should I take that as a no?

[aagrarian]

I applied to one graduate program in December after communicating extensively and meeting with a potential advisor and being assured that she wanted to take me and had funding. (I also spent the Spring semester doing an independent study assisting in that professor's research group at her request.) The department claims to have rolling admissions although they list the Fall deadline as March 1st. So it's been about 5 months now, the semester is over, and I haven't heard anything from anyone. When I saw the professor, she usually brought up the application as if I should know the answer and just seemed to shrug it off. She mentioned once that the department had changed chairs, which I expected to cause a slight delay. I've inquired as to the status of the application through admissions but only get an automated response saying that the application is complete and has been sent to the department which "could take several weeks or a few months." I kind of need to move on with planning my life...should I take this as a couldn't-bother-to-write-you rejection?

[MoJingly]

It doesn't sound promising, but keep asking. Have you actually called admissions or have you just emailed? That's the first step.

[fuzzylogician]

Call admissions and ask. If you've already done that, contact the administrative staff at the prospective department. Someone there will know if all decisions have been made or if they are still deliberating about some cases. It's strange that the professor isn't giving you a straight answer but if the other two options don't work you should just contact her again and straightforwardly ask about your status. Keep it brief and don't bring up any other issue, so she has to reply to this question (if she replies at all). Your concern is entirely legitimate, they shouldn't be stringing you along for this long.

[aberrant]

One thing that I learned about rolling admission is that it almost never exist to some schools, even if they say so (that is especially true for international applicants). Have you look up the results @ Results Search and see if the school has sent out acceptance and rejection letters?