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I stop waiting on March 15th!


hydrangea

When is your last day to wait?  

99 members have voted

  1. 1. Would you choose to demand an answer sooner?

    • Oh Dude, I would totally ask them sooner! (I already asked a few...)
    • A month to consider and decline other offers... sounds about right.
    • No, be nice and give them till the end of March (you don't want to upset them...).
    • Are you kidding me?! I would never ask if they didn't tell. The sting of official rejection hurts, man.


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So I am of the mind that status is likely to be known by March 15th, and if one hasn't heard back there is likely an email notification glitch so one might never hear back. They could at least tell me I'm on a waiting list or something at that time. If they need to know by April 15th, we need to know by March 15th. (I will of course be NICE about asking. :rolleyes: )

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I emailed my program yesterday, as I had heard a (very reliable) rumor that decisions had been made. I got a nice reply saying that yes, some decisions had been made, but not all.

My recommendation is to email an admin - they are generally more knowledgeable anyway, and doesn't run the risk of annoying the adcom.

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yes. You will get a vague reply ( if the policy is to send all the rejection at the end in batch).

And a typical reply is: Still under review. You would have been notified if you were rejected. Please stay calm. We have so many applications this year. It takes some time. Nothing we can do. We are victim of our crime.

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Ohhh, it's neck and neck for ask sooner or wait till the end of March. I hope this pole is able to offer a little humor mixed in with an honest question. I'm not trying to start a mob, but that would be pretty impressive if I did!

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I've been asking this entire time. I just mainly stick to asking the grad secretaries over the phone and not telling them my name. I might be brave enough to call, but I am not brave enough to give my name.

Oh great! Maybe you would know... Of these schools that you've been asking, have you noticed that any are still reviewing after their "grad recruit" visits? For instance, one of the schools I'm waiting to hear back from is having their grad recruit visit right now. I can tell because they posted it in the news section on their web page. I am curious to know if they are still considering accepting people after they have their visits. If the're waiting to see what the top picks are doing, why don't they just make an official waiting list?

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I've been expecting the decision letters to come sometime in March...it's just that the 6 week period starts tomorrow, so now my anxiety has shot through the roof now.

I can't help it. I'm such a worrier by nature (thanks, Mom).

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I'd note that if you're reading this and it's a Master's programme you've applied for, then don't freak out if you haven't heard by March 15th.

RIGHT, Thank You for noting that... I did apply to PhD programs. Do the masters programs have the April 15th accept/decline deadline as well?

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I'd note that if you're reading this and it's a Master's programme you've applied for, then don't freak out if you haven't heard by March 15th.

Quite right. Master's programs report much later than PhD programs. MA programs can report into May. The master's degree program that I applied to five years ago reported to me in June (for the following spring admission). Master's program decisions are often made after PhD programs. Admissions offices like to get the PhD letters cleared through before focusing upon Master's admission, which they have more direct control over.

Several master's degree programs also have rolling admission. So, there's less need to panic if you don't get a response in March.

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Well, I'm glad to see that out of the 27 total votes so far, none have said that they wouldn't ever ask. (I thought it wouldn't be fair to leave that possibility out, even though I assumed everyone would HAVE to know sometime.)

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Quite right. Master's programs report much later than PhD programs. MA programs can report into May. The master's degree program that I applied to five years ago reported to me in June (for the following spring admission). Master's program decisions are often made after PhD programs. Admissions offices like to get the PhD letters cleared through before focusing upon Master's admission, which they have more direct control over.

Several master's degree programs also have rolling admission. So, there's less need to panic if you don't get a response in March.

I'm soo glad to hear this, I was starting to wonder because on the results page all I was seeing were PhD admits/rejections. Thanks for explaining this! Although at the same time, I'm just as irritated now that I must wait even longer for a response from anyone...

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Quite right. Master's programs report much later than PhD programs. MA programs can report into May. The master's degree program that I applied to five years ago reported to me in June (for the following spring admission). Master's program decisions are often made after PhD programs. Admissions offices like to get the PhD letters cleared through before focusing upon Master's admission, which they have more direct control over.

