Bothering Professors?

[mgmuscari]

I met last month with a professor at my top choice school who is working in my exact area of interest... We had a hurried, but interesting conversation about our mutual areas of interest, and he fired off a few questions about my test scores, and asked if I had a copy of my personal statement. I did, so I handed it to him, and he took a brief look at it, remarking "very interesting" as he was reading. He then said he would talk to the admissions committee, and offered to take me across the hall to meet his students. I went over there and talked to them for a while, and we had a nice conversation. When I left, the professor told me he'd be in touch.

It's now been about five weeks and I haven't heard back from him again. This guy is chair of the graduate program in the department I'm applying for my Ph.D in. Coupled with the fact that he and I share very similar interests, I figured that talking to him and gaining his interest would be a huge boon to my application. Now I'm afraid that he has either lost interest or forgotten about me. I recently sent him a thank you letter just in case of the latter, but I still haven't heard from him.

Should I try to contact him again, or should I just sit on my hands and wait it out? According to this site, people tend to hear back from the school in question around mid-march.

[miratrix]

Wait it out. Having a good meeting with a professor might help your application, but I don't think it's nearly enough to make assumptions about getting in. (I had a couple myself, and I was under the impression it's fairly common.)

[ohheygradschool]

Yeah definitely wait it out, especially considering that you sent him a thank you card. Patience. Good luck!