What is the latest you will hear back from a school?

[neuropsych76]

I just saw on the results page that several years ago a person was notified they were accepted on April 3rd for one of the schools I applied to. To me, this seems super late for PhD programs since you generally have to make a decision by the 15th. Is it common to get notified so late? It just sort of caught me by surprise

[newms]

It's not common, but it is possible if you are on a wait list. I'd imagine that people who are waitlisted could get accepted after April 15. Of course, some programs for whatever reason, have sent out rejections in May or later.

[LJK]

Also, before April 15th, there are sort of unofficial wait lists. In the model of grad admissions where a student is being admitted to work in a particular lab, with one, maybe two, opening(s), the PI has to wait until the first person they offer each slot to officially declines it before accepting an alternate student. If the first accepted student hangs onto all acceptances until late (it is much more polite to formally reject any offers you know you aren't taking as early as possible), or that particular school was the one the student had narrowed down to the top two they were deciding between but made their decision before April 15th, the PI had time to still do a 'normal' acceptance prior to formalized waitlists. The schools want to fill their funding slots and will keep accepting into May or even later if their slots aren't filled. This generally isn't a problem for the highest ranked programs but could be the case for some of the lower tier ones who lost their preferred students to the higher tier schools. My current program has been known to recruit graduating seniors into a funded MS in years that the phd applicants were not as promising or decided to go elsewhere.

[OnceAndFutureGrad]

In 2009, I was called about being on a waitlist for my MA around March 17th and then I was accepted by e-mail a week later. That was after six solid rejections. The program where I was accepted had a very late application deadline though (Feb. 1).

This year, I should know on Friday whether I've been shortlisted for the summer internship, and I was told that I should start hearing from Penn and Columbia next week.

(Edited for clarity)

Edited January 31, 2011 by RecycledViking

[UnlikelyGrad]

I got my last acceptance in mid-March (maybe as late as March 20?) and my last rejection in July.

When I got admitted to MyU, I was told to "please reply by March 31 if you are not coming" because they wanted to be able to make offers to people on the waitlist before April 15. So yes, April admits are definitely possible.

[neuropsych76]

Thank you for the replies! I feel like I'm sort of in limbo for some schools because I haven't heard anything but I know (from on here and other sources) that I wasn't invited to the first or only interview weekend. Maybe I'm on an unofficial wait list or the schools are slow with rejections?

[jaxzwolf]

It's a long shot, I know, but I actually have a friend who got accepted to a math PhD program in June! She was on a wait list and for some weird reason the timing worked out to the point where someone withdrew from the program in May and they decided to go ahead and fill the slot. So it can happen very late in the game, but as others here have said, typically you'll hear by the first week in April for admits, later sometimes for rejections.