How bad is it to contact admissions after your application is submitted?

[LittleDarlings]

I am so tempted to call one of the schools because I want to know when I can expect to hear back, I know they have rolling admission but I also know Christmas Break is coming up so they will be out of office. Can I call and ask when to expect a response? I don't want to be annoying and then they deny me admission but I also just want to gauge my time frame.

[TakeruK]

Under normal circumstances, I don't think a person would be rejected because they were anxious about the decision, made a phone call, and annoyed someone. However, it's still better to not annoy people in general! I don't think it's appropriate to ask a school for a timeline unless you have an actual reason to need to know the timeline, or if you haven't heard a decision past some published estimated timeline. Chances are, they might not even know the timeline because it could depend on a lot of different factors, especially with rolling admissions. For example, if a great application appeared right now, they might get accepted right away. Other applications might sit until the department is sure that they won't get better people.

 

So, in your case, your signature says you have one acceptance already. If this school is giving you a hard deadline to make a decision, then it would be appropriate, in my opinion, to call up one the other school and let them know that the first school requested a decision by X and ask if this other school would be able to make a decision on your application by X as well. Otherwise, as much as it sucks to wait, I think the appropriate thing to do is to trust that the school will give you information as soon as they know it and the fact that you have not heard anything yet means that there is nothing you can really gain by calling them. 

[gellert]

Results search.

[LittleDarlings]

Results search.

Oh I've looked every single day lol and talked to people who were accepted by the program about when they heard back

[Domino]

As a third-time applicant (ugh) I'd suggest waiting until February.  At least then they can tell you if the first round of interview invitations have gone out.  At the end of the day, you're either going to be admitted or not, and you'll find out when and only when they decide to tell you, and calling to ask (especially at this time of year- crazy for most universities) won't help you or them.  Just breathe and relax and be patient