VUL introducing new doctorate in May

[PurpleReign]

This person received an email in July informing them to pay before receiving their acceptance letter.

https://imgur.com/a/t6FUj1q

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This is from two years ago, so they've been doing this all along. Some people are being dishonest.

Congratulations! Virginia University of Lynchburg and the School of Business and Professional Studies have received and approved your application for admission to the Doctor of Healthcare Administration (DHA) program.


We request that you work with our Business Office on an acceptable payment plan for the DHA program; Layton Smith may be reached at 434-941-5537 or 434-528-5276 x1109 to complete this essential step. You may also call the Financial Aid Director Romena Morgan at 434-528-5276 x1105.

When the payment process is complete, we will issue a formal letter of acceptance. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Best Wishes,

Rex Hammond

They ask you to contact the Business office to set up a payment plan or to advise them if you use using financial aid loan or a private loan.

If you're not utilizing financial aid, they're asking for the first installment payment before sending an acceptance letter. The email in the image I linked to is clear, and it's from July 2022. It even gives instructions on how to submit the initial payment. This is not what colleges and universities typically do. After you've received your formal letter of acceptance, then they start sending information on setting up financial aid or a payment plan.

Makes sense what you are saying, only reason I can imagine they do this is because people start the program and then back out. I don't understand why the school wants payment before an acceptance letter is sent but if that is how they choose to do business it's their policy I guess. From my understanding, each cohort has 100 students so maybe it is like a deposit?

Acceptance isn't the same as matriculation. Normally, a school will send out more acceptance letters than available spots knowing that not all of the accepted students will decide to enroll. For programs that expect there to be more students enrolling than spots, they'll ask for a deposit to reserve a seat in the program after the acceptance letter is sent.

Sorry, this isn't worth quibbling about as I don't think this was a real issue for those enrolled. Also, the VUL DHA program, in reality, is an open program as long as you can provide evidence of completing a master's program (I wish they would screen out some who don't have a healthcare background or have plans to work in healthcare / social work).  I did however hear other issues around not getting a bill on time or being double billed which caused some undue stress and is more of a reflection of the university being understaffed. Again, this is a professional doctorate, not a Ph.D. or a rigorous one that you'll find at a RA university.   Nobody should have those expectations or do those types of comparisons.