If an applicant was declined for, or withdrawn from, an academic year, they may wish to re-apply for a subsequent academic year. You can choose which applicants are permitted to re-apply, by enabling the re-apply feature for those applicants, which can be done individually or in bulk via the Applicants roster. OpenApply has a dedicated Reapply feature to allow this, which works as follows, for example:
- Applicant applies for 2024-2025 as normal and pays the application fee
- Applicant is marked as Declined for 2024-2025 by the school, as they were unsuccessful
- Select the Declined applicant on the roster, and click Reapply.
- When doing so, the system notifies you that, 'Once enabled, applicants can choose to restart the application process.'
and:
Application form and fee will reopen
Checklist items will be reset - You also have the option to Send reapplication notification email to the family, inviting them to reapply. This email can be customised via Settings > Admissions > Status & Notification.
- At this point, the applicant is still listed as Declined under 2024-2025, as they have not actually re-applied yet
- Parent logs into their OA account, and clicks the Reapply button
- Parent starts filling and updating the application form. Once they complete Page 1 of the form, the enrolment year is changed, as the parent must choose the new enrolment year when filling the form. At this point, the applicant is listed as Declined under 2025-2026, as they have updated their enrolment year, but have not actually re-applied yet
- Parent submits the application and pays the fee (if applicable), and the status changes to Applied again. The applicant is now listed as Applied for 2025-2026
Notes
- Application Checklist items will be re-opened, but you will not lose any historic data
- If your application form has a fee, the parent will need to pay again
- Parents will be able to choose from any enabled application form that is displayed on the landing page. If there are no displayed application forms, then application forms on the Checklist will be listed to the parent.
Manually Changing the Enrolment Year and Status
Alternatively, if you would prefer to manually edit the enrolment year and status of the student to allow them to edit and re-submit their application form without them needing to pay the application fee or complete their checklist items again, you can use the following process.
If their status is still showing as Applied (or another status), you should first ensure that they are marked as Declined or Withdrawn. In this case, the applicant was Declined for 2016-2017 Academic Year, but now wishes to re-apply. First, click the pencil icon to edit the applicant.
Edit the Enrollment Year to the new academic year for which the applicant is now re-applying. In this case, the applicant is now applying for 2017-18. If you would like the family to be able to edit the forms that they have already submitted, so that they can update their application, select Unlocked on the right panel, under Access & Permissions. Otherwise, be sure that Locked is selected. Click to Save Changes.
You can now change the status from Declined (or Withdrawn) to Pending. From Pending, you can then change the status to Applied if necessary. The applicant history will correctly reflect the fact that the applicant applied for one year, was declined, has now re-applied, and this will also be reflected in any analytics.
More information on the applicant history can be found at Editing Status History