll Austin, you also submit it to the LASA Upload form.
Accessing documents from Enroll Austin is fairly time consuming for me, but also, Enroll Austin doesn’t notify me every time someone uploads a document. Which, considering how many there are of you who upload up to 4 documents, I actually appreciate. But it does mean that if you reupload to Enroll Austin, I have no way of knowing unless I go searching and look up individual applicants. So. Upload form. Saves me a lot of time and hopefully gets your status updated quicker.
However, when I ask you to upload something, your student’s application goes to the back of the line behind people uploading items for the very first time. I am sure you understand me wanting to give everyone a fair chance at fixing issues before the deadline.
That being said, we will of course continue allowing families to fix issues with submitted materials after the deadline.
But, hopefully, you’ve all been reading these emails and the checklist and the FAQ so you’ll be getting everything right on the first try!
Teacher Recommendations
I have been getting a lot of questions about teacher recommendations and I am noticing some misconceptions and misunderstandings.
Teacher recommendations go through Enroll Austin.
Step 1: Student asks their teachers (1 math or science teacher, and 1 English or social studies teacher for a total of 2 recommendations) if they would be willing to fill out a recommendation.
Step 2: The parent goes into Enroll Austin -> clicks the Edit Button beneath their student’s name -> selects “Next Steps” from the menu - > clicks the blue button beneath “Teacher Recommendation” - > enters teacher email addresses into the corresponding fields -> hits button to send email.
Step 3: Teacher receives an email from Enroll Austin with a link. The link takes them to a recommendation form which they fill out.
Once that is all done, parents can go back into Enroll Austin (under Next Steps > Teacher Recommendation) at any time to see if a teacher has submitted the recommendation yet or not. (You will see the word “completed” if they have!)
Parents can also doublecheck that the email address is spelled correctly, re-send the email, or (as long as the recommendation hasn’t been completed yet) put in the email address for another teacher if the first one changes their mind.
Some teachers are reporting issues with the link. I checked in with the Helpdesk and they said it is usually one of two things.
Either, the link is there, but it is not appearing as a hyperlink. In those cases, the teacher should just copy-paste it into their internet browser address bar.
Or, it’s a security setting where links from “unknown” senders are hidden. In that case, a lot of teachers have had success with trying a different browser or a different device.
So if a teacher tells you they are having issues with the recommendation, please share these “tricks” with them.
You can also go back into Enroll Austin (Next Steps > Teacher Recommendations) and re-send the email with the link if the teacher tells you they can’t find it.
Enroll Austin
Hopefully, all of you have already set up your Enroll Austin account for your applicant.
But just in case, I wanted to reiterate that LASA cannot accept any student who does not have an Enroll Austin application by 11:59 PM on Tueday, February 6, 2024. This is a hard deadline.
If you don’t have the Austin Enroll application in yet, I suggest creating one right now. Many families have had technical difficulties, so if you wait until the last day, I worry you won’t be able to resolve any issues in time.
The most common issue I have heard of is that for parents with students currently enrolled in AISD schools some of the required fields are blank, but also locked so they cannot be edited. Most commonly, it’s the parent D/O/B field.
This is because Enroll Austin takes its data on currently enrolled students straight from Frontline SIS.
The solution is to ask your student’s school to update the field in Frontline SIS. This will update Enroll Austin in 24 hours.
Or you can call the Enroll Austin Hotline at 512-414-SEAT and leave them a voicemail. They will get back to you as soon as they are able.
Or (last resort) email me with your name, email address and the information for the field that needs to be edited and I’ll slide it to my contact at district.
Ranking Schools
A part of the Enroll Austin application is picking and ranking the schools you are applying for. This can be changed until 11:59 PM on February 6th, 2024.
Please make sure your family has sat down and considered the option so the schools are ranked in the order your student actually wants to attend them.
There is no benefit to trying to “game the system” or use some kind of strategy. The school your student most wants to attend should be ranked one, the second ranked two, and so on and so forth.
If you go to the Enroll Austin website and scroll down, there’s actually an FAQ hiding down there that explains this in more detail.
Finally, everyone take a deep breath and relax.
Even if you haven’t gotten the application status update email yet, you know what you have submitted. If you’ve submitted it, we have gotten it. If there are issues with submitted materials, we will work with you.
Remember, we also want your student to have the best chance possible to attend LASA.
That is it for this week, y’all. Thanks for staying with me!
Good luck with your application!
All LASA Information Emails are available on the Application Updates blog on our website.
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