By Angel Lea Regalado | February 5, 2021
Senior year of high school entails a lot of things for a Sillimanian— senior prom, Portal pictorials, and graduation to name a few. Although COVID-19 cancelled these events for the foreseeable future, there’s one awaited event that remains; and that is college application season. This year’s college application season runs a bit different as universities around the country remove college entrance tests (CETs) from their admissions program. Instead, admission to these universities would heavily rely on academic records and numerous recommendation letters. Which leaves us graduating high school students a challenge – dealing with the unresponsiveness of the Silliman University Senior High School office (SUSHS).
There’s a lot to unpack when it comes to dealing with the SUSHS office especially with the additional barrier that comes with online distance learning. As a graduating senior high school student, I, along with my fellow graduating high school students, have experienced firsthand the struggles brought about by the unresponsiveness of the SUSHS office. From the replies that take two weeks to the errors that take a week to correct.
As for my personal experience, I have sent countless emails that perhaps only a handful were replied to. I would also ask my batchmates if their emails were being replied to, only to find out that we’re all in the same boat. One instance that stood out to me was requesting for my report card from the previous year. I have sent emails often asking for updates, only to be told at the end that they wouldn’t grant the request because I didn’t need it as a continuing student. Even when I successfully received my report card, I encountered mistakes which led to another few weeks of negotiation to get it corrected. Another college application requirement that took months to process was a certificate that indicates my ranking in my strand and batch. Once I was able to gain a response from the office, it took another few months to get my strand and general average corrected in the certificate. It was a problem that was passed back and forth when in fact, it shouldn’t have taken that long to fix.
Perhaps these mishaps could have been forgiven and forgotten if it didn’t hold so much value. These documents and certificates serve as the gate to our dream universities, and not being able to comply with such requirements would be devastating, especially knowing that it wouldn’t be your fault. You could say that our batch was lucky enough to experience extended deadlines by these universities but these mistakes can be very harmful in the long run as the compliance with these requirements hold the students’ future. All we ask is for the SUSHS office to be responsive and time-sensitive when it comes to granting our requests for documents that are as important as this. We acknowledge that the pandemic has taken a toll on everybody, including the university staff, but surely this problem could have been avoided or at least solved promptly, right?
