In a continuing effort to streamline student services, Dowling has outsourced part of its enrollment verification service - an online system which provides students with proof of their enrollment for insurance companies and employers- to National Clearinghouse.
Administrators say that the step will make the process more convenient, but the new system of obtaining verification letters is giving some students headaches.
Enrollment verification is often necessary for students who wish to procure car insurance, health insurance, outside employment, internships, scholarships, and credit cards. Though the new service cannot currently support health insurance requests, administrators hope that it will relieve Dowling Hall of most other requests.
Kristine Dillon, Dean of Academic Services and Student Affairs, explained that an outside online company will enable students to work without being limited to Dowling Hall's hours. "We're trying to move towards more online services," Dillon said.
National Clearinghouse boasts that it is "the nation's most comprehensive source for instant verification of post-secondary student enrollment." The new system, however, is not without glitches. "I tried on separate occasions to get verification, all without success," freshman Christopher Cifrino said.
Freshman Carly Baruh called the new system "a good idea," but said it was "difficult to navigate and [Tufts] said it would be free but it's not." Sophomore Ross Icyda also approved of the system in theory, but experienced difficulty using the website.
"It could be a good service for the Tufts community, but the kinks need to be worked out of the system before it can be used," he said. "It was confusing to be sent to the wrong link."
Cifrino is using the service to obtain verification for a scholarship and said he experienced several difficulties. The site asked for a user ID and password that Tufts had never given him; without this information, the site forced Cifrino to pay a $2.50 fee. He was also unable to locate information specifically pertaining to Tufts on the site.
Although a precise number of requests for enrollment verification letters was not available, JoAnn Smith, Manager of the Student Services Desk, said they are popular.
"I see them daily. We get tons of them - the Clearinghouse is only going to tackle a chunk of this," she said. At least half of the letters requested are for health care providers, which cannot be processed because they are usually in the name of a family member.
"We think significant numbers of students have to present proof of enrollment for a variety of reasons," Dillon said. "One student might have up to three student verification requests per year... the maximum is somewhere in the range of 10,000 to 15,000 possible requests." She acknowledged that the actual number is considerably lower.
The online service will benefit employers and other entities needing to verify information about a student or alumnus. Previously, such companies had to call Dowling Hall with specific information for Tufts to confirm or deny only - the University cannot actually give information to a caller.
Now, in what Smith calls an "improvement of service," such inquiries are directed to the National Clearinghouse website. "It will be a lot faster for these people to just check online," she said. She said that with about half of the requests being processed by National Clearinghouse, the remaining health insurance requests could be completed much faster. "We will be printing the verifications for the health services within twenty-four business hours."
All this was of little comfort to Cifrino, who continued grappling with National Clearinghouse. "I'd say I spent at least 45 minutes trying to get through the online process," he said. "Tufts sends you to the companies needing degree and enrollment verification page, while Clearinghouse's instructions send you to the student page. Both lead to the same end, which for me was an error message... This seems like a big hassle when I could just take a five-minute walk to Dowling and get something signed the old way."
