On the record
Ten of the professionals whose Capella files we have handled, in their own words, at the stage their file was at when it reached the desk. Names shortened at their request.
The professionals below brought the desk files at every point on the route — before Scientific Merit Review, stamped but not filed, returned once or twice, and mid-study with an amendment due. What they describe is the same work each time: the path read honestly, the file built to say one thing everywhere, and every reply from the board answered point by point. The practice carries an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 from the professionals it has served since 2006.
In their words
My application had come back twice before I found the desk. Elise read the return letter line by line, matched the consent to the protocol, and the next letter from the board was the approval. I wish I had sent it in before the first submission.
I had a site permission letter signed by the wrong person and did not know it. They caught it in the free review, drafted the replacement on the right letterhead, and told me exactly who had to sign. The board never had a reason to write back about it.
I was certain my project was research. The determination read it as quality improvement, the file was built for that path, and it went through without being re-routed. That one reading saved me a whole review cycle.
The board wrote back with seven points and I forwarded the letter. Margaret answered every one, document by document, and I signed the revision response without rewriting a thing. Approval followed on the resubmission.
I came to them before Scientific Merit Review with nothing but a topic and a site. Elise mapped the file so the plan and the application would be written to agree from the start. When the IRB read it there was nothing to reconcile, because there had never been two versions.
Harriet rewrote my consent form for the people actually signing it — night-shift staff, not reviewers — and put the data-security answers into a plan with storage, access and a destruction date. The board's only comment on the file was that it was complete.
Halfway through data collection my second site changed its intake process and my instrument had to change with it. I thought that meant starting over. They filed the amendment, matched the instrument and the plan, and the board approved the change without touching the rest of the study.
I only bought the determination and the plan, because I wanted to write the file myself. The plan was a page of exactly which documents, in which versions, saying which things. I followed it, filed it, and it went through on the first pass. Worth it for the reading alone.
The free review told me, politely, that I did not need them — single site, no identifiers, a clear quality-improvement project. They said request the site letter now and file. I did, and it cleared. When my colleague's file came back twice, I sent her to the same desk.
My study ran past its first approval period and I had no idea continuing review was a thing until the notice arrived. Margaret had the progress report and the updated documents ready before I had finished reading the email. The study never paused.
4.9 / 5 across the professionals we have served since 2006. Every file described above was read, built or answered by the desk.
How these were gathered
Each quote was given to the desk after the file reached its outcome — an approval letter, or the honest reading that the file could go in alone — and is published with the professional's permission, with names shortened at their request and the project described no more precisely than they wanted. The stage line under each name is the stage the file was at when it reached us. The stars are a visual summary of what each person told us and nothing more; this site carries no review or rating markup for search engines.
We publish the ones that describe the work accurately, including the two that say we were not needed. If your file is at any of these stages, the free review is where it starts.