Rejected People should be notified first

[GroundTurth]

I think admission committees  should notify the rejected people as soon as possible. especially the ones who are out early in the process and not make them wait endlessly so they can refocus their effort on their safe schools/ redo tests , register for the next semester graduate additional courses. 

[Maleficent999]

A friend of mine on here and I were talking about this the other day. We likened it to one of those breakups where the breakup-er leaves the breakup-ee hanging just in case they change their mind. Like, I want to break up with you but I might change my mind if I get lonely or can't find a new significant other so I'm going to leave you hanging until the last possible moment. We think admissions is like that. They want to wait to see if they need to send out some late acceptances if a ton of people decline. "Maybe we might change our mind about you later."

 

Or maybe they just want to torment us.

[roguesenna]

or maybe they don't really think about us after rejecting and sending out letters is kind of an afterthought. in fact, I'm pretty sure it's that because I work at HR in a company and turn down letters are super low priority after EVERYTHING else that needs to get done.

[Maleficent999]

or maybe they don't really think about us after rejecting and sending out letters is kind of an afterthought. in fact, I'm pretty sure it's that because I work at HR in a company and turn down letters are super low priority after EVERYTHING else that needs to get done.

Good point well made.

[dvfire]

I agree with OP.

[biotechie]

Many schools actually have people who reject their interview invitations, so they take students out of the "maybe" or "rejection" pool and put them in those spots. In some cases, after interviews are over and if the spots still aren't full, they'll notify a few more people for an interview, which is what happened to me with one school. This is why most schools hold of on some (or all) of their rejections until they've filled their classes.

[GroundTurth]

That is why there is something called Wait list, just wait list people if you think the top candidates might refuse. Just don't keep rejected candidate hanging without decision until next March/April , as if they don't exist. 

[GeoDUDE!]

They tend to look through people who cannot make it through the graduate school admissions requirements. People who have minimum GRE scores and GPA are considered "acceptable" and thus should not be rejected until all spots are filled and confirmed.

[TakeruK]

I generally disagree that departments should spend their time corresponding with rejected applicants in the early part of the admission season when they are trying to recruit the accepted applicants. Let's use some example numbers from one department I got rejected from, and you can scale these numbers up for much bigger programs.

 

One place I was rejected from only accepted 5 out of 150 applicants (or you can imagine something like 30-50 accepted out of 1000-ish applicants for bigger programs). I would think that the rejection rate is something like 80%-95%. Even if they were planning to only make 5 offers, or maybe even 5 initial offers and keep 15 on a waitlist, one might argue it would be wise to reject the other 130 immediately so they know what's going on. However, when you reject people, you might expect some of them to respond back with some questions and requests for more details etc. Many schools will accommodate these requests, but only after the application season is over. But potentially getting tens or hundreds of emails from rejected applicants asking about these details at the same time as trying to communicate with the accepted applicants and arranging for visit days etc. would not be very effective! Don't forget that the admin staff in charge of these communications also have other work to do too! 

 

So, I think a more reasonable timeline would be something like:

1. Committee decides who to make the first round of offers to. These people are contacted and arrangements for a visit day is made (booking flights, answering questions etc.)

2. Once those people are confirmed and most of the details are sorted out, they might want to contact a few more people down the list if a lot of the first group declined the offer already (due to receiving better offers). Some schools don't even have a waitlist/second round though.

3. At this point, they can probably make a waitlist that is whatever length they expect they will need, based on previous years. This might only be 5-10 people. Or, this list might be as long as everyone who is qualified! It really depends on the school and who they are competing with.

4. Now, I think everyone who is not on the waitlist should be notified of their rejections, and the ones on the waitlist should be notified of their waitlist status. This stage would probably take place 2-3 weeks after Stage 1 and 2. 

5. The waitlist people would only be notified of their rejection only when the class is completely filled. In many places, position on the waitlist might not matter, because they might want a balanced class so the people selected out of the waitlist might depend on who turns down their initial offers. 

 

In my experience, most programs made their offers in early to mid February, and I was notified of all my rejections by early March, after these programs have filled all of their classes. I think this is a reasonable timeline for applicants to expect. 

 

People on the waitlist are in a trickier situation, and they might not know the final decision until the end of April (after the April 15th deadline when the others have made their choices). I think a lot of time, people don't hear back from programs until so late because they are in an "informal" waitlist. I think that some schools basically put everyone who they might want on this very long informal waitlist because they want to make sure they can fill the class. They have to keep this waitlist long because, especially after April 15, a large number of their top candidates in the waitlist might have already taken offers somewhere else. In the case where the waitlist is super long, I can see why some schools choose not to tell applicants about the waitlist because "waitlist" has a connotation that you are close to being accepted, and they might not want to give false hope.

