CNS › Academic Affairs

Contents

 

What is GAP?
Instructions for Faculty Reviewers
Instructions for Graduate Coordinators
Accessing GAP from Off-Campus

What is GAP?

GAP (short for Graduate Application Process) is a web-based system designed to automate the management and review of applications for graduate programs.  Its primary goal is to replace the traditional model of circulating file folders containing application materials among members of graduate admissions committees.  Using GAP, graduate coordinators can manage graduate application documents in digital form, assign faculty reviewers, monitor the progress of the review process, and group applications based on the decisions of the admissions committee.  Faculty reviews can see the applicants assigned to them for review, view the application documents on-line, and enter their feedback and recommendation for each applicant.

From the perspective of GAP, a graduate application comprises a collection of documents stored in pdf form.  There are six types of documents:

1. Admission application
2. Statement of purpose
3. Transcripts
4. Letters of recommendation
5. Resume / CV / Lab experience
6. Other

Although GAP places no limit on the number of documents of each type in an application, you would normally expect only one admission application and statement of purpose.

An application exists in one of six states:

1. Incomplete - awaiting the receipt of some documents
2. Faculty - awaiting reviews by faculty reviewers
3. Committee - awaiting the decision of the graduate admissions committee
4. Accepted - applicant has been accepted by the committee
   
5. Denied - applicant has been denied by the committee
   
6. No action - applicant has withdrawn their application
   

Applications in all states can be seen by the graduate coordinator.  Faculty reviewers cannot see incomplete or no action applications.

Instructions for Faculty Reviewers

Accessing GAP

In order to access GAP as a faculty reviewer, you must be authorized by your department.  Your department will contact the GAP system administrator and provide your name and UT EID.  Once authorized, you may access GAP while on campus by using your web browser to visit  https://apps.cns.utexas.edu/gap.  Bookmark the page for your convenience.  Enter your UT EID and password when prompted.  Accessing GAP from off-campus requires the more secure procedure described below.

When finished using GAP, simply click Logoff in the menu on the left side of the screen.  You will be taken to the UT home page.

Finding applications assigned to you

GAP allows graduate coordinators to send automated e-mails to faculty notifying them that an application is awaiting their review.  This e-mail will have in the subject line "Please review this graduate application" followed by the applicant's name.  The body of the e-mail contains a reminder on how to access GAP and review an application.

When you login to the GAP system, you will see a welcome message and a navigation bar on the left-hand side of the screen.  The navigation bar contains three entries:  Req'd Review Apps, Req'd Committee Apps, and All Apps.  Click on Req'd Review Apps to see a list of all applications assigned to you which you have not finished reviewing.
 
Viewing an application

To view the details of any application, click the View button beside an applicant's name.  The application information will appear in categories:

• Personal Information  (residency, name, UT EID)
  
• Application Details  (program applying to, test scores, GPA)
  
• Documents  (application, statement of purpose, transcripts, letters of recommendation)
  

Clicking on any document will launch Adobe Reader within your web browser, which will show you the contents of the document.  All the information in an application - including all the documents - can be collected into a single pdf file by clicking the Download Complete Application button.  This will launch Adobe Reader in your web browser.  From within Adobe Reader you can examine the application, you can use the File->Save Page As... command to save the information on your computer, or you can use the File->Print... command to print the information.  Please be mindful that application documents contain information - such as social security numbers - that the university considers highly confidential.

When viewing an application you will also see any comments from the graduate coordinator, a list of all faculty reviewers assigned to the application, and a link allowing you to read the comments of the reviewers.

Reviewing an application

A review of an application consists of free-format comments entered by the faculty reviewer and - at the option of the deparment - answers to a standard set of questions and an overall rating of the applicant.  A faculty reviewer can review only those applications that have been assigned to them by the graduate coordinator. Comments can be entered all at once or in multiple sessions.  But, once a faculty reviewer marks their review as complete, nothing can be added or changed.

To begin a review, go to the page of applications awaiting your review and click the Review button beside an applicant's name.  The same information will be displayed as when the View button is clicked.  Additionally, there will be a Review Section toward the bottom of the page.  Under this heading there may appear a set of standard questions to be answered and there will always be a My Comments section.

After looking over the application information and documents, provide answers to any questions that appear and enter your comments into the text box in the My Comments area.  When finished, click the Save All button under the text box. Each time you click the Save All button, your comment and the date will be recorded under the My Comments heading. You may add as many comments as you like. Be aware that other reviewers and the graduate coordinator will be able to see your comments once they have been saved. There is no way to edit or delete comments that have been saved.

