Portland Community College--not answering phones? (2014, school, relocate to)

[mama_tucker]

I'm looking to relocate to the Portland area and have done my FAFSA for Portland Community College (the Emergency Managment Systems degree). It was accepted and I got an email from the college saying I need to apply for admissions. The website only allows me to apply for admission for Summer 2014, and I won't be starting until Fall 2014. I tried to call the school a few minutes ago (around 11:30 PCT) and the answering machine said that admissions & student services is not taking any more calls at this time--what gives???

I'm no spring chicken at this, either--I'm an older returning to college student, but I'm puzzled. Am I missing something?

[urbanlife78]

If I am not mistaken, you will have to wait until later in the summer before being able to enroll in the Fall.

[mama_tucker]

Thank you to the person who sent me a roundabout number for the Emergency Management Department! I was able to get through and spoke to a gentleman who was VERY helpful. Turns out I have to register as a Summer 2014 student to be able to get admission, but can start in Fall 2014 (and be able to use my FAFSA).

[bler144]

I like a lot of the PCC staff I know, but for the volume of students they handle they're fairly lightly staffed.

During peak periods at least in recent years they've had to just batten down the hatches, by cutting student access to different offices so they can actually work through paperwork/applications etc. Otherwise they'd do nothing but respond to lines of students asking why the school hadn't processed their paperwork yet.

And right now they're busy processing both summer and fall. Once you're in the system you'll pick up the ebb and flow a bit.

That said, the message would have been more useful if it provided a hair more info and suggested when they would be re-open for accepting calls [edit - though if you did actually call right when the lines re-opened you'd be caught in a flood of a hundred other calls, so maybe that's why they don't].