VirtualEvals

VirtualEvals is a secure, web-based system through which health professions advisors can transmit letters of evaluation to health professions schools.

VirtualEvals is designed to improve the efficiency with which letters of evaluation are transmitted by undergraduate schools (senders) as well as the efficiency with which they are received and processed in admissions offices at health professions schools (receivers). In most cases, senders find that using VirtualEvals is also less costly than transmitting letters using conventional means.

What Happens at the Undergraduate School?

On the sending side, VirtualEvals is a simple system that works as follows:

Senders

• Save as a PDF the document you would normally send for an applicant.
• Create a simple record for the applicant in VirtualEvals.
• Attach to that record the schools to which the applicant is applying.
• Upload the PDF of letters to the record of the applicant.

When the PDF is uploaded, an email is sent automatically to the applicant to let him/her know that the letters have been made available to designated schools. Included in that email, is a list of schools that have been attached to the applicant record by the advisor.

It is important to understand that applicants do not have access to VirtualEvals. Only the senders and receivers can access VirtualEvals.

What Happens at the Health Professions School?

Receivers have three options:

• Log into VirtualEvals regularly to check for new PDF’s that have been posted for applicants to your school
• Receive an email that automatically notifies you when a PDF is available for an applicant to your school.
• Access PDF’s through an application program interface (API) that will download new PDF’s and automatically save them to the admissions office’s system. This API was beta tested last year and we have made enhancements to it for the 2008 cycle.

Each receiving school uses a login and password to enter VirtualEvals and access PDF’s for applicants to their school. They can only access letters for applicants to their school as indicated by the sending school when the applicant record was created. Receiving schools do not have access to the list of schools to which the applicant is applying.

What happens next varies according to individual receiving school. In general, schools either download a copy of the PDF and save it to their own electronic system or print the PDF and file it as a hard copy in the applicant’s paper file.

Many health professions schools simply save the PDF to their own system without printing. Those schools are particularly pleased to receive the letters in electronic format through VirtualEvals.

Senders should note that some receiving schools prefer not to access the PDF for a specific applicant immediately after it is posted to VirtualEvals. Rather, they wait until they determine if they will need to access the PDF for that applicant. For example, if the applicant is screened out based on other criteria such as GPA and MCAT, the admissions office might not need to access letters for that applicant. This is similar to what would happen if that applicant were screened out prior to being asked to complete a secondary or supplemental application or to have letters transmitted.