When you are completely finished reviewing an application, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Send to Coordinator button.  The graduate coordinator will be notified that your review of this application has been completed, and the application will no longer appear in the list of applications awaiting your review.  If you wish to save your review to continue working on it later, leave the page by clicking on one of the links in the left-hand navigation bar or by logging off the system.

Commenting on an application not assigned to you

At the option of your department, you may be allowed to add comments to applications even if they have not been assigned to you for review. Choose All Apps from the side bar menu, click on Faculty Applications, and then click on the Review button beside an applicant's name. Your comments will be saved and dated as previously discussed.  (If the Review button does not appear, your department has not chosen to use this feature.)

Instructions for Graduate Coordinators

Accessing GAP

In order to access GAP as a graduate coordinator, you must be authorized by your department.  Your department will contact the GAP system administrator and provide your name and UT EID.  Once authorized, you may access GAP on campus by using your web browser to visit https://apps.cns.utexas.edu/gap.  Bookmark the page for your convenience.  Enter your UT EID and password when prompted.

When you first login to GAP, you will see a welcome message.  The menu on the left shows all the degree programs that you are authorized to work with and for each program gives you five commands:  Create New, Current Apps, Archive, Review Status, Q/A Scores.

When finished using GAP, simply click Logoff in the menu on the left side of the screen.  You will be taken to the UT home page.

Creating a new application

To add a new application to the system, choose the Create New command in the left-hand menu. A page titled "Create New Graduate Application" will appear.  Enter whatever contact information, application details, and documents you have.  While any field may be left blank, it may be difficult to locate an application later if the first and last name fields are not filled in.  When finished, click the Create Application button at the bottom of the page.  This will take you to an edit page where you can add information to the application and also start assigning faculty reviewers.

Uploading supporting documentation

The Documents area of the application is where all supporting documentation for the applicant are stored electronically.

To upload a document choose the document type from the drop down menu (the default type is Admission Application) and choose the status of the document (the default document status is Official).

You may then assign a title to the document before uploading. This should be some name that makes sense to you. The document will also be labeled with the document type and document status. You may leave this field blank if it is not useful.

For the actual upload click on browse and choose the document to be included in the application. The file MUST be a PDF file, and must reside on your computer or a reachable networked machine for uploading.

If the file you need to upload is not in PDF form, then you must first convert it to PDF. There are several ways to do this:

1. Open the document in any of the Microsoft Office suite of programs and choose to print PDF to file. This option is availabe to both Mac and PC users.
2. If you have Adobe Professional installed on your machine then you can open the file in any Microsoft Office suite of programs and hit the "to PDF" button in the menu bar at the top of the program.
3. If you are using Linux/UNIX then you can choose the appropriate line command (e.g. ps2pdf document.ps)

If you need to upload more than 10 files, you will need to add them in batches:

• Fill in the first 10 document spaces and then click "Create Application" at the bottom of the page. 
• You will be taken to a screen that shows all the information the application contains so far.
• Under "Documents" you should click the link that says "Add Documents". 
• This page will then allow you to upload 10 more documents as before.
• Once the you have entered the documents click "Add Documents".
• Repeat this process until all relevant documentation has been added to the applicaton.

Viewing documents

Once documents have been added to the application they can be viewed in two ways.
          1. When viewing the "Edit <department's>  Graduate Application" page, you can click on an individual PDF under Documents.
          2. Or you can click on "View Merged PDF". This link takes all information entered for the application and creates a PDF with sections that label the information and documentation provided.

Assigning faculty reviewers to an application

To be included in the list of potential reviewers for a program, a faculty member must be authorized by the department and added to the GAP system.  To have a faculty member added, contact the GAP system administrator and provide the name and UT EID of the faculty member.

To assign faculty reviewers to an application, you must first locate the application using the Current Apps, Archive, or Review Status commands and then click the Edit button by the applicant's name.  On the Edit page, there is a section titled Required Reviewers, which will list the assigned reviewers or show the message "No Reviewers Found."  To add or delete reviewers click the "Update Reviewers" link.  A list of any reviewers already assigned to the application will appear, followed by a list of all potential reviewers for your program. Check or uncheck boxes next to names and then click the Update button.

