Still waiting to hear from college of your choice?

By lauren roth
The Virginian-Pilot

VIRGINIA BEACH — As she waited for college acceptance letters over the past few weeks, Emily Jones told her parents not to go near the mailbox.

But Friday evening it was her e-mail inbox she was watching closely.

Jones , 18, a senior at Cape Henry Collegiate School , applied to six colleges and already had heard back from five, all by postal mail. On Friday she was waiting to hear from the last one, George Washington University .

As the Internet enters more facets of life, a growing trend is for universities to provide high school students with admissions results on the Web.

The University of Virginia mailed letters at 11 a.m. Friday and posted decisions online at 5 p.m., said John Blackburn, dean of admissions. O nline results are available only to the 90 percent of prospective students who applied online.

It’s an incentive to bypass the paper application process, he said.

Not all colleges have made that jump, though.The College of William and Mary does not provide responses on the Web .

“At this point,” said Henry Broaddus , dean of admission , “we still believe a letter is the most personal, private and secure way to deliver the news, good or bad.”

Across Hampton Roads, thousands of high school seniors have been waiting to hear back from their carefully chosen slate of colleges. For most, the wait was over by Friday.

Sam Huber, 18, who ranks first in his class at Cox High School, said he prefers the letters.“It’s not just a screen in front of you,” he said. “With a letter, you get a chance to work your way up to opening it. ”

He got letters from William and Mary, Iowa State University and the University of Richmond, he said. He got online results Thursday from Cornell University and Friday from U.Va . He was accepted by all of them and said he’d be going out to dinner over the weekend to celebrate.

Students who check their status online still get letters in the mail. The online option just gives them a head start.

“The official acceptance is by regular mail,” said Arlene Ingram, director of college counseling at Cape Henry. In most cases, students are sent a Web site and access code. In other cases, they are notified by e-mail.

“It’s changed an awful lot,” said Ingram, who has been helping students get into college for nearly three decades.

As for Jones, she heard by mail from Old Dominion University, Penn State Harrisburg, W & M , American University and Pepperdine University.

“Usually I checked the mail, and on play rehearsal day, I told them not to go near the mailbox,” she said.

She got thick acceptance packets from everywhere except William and Mary.

On Friday, her George Washington application was on her mind during calculus.

“It was constantly coming up that it’s four more hours, three more hours,” she said.

She finally got the answer Friday – the wait list.

She thinks she’ll go to Pepperdine.

Staff writer Philip Walzer contributed to this story.

Reach Lauren Roth at (757) 222-5133 or lauren.roth@pilotonline.com.