How Exactly Do Programs Go About Filling Their Cohort Size?

[jlaser]

Do programs over admit by a few students knowing some will likely decline their offer? Or If they intend to only accept X amount of students - will they do so and then waitlist a handful of other candidates? 

What happens when they have less or more students than expected? 

(I'm in the Humanities, but answers from the social sciences and STEM are welcome  ) 

[M246]

Because of funding limitations some programs can only accept a certain number of students. As such, they will send out acceptances to that exact number and if someone doesn't take the offer they will send out another round of offers, they keep doing so until all spots have been occupied.

This is what I have heard..

 

[GeorgiaTechPhd]

12 minutes ago, M246 said:

Because of funding limitations some programs can only accept a certain number of students. As such, they will send out acceptances to that exact number and if someone doesn't take the offer they will send out another round of offers, they keep doing so until all spots have been occupied.

This is what I have heard..

 

While that is definitely one way to go about it, some schools also have an empirical/historical idea of attrition rate, and they hire a few extra students to account for that. Most schools do this for master's program where students are admitted in larger numbers, and most student are admitted generally and not to specifically work with one faculty member. But some schools do this for PhD admissions as well. And of course, some times they do end up having a few extra students more than what they expected, but usually they are able to accommodate everyone.