Several master's degree programs also have rolling admission. So, there's less need to panic if you don't get a response in March.

But we have to make a decision by April 15.

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But we have to make a decision by April 15.

Regardless of the fact that MA or MS degrees are sent out much later??? To me that makes no sense, how do you make a decision when the deadline has passed? Maybe we'll have to check with each individual school on this issue...

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But we have to make a decision by April 15.

There is the presumption that if you receive an offer for a PhD that you would take it over a masters degree. And the majority of PhD acceptances are supposed to go out prior to the end of March. The April 15th deadline is a general agreement among those schools and applies to those offers received before that date. There's a lot less riding upon master's applicants if they choose not to attend.

The deadline is a problem that schools do recognize. If you have an offer in hand (and it's a good one), by all means take it.

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I'm soo glad to hear this, I was starting to wonder because on the results page all I was seeing were PhD admits/rejections. Thanks for explaining this! Although at the same time, I'm just as irritated now that I must wait even longer for a response from anyone...

If you haven't already, do a search for results from past years for your Master's programmes, since it'll give you a basic timeline as to when you should know. Most of my programmes reported in previous years in mid-to-late March, so you might not have to wait too, too much longer.

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So I am of the mind that status is likely to be known by March 15th, and if one hasn't heard back there is likely an email notification glitch so one might never hear back. They could at least tell me I'm on a waiting list or something at that time. If they need to know by April 15th, we need to know by March 15th. (I will of course be NICE about asking. :rolleyes: )

Sounds totally fair to me, but I'm basing this off of expectations that my particular program set. They put in print all over the place that decisions came in early February. Then they blogged that that was a bit optimistic. Then the search results confirm that acceptances are still being made... so for me, I'm comfortable waiting a while, but at some point they will be so far off the "early February" promises that had been made that they can only expect to start receiving nervous inquiries. What do they think is going to happen if they print early February everywhere?

But then again surely other programs paint a different picture, setting different expectations or none at all. Right?

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...Master's programs report much later than PhD programs. ...

That seems like quite the blanket statement. I wouldn't put too much stock in something like this. It's obvious that schools and departments vary wildly. There's not even very much conventional standardization with priority deadlines (to start at the beginning; anything from early December to early February seems like fair game), so how can there possibly be any kind of conventional standard as the process unfolds?

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I have not contacted all of my schools, but I did send an email to the DGS secretary at one when my application status changed to clarify whether that meant that my application had been decided on or had gone on to the adcomm, since it appears to mean something different from one school to the next. Haven't heard back, so I'm assuming an implied rejection, though. :(

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After my top choice of the schools I see myself getting into started sending out acceptances early this week, my advisor suggested I email them to see whats up, and doing that was a roaring success as they emailed me back saying they were 99% sure they were going to be offering me something very soon. Because of that, I went ahead and emailed every school which hasn't responded to me yet, so I'm anticipating getting some results come monday.

I don't think theres anything wrong with sending an email asking, and it could get you some information you wouldn't have otherwise, so I say ask now!

Edited by origin415
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Wow, 61 votes later (and a bit of interesting advice) and it seems we split pretty well into 3 categories, with a few people proclaiming that ignorance is bliss. Who knows what a few days from now will show...

Thanks for taking the time to cast your votes! Best of luck to everyone, and of course, I hope we all hear soon ;).

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I chose March 15th too as a pretty decent time frame -- especialyl since we have to let other colleges know by April 15th, right? So, I like the rest of you, will be waiting waiting waiting! I'll send an email perhaps in two weeks since it sounds like some of the posters here have had some success.

Good luck to everyone!

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Just a note on the Masters admissions. When I applied a couple of years ago - I got my first admit in the last week of Nov (I was crazy and sent in all my apps by Oct) and the last at the end of May :) so it does vary from department to department.

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