How do rolling admissions work?

[SRod2015]

I am confused about rolling admissions. If a school has rolling admissions but only admits students for Fall semester does that mean a student would have to wait till the next Fall semester the next year to be admitted? or will a student be admitted for Spring or Summer? Please clarify! I am confused. 

[samiamslp]

3 hours ago, SRod2015 said:

I am confused about rolling admissions. If a school has rolling admissions but only admits students for Fall semester does that mean a student would have to wait till the next Fall semester the next year to be admitted? or will a student be admitted for Spring or Summer? Please clarify! I am confused. 

Some schools have spring or summer admissions, but most admissions occur in the fall. If a program only has fall admissions, and you are applying now, then yes, you would have to wait until this coming fall to apply. As for rolling admissions, if you are looking into a school with fall admissions and their deadline is January 1st, for example, then sending in your completed application in November or early December often gives you a slight edge over other students applying, and in some schools you will hear back regarding whether or not you have been admitted before others have, if you have submitted early. For example, I applied to a school with rolling admissions on December 1st and heard back on January 30th, while others who applied later didn't hear back until February and March. I wouldn't apply to a program with fall admissions earlier than October-- I honestly don't think that buys you anything and it leaves more opportunity for parts of your application to be lost. Definitely don't apply before CSDCAS opens, which I believe is late August or early September (don't quote me on the date). Feel free to send any other questions my way!

[SRod2015]

19 hours ago, samiamslp said:

Some schools have spring or summer admissions, but most admissions occur in the fall. If a program only has fall admissions, and you are applying now, then yes, you would have to wait until this coming fall to apply. As for rolling admissions, if you are looking into a school with fall admissions and their deadline is January 1st, for example, then sending in your completed application in November or early December often gives you a slight edge over other students applying, and in some schools you will hear back regarding whether or not you have been admitted before others have, if you have submitted early. For example, I applied to a school with rolling admissions on December 1st and heard back on January 30th, while others who applied later didn't hear back until February and March. I wouldn't apply to a program with fall admissions earlier than October-- I honestly don't think that buys you anything and it leaves more opportunity for parts of your application to be lost. Definitely don't apply before CSDCAS opens, which I believe is late August or early September (don't quote me on the date). Feel free to send any other questions my way!

For rolling admissions does that mean they admit for each semester? So if they have fall admissions then will the admissions roll onto the next semester (Spring) and then Summer? I am confused on what rolling admissions mean.

[samiamslp]

On 7/10/2019 at 4:59 PM, SRod2015 said:

For rolling admissions does that mean they admit for each semester? So if they have fall admissions then will the admissions roll onto the next semester (Spring) and then Summer? I am confused on what rolling admissions mean.

Rolling admissions just means that you can apply earlier than the deadline to get potential priority in admissions and earlier knowledge of admittance. So if you apply for a program with a deadline of January 15th in November or December, that may help you getting accepted or help you to find out if you've been admitted earlier than other applicants. It has nothing to do with which semesters the program offers. Also, if you look on CSDCAS, you'll have to choose the program you are applying to, and many of them are separated by start date, so if you want to start in the Fall, you'd do you whole application within "___ University Fall Start" instead of "___ University Spring Start". 

[lyha8]

GWU has rolling admissions. Their “deadline” was back February, but I still applied in May and was waitlisted for fall 2019. I heard back from them a week after I applied and in their letter they stated if there was space, they would continue to accept students up until classes began. Rolling admissions for some schools mean that they’ll accept application until the incoming class is filled. Usually it also means you have a larger time frame to gather things you need and submit your application. If you check their deadline and they state they are rolling or do not have a concrete deadline you can still apply to see if this cohort is still accepting students. However a major disadvantage to rolling admissions and applying this late is most people applied back in December to February, so there is a huge possibility majority of them are full. Some schools do offer spring and summer starts.