Recommenders and Acceptance

[dispositif]

Does anyone know if it is common practice for schools to notify recommenders when they offer acceptance to their recommendees? I imagine some current grads would have some knowledge regarding this. Thanks for any input.

[ktel]

No as far as I know it's not common practice at all. They notify you, you can notify your recommenders. The only time a prof knew about something before me was when I applied for external government funding and they emailed the list to the department first.

[rainy_day]

Your recommenders will not be notified, so that will be on you to keep them in the loop when you start hearing back. It's a nice way to swing back and say "thank you" again, too.

[dispositif]

Thanks. Good things to know...

[rising_star]

There are two ways for your recommenders to find out:

1) You tell them.

2) A friend of theirs at the program you applied to tells them.

I should mention that the second one isn't all that common. That said, when I applied to PhD programs, one of my letter writers knew about my acceptance to a program before I did and actually told me to expect a call from them in the next few days. (Even weirder, he got the info from a prof that was actually on sabbatical at the time. The world is bizarre sometimes.)