 

So, I think there are a few things that admissions should do to make the process more transparent, namely letting people know of their status, even if it is just 'waitlist' and being clear on what they mean by "waitlist". Applicants can also do things that make life easier for all other applicants too. Most importantly, I think people should make timely decisions--don't wait until April 15 to make your decision! Definitely do not rush into a decision before you hear back from all your schools, but for people who have all the information already (many top candidates will know everything by early/mid March), you should spend some time seriously thinking about your choice instead of procrastinating until April 15. Having these people make the decision early can trickle down and help everyone else hear back sooner. Finally, ETS can also help by not scheduling the subject tests in April...maybe move it to June or July so that applicants who don't get in anywhere can retake exams in the summer, before the rush of the fall begins again.

[GroundTurth]

I generally disagree that departments should spend their time corresponding with rejected applicants in the early part of the admission season when they are trying to recruit the accepted applicants. Let's use some example numbers from one department I got rejected from, and you can scale these numbers up for much bigger programs.

 

One place I was rejected from only accepted 5 out of 150 applicants (or you can imagine something like 30-50 accepted out of 1000-ish applicants for bigger programs). I would think that the rejection rate is something like 80%-95%. Even if they were planning to only make 5 offers, or maybe even 5 initial offers and keep 15 on a waitlist, one might argue it would be wise to reject the other 130 immediately so they know what's going on. However, when you reject people, you might expect some of them to respond back with some questions and requests for more details etc. Many schools will accommodate these requests, but only after the application season is over. But potentially getting tens or hundreds of emails from rejected applicants asking about these details at the same time as trying to communicate with the accepted applicants and arranging for visit days etc. would not be very effective! Don't forget that the admin staff in charge of these communications also have other work to do too! 

 

So, I think a more reasonable timeline would be something like:

1. Committee decides who to make the first round of offers to. These people are contacted and arrangements for a visit day is made (booking flights, answering questions etc.)

2. Once those people are confirmed and most of the details are sorted out, they might want to contact a few more people down the list if a lot of the first group declined the offer already (due to receiving better offers). Some schools don't even have a waitlist/second round though.

3. At this point, they can probably make a waitlist that is whatever length they expect they will need, based on previous years. This might only be 5-10 people. Or, this list might be as long as everyone who is qualified! It really depends on the school and who they are competing with.

4. Now, I think everyone who is not on the waitlist should be notified of their rejections, and the ones on the waitlist should be notified of their waitlist status. This stage would probably take place 2-3 weeks after Stage 1 and 2. 

5. The waitlist people would only be notified of their rejection only when the class is completely filled. In many places, position on the waitlist might not matter, because they might want a balanced class so the people selected out of the waitlist might depend on who turns down their initial offers. 

 

In my experience, most programs made their offers in early to mid February, and I was notified of all my rejections by early March, after these programs have filled all of their classes. I think this is a reasonable timeline for applicants to expect. 

 

People on the waitlist are in a trickier situation, and they might not know the final decision until the end of April (after the April 15th deadline when the others have made their choices). I think a lot of time, people don't hear back from programs until so late because they are in an "informal" waitlist. I think that some schools basically put everyone who they might want on this very long informal waitlist because they want to make sure they can fill the class. They have to keep this waitlist long because, especially after April 15, a large number of their top candidates in the waitlist might have already taken offers somewhere else. In the case where the waitlist is super long, I can see why some schools choose not to tell applicants about the waitlist because "waitlist" has a connotation that you are close to being accepted, and they might not want to give false hope.

 

So, I think there are a few things that admissions should do to make the process more transparent, namely letting people know of their status, even if it is just 'waitlist' and being clear on what they mean by "waitlist". Applicants can also do things that make life easier for all other applicants too. Most importantly, I think people should make timely decisions--don't wait until April 15 to make your decision! Definitely do not rush into a decision before you hear back from all your schools, but for people who have all the information already (many top candidates will know everything by early/mid March), you should spend some time seriously thinking about your choice instead of procrastinating until April 15. Having these people make the decision early can trickle down and help everyone else hear back sooner. Finally, ETS can also help by not scheduling the subject tests in April...maybe move it to June or July so that applicants who don't get in anywhere can retake exams in the summer, before the rush of the fall begins again.

Not my original intention but I have to agree the process need to be a bit more transparant