Hello everyone, we hope that your applications are coming along. In the last week we have received a significant amount of questions pertaining to contact information for referees and verifiers of awards, work, top 10 experiences. I’ll try to summarize our advice below:
AS PER THE APPLICATION MANUAL OUR STRONG PREFERENCE IS THAT PROFESSIONAL EMAIL ADDRESSES ARE USED. However, we understand that not everyone has a professional email linked to an academic institution or a place of business/work. Lack of professional email addresses may lead to greater scrutiny of the entire file given that there have been examples where potential applicants have fabricated email addresses.
PLEASE REMEMBER THAT VERIFIERS ARE CONTACTED TO VERIFY NOT ONLY THE EVENT BUT THE NUMBER OF HOURS AND CONTENT RELATED TO THE ENTRY SO THEY NEED TO SPEAK TO THIS. Example: IF the experience list is Volunteered at YYY. I organized events and took the lead in this and developed AAA, created BBB, Coordinated CCC, led DDD the verifier needs to be able to verify this. If you just participated and they can’t verify the file will be flagged.
Here are specific situations and suggestions:
- For awards, list either a contact person or contact person at the awards office/granting society from which you received the award.
- For work, please list a present or past manager preferably who worked with you, Not another employee.
- For top 10 experiences, list the most relevant person to the experience that can peak to your entry.
For personal experiences or life experiences there may be times where you may leave the verifier blank. An example may be “growing up with a chronically ill sibling” or “My mother’s battle with cancer”. Leaving it blank is fine but we reserve the right to come back
NOTE: ALL personal emails need to be accompanied by a contact number (preferably professional), if not personal.
