Why Do They Wait on Rejections

[stressedugrad]

Is there a legitimate reason for this? Why not send rejections when you send acceptances? Do the enjoy tormenting us lol. But really, there's a graduating PhD in my lab that said she never heard back from some schools - nothing

[lessthanepsilon]

Is it standard that acceptances go out first? Does that allow them to figure out if someone declines they can offer an acceptance to someone else?

[TheHoff]

From my past experiences (this is the 3rd year applying), yes, acceptances usually goes first.

And every year my rejections started coming after April, UC Riverside and Vanderbilt are currently holding the delay record, giving notice in October and September, respectively.

My acceptances without funding came in late February the first time and in April last year

[vam1390]

I think it depends on the program and its size. 

[yjkim192]

Yeah I know, I bet over half of their applicants don't even have a chance(for top schools). Why not just send out rejection letters at least for them so they can move on with it.

[Yirannnn]

I think sending the rejection as earlier as they can really help a lot for students to plan for their own future, I cannot understand the way they do it.

[DRMF]

Because yield can be unpredictable, and they don't know how big of a waitlist would be big enough, so everyone is either accepted or waitlisted, until enough accepted people commit. 

Someone told me that one year some school sent 47 offers expecting like 15 to come, but 46 ended up coming... what a disaster that must have been. Especially if it's a PhD and the program needs to fund everyone somehow.

[yjkim192]

1 hour ago, DRMF said:

Because yield can be unpredictable, and they don't know how big of a waitlist would be big enough, so everyone is either accepted or waitlisted, until enough accepted people commit. 

Someone told me that one year some school sent 47 offers expecting like 15 to come, but 46 ended up coming... what a disaster that must have been. Especially if it's a PhD and the program needs to fund everyone somehow.

Wow that truly is a disaster... How did they even manage that situation

[Ternwild]

17 hours ago, DRMF said:

Because yield can be unpredictable, and they don't know how big of a waitlist would be big enough, so everyone is either accepted or waitlisted, until enough accepted people commit. 

Someone told me that one year some school sent 47 offers expecting like 15 to come, but 46 ended up coming... what a disaster that must have been. Especially if it's a PhD and the program needs to fund everyone somehow.

Yes.  Universities like to keep their options open.  They always admit more than they have, because they know that the majority of the students admitted will go elsewhere.  Imagine if I got into all 18 programs.  17 schools would have newly open spots.  That said, the chances of getting off waitlists are very slim, because of the over admittance.  I know TAMU physics admits 5 times their quota, knowing they will likely fall under it (i.e. 20 spots, 100 admitted).  Honestly, you have a remarkably higher chance to get accepted first round than get accepted off the wait list.  (I'm sure our statistics majors would love to find the numbers on that.)  I know TAMU had an issue where one year they admitted 70 for 15 slots and only 4 came (says a lot about a program, I'd think), so good thing they didn't send out mass rejections.