Waiting game?

[AghaDehlawi]

I applied to quite a few Islamic studies programs, most having their application deadlines on December 15,  it is now passed mid-January when should I expect hearing back from schools?

I have received no emails as of yet...

[KA.DINGER.RA]

It's still relatively early to hear back from a lot of the Humanities programs out there. Things should start to pick up at the end of January or beginning of February. 

If you don't mind me asking, to what schools did you apply?

[ShewantsthePhD101]

I've heard mid-late February is when we should start expecting to hear back. Even though most of our apps were due mid-December the committees went on break shortly thereafter, so they probably won't have even started going through applications until a week or so ago.

[MarthUser]

The time you should hear back depends on the particular school and department. From my experience with applications, below was the timetable from hearing from programs:

Some programs make an early decision and the POI reaches out to you via e-mail as soon as possible, sometimes as early as mid-January (i.e., FSU)

For programs that have a formal interview schedule where they bring in students, they usually start contacting students to interview anytime from late-January to mid-February (i.e., my experience with Vanderbilt) and bring them in to interview mid-February to early March.

Some programs don't have a formal interview schedule and instead, the POI conducts an informal interview (via call or skype) to help them narrow down the candidates they will submit to the graduate school for approval. These can start as early as mid-January. Typically, these programs hold-off on bringing in students to campus until after they've decided who they want to accept. They then invite accepted students onto campus to sort of market the program to students (usually from mid-March to April)

Sometimes, POIs have to conduct informal interviews with various candidates until they find one they like. These informal interviews can go on until mid-February until they finally land on a candidate they like. 

Some programs don't have a formal interview session and just send out acceptance or rejection letters (Harvard, Yale, but this is might be sub-field specific.) Typically, people hear back from these guys around mid-to-late February.

Some programs don't really get back to you and you never hear anything until you follow-up with them (my experience with UVA)

It also helps to look through the "Results" tab for last year to get a sense of when schools typically get back to their students with this information. Hope this helps!

Edited January 18, 2018 by MarthUser

[ShewantsthePhD101]

On 1/18/2018 at 2:34 PM, MarthUser said:

Some programs don't really get back to you and you never hear anything until you follow-up with them (my experience with UVA)

Where did you wind up, if you don't mind my asking?