Accepted via phone?

[Whats Your lnewl Deal?]

Hello all,

I've been a lurker around here for the whole application season, and based on the information my departments gave me, I knew not to expect any results until around this time. All three of my prospective schools are on spring break this week. I noticed yesterday that someone posted an acceptance on the results search to one of my schools/programs. The acceptance appeared to come via phone. First of all, what is the likelihood that this would happen over a spring break? For those schools that accept via phone, do they call everyone? Would this be the only way they'd accept new students? Obviously, I'm just concerned about my application. Any insight from you guys would be great--and helpful--as I'm nearing the end of writing a thesis, and motivation is in exceptionally short supply!

[psychgurl]

I think it depends on the department. I know for a department I got accepted to, I was told in person (we were at the same research event) and another girl who got an offer was accepted via phone. My guess is that it depends on the department's policy, and if there is no policy, POI's preference.

[MediaMom]

I've gotten two acceptances over the phone. In the first case, I actually got the email notification to check the online system first, so when the call came, I already knew I'd been accepted. But the call also notified me of funding, which the online system does not address. In the second case, the call came first, before the online system was updated, and that offer also included funding. I got the impression with the second one that I was one of very few people being offered funding, and they wanted to notify me ASAP to be sure I was still interested in the offer.

As the above poster said, I think it really depends on the department and the size of the program, the type of funding offers going out, etc. But to answer your question about Spring Break, yes I think it is possible to get a notification during that time. Many professors are still on campus working (in fact, a week of no students/classes on a quiet campus is a great time to get work done!) and I've heard of several acceptances that came via phone on the weekend.

[TakeruK]

For one school I applied to, the committee split up the task of calling students between themselves but the person that was supposed to call me did not*, so eventually it got passed to another faculty member and I got the phone call. Fortunately, the phone call wasn't their only method of notification (got an official email with funding information too) so I was not really in "limbo".

*(I know this because one of my friends is a current graduate student in that program and they were planning activities for the prospective student visits and thus knew the names of accepted students. So, because of the phone call delay, I actually first found out about the offer through Facebook message!!)

Anyways, my point is that phone notifications might end up getting spread over a range of few days based on who is supposed to be calling you!