GAP can automatically send e-mails to reviewers notifying them that this application has been assigned to them.
To do this, click the Notify boxes by the reviewer names (or click Select All) and then click the Send button.  If you do not send e-mails, it is up the the reviewers to log into GAP and look at the list of applications awaiting their reivew.

Adding comments to applications

You must be on the Graduate Application Review page. Scroll down to the "My Comments" section and type in your comments. After entering press "Save ALL".   Each comment will be dated and saved in this section for further review.  There is no way to delete a comment.

Assigning application status

To assign a status to an application (the default is "Incomplete") scroll down to the bottom of any editable page to the section "Status" or "Application Status".
Choose the appropriate status from the drop down menu and then click "Update Application" or "Save Status".

Finding existing applications

• This academic year (current)
  Current applications can be seen by choosing the "Current Apps" menu option under your department heading. You will be provided with a list application statuses. Choose the status of the application you are looking for by clicking the appropriate link. You will be given a list of the applicants in this status category. You can then choose to view the application by clicking "view", edit the application by choosing "edit" or delete the application by choosing "delete". On a delete there is a prompt to make sure this is the desired action. Once you have verified the delete, wait a moment and do not click delete again. The system takes several seconds to delete an application and hitting the delete button more than once will result in several applications being deleted instead of just one.
• Past academic years (archive)
  Past applictions can be seen by choosing the "Archive" menu option under your department heading. You may choose to view, edit, or delete archived applications. If your archive list is large, you may choose to searh for an application. The search is located at the top of the archive and is name driven. You can fill in any or both name field. Incomplete strings match on any subset in the last name or first name field.
  

Editing existing application

Find the app by following directions above.

• Uploading documents
  Once in edit mode, add documents as per creating an application.
  
• Viewing documents
  Same instructions as creating an application once in view or edit mode
• Adding comments
  Once in edit mode, add comments as per creating an application.
  
• Assigning/adding reviewers
  Once in edit mode, assign/add reviewers as per creating an application
  
• Looking a review comments
  Choose Review status from the main menu.
  If any comments are included on an appliction there will be a comment icon. 
  Click on that link to see all comments entered for this application.
  

Monitoring the review process

Once an application is complete and you have released it for faculty review, you can monitor the progress of the reviewers.  Choose the Review Status command in the left-hand menu.  You will see a list of applications under review, the names of the faculty reviewers assigned to each application, and the status of the review:  not started, started reviewing, or reviewed.  Once all the reviews for an application have been completed, you can click on the Edit button by the applicant's name and change the status of the application from Faculty to Committee.

From this page, you can also examine a review from an individual reviewer or all the reviews for an application.  The Review button allows you to add comments to an application.  The Edit button allows you to modify the application, including changing the reviewers and the status of the application.

Viewing responses to questions

If your department has provided standard questions to the faculty reviewers, you can view a summary of their responses by choosing the Q/A Scores command in the left-hand menu.  This would be used, for example, to see the reviewer ratings of all the applicants.

Accessing GAP from Off-Campus

When you use the GAP system, a large amount of highly confidential information moves between the GAP server and your computer.  While we can secure our network on campus, we have no control over the networks involved when you access GAP from off-campus.  Therefore, the university requires you to use a piece of software that will set up a secure connection between your off-campus computer and the GAP server.  This allows you to use GAP securely from anywhere in the world.

Installing the VPN client software

The software that sets up the secure connection is called a Virtual Private Network (VPN) client.  If your computer was set up by your department's computer support staff, the software may already be on your computer.  If not, it is available for free at the ITS BevoWare web site.  Instructions can be found here.  The BevoWare download site is here.  On this web page, you will need to scroll down to the heading "Utilities", under which you will find "Cisco Systems VPN Client".  Download the software and follow the installation instructions.  Your department's computer support staff can provide assistance if needed.

Using the VPN client software

Before you use GAP, you must launch the VPN client software on your computer by clicking on the VPN Client icon. Click on the Connect button in the window that appears, and then enter your UT EID and password when prompted.  Within a few seconds, a secure communications channel will be established and the window will disappear.  This secure channel will remain open until 1) there are 30 minutes of inactivity, 2) you close the channel manually, or 3) you shut down or reboot your computer.  But, logging out of GAP and quitting your web browser does not close the channel.

If you click on a GAP link or enter the GAP URL (http://apps.cns.utexas.edu/gap) in your web browser and receive an error message suggesting the server is not responding or the web page cannot be displayed, it often means that the secure channel is not open and you must repeat the procedure above.