UW Madison Admission decision - what does this mean?!

[prince_zuko]

Hi all,

I applied for PhD admission in UW-Madison ECE Program. I got the following e-mail yesterday from the ECE graduate admissions team:

"The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) is pleased to inform you that we have recommended to the Graduate School that you be admitted to the ECE graduate program for the Fall 2009 semester.

OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION OF ADMISSION: The Graduate School is the entity on the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) campus that officially admits students to the ECE graduate program; therefore, your acceptance is not official until you hear from the Graduate School directly. I strongly urge you to continually check the official status of your application by visiting the "Grad Application Status"."

What does this really mean? What is the chance of rejection at this stage?? The e-mail doesn't say anything about whether I have been admitted to the MS program instead of PhD or not. This thing is driving me mad!!!

Thanks in advanced.

[fuzzylogician]

It means you've (almost certainly) been accepted to the program. I've never heard of anyone being rejected by the graduate school after being admitted by the program. I assume that if the notification doesn't say otherwise, then you've been accepted to the program you applied to, but you could write back and ask. Congratulations on the acceptance !

[fortiesgirl]

You will most likely be admitted. Exactly what fuzzylogician said. It's basically the department's way of communicating the decision to you early because things can get held up on the Grad School end. Congrats!

[prince_zuko]

Thanks Fuzzylogician and fortiesgirl for the replies. I just hope what you two said comes true eventually. The online status checking site has been updated today saying the same thing the department said (Your department has recommended you for admission. The Graduate School will be reviewing your file. Please refer to this page for updates.). Let's see what happens next. Thanks again.

[gp4100]

You're in

Welcome to Madison

[void]

You're in. That's what I received and then probably months later I received the official acceptance. I cannot imagine a reason the grad school would not admit you at this point, unless there is some kind of unfulfilled basic requirement.

[prince_zuko]

Thanks gp4100 and void for the replies, I hope everything goes well. Void, did you get any notification of fund during the unofficial acceptance? In the e-mail I got from ECE I was asked to contact individual faculty members for Research Assistantships and that's all.

[void]

Yes, I actually did find out about funding during the unofficial period. I was lucky enough to have been awarded a fellowship by the university, which I was awarded after the unofficial department acceptance but before the official university acceptance. I think the official acceptance took a particularly long time in my case because my UG transcripts were unconventional and I didn't have a GPA.