jms123

Generally what happens is that the school will wait until they have heard from all the admits. They will probably automatically decline anyone who has not responded. At that point they will look at the size of their incoming class and determine if they want to go to the wait list. Sometimes they may know early on that they aren't going to go because they are getting an overwhelming amount of accepts. Sometimes they get a lot of declines early so you may hear early. Generally I would bank on May for hearing about wait lists. It all depends on if their hit their admit- accept target.

It doesn't equal doom. As I said in another post somewhere else some schools evaluate in cycles....so you could be in the third (or fourth, or fifth) cycle. And not every faculty member will be involved in reading folders, usually its only a select few. Who you should contact depends on how the school is set up. At a school like Harvard where its very decentralized calling the Admissions Office is the way to go, not the individual faculty or department. At a large school with a "graduate" school clearinghouse it may be better to contact the department.

It is not always true. My acceptance letter arrived as a single sheet in a regular envelope. I know of a few other (doctoral) progams that have "small" envelopes that are sent to admits.

Many programs do not utilize faculty contact and send decisions via regular post so not being contacted by a faculty member is not an indication you were not accepted. I was never contacted by the school I am attending in the fall, I received a letter in the mail and then called my advisor. Every school is different.

Some schools read in multiple cycles. So they may think your application is strong but they want to compare it against the other cycles. Schools that do this often have a small group of students left over at the end that are in this category...then they are evaluated and decisions are made.

Omg, I'm sooooo sorry!

I think what he is trying to say is that if you are attending school somewhere with a high COL and getting more $$ it works out to be the same as getting less $$ and attending school somewhere with a low COL. If the MA school is in Boston LA, NY, SF, and probably Chicago $7500 will not cut it. You'll have to pay more than that for rent alone. Some smaller cities like Philly or Atlanta you may be able to get by but I wouldn't do it personally. I think if you go into a PhD program (especially w/o a Masters) you should go for it.

Every school is different. Many schools hold all of the letters until the end and mail them all at once. In a lot of instances there are funding issues to be worked out after decisions are made. And yes, people do get in by snail mail. I received my first letter by mail and I'm expecting the remainder of them to arrive the same way.

This happens often. Collecting all the letters yourself and mailing in one packet avoids this situation.

Some programs only communicate decisions through the postal service. IMO, its a lot safer this way. Nobody accidently hits the wrong button and sends out acceptance emails to every applicant. Plus, there is something fun about getting that letter in the mail!