Asking for updates on applications?

[red4tribe]

Is it considered rude to email a department and ask roughly when I will hear back from them? I'm somewhat curious, and have considered emailing someone to ask, but I don't want to come across as being rude or impatient, I'm just curious. Is it rude or somewhat typical? 

[vityaz]

Unless you have a good reason, like having to respond to another offer by a certain deadline, don't ask.

[cwkinder33]

Unless you have a good reason, like having to respond to another offer by a certain deadline, don't ask.

This is what my current advisors have told me as well.  As much as I am dying to hear from certain schools, it is better just to wait it out!  Of course the uncertainty and anxiety is a total productivity killer!

[Whatishistoryanyway]

Unless you have a good reason, like having to respond to another offer by a certain deadline, don't ask.

And even this doesn't always help. Looks like I'm going with another option.

[TMP]

No.  Stay put unless you have another offer.

[kdavid]

Yeah, I'd say that professors are likely getting tons of other emails at this time. Getting an email from *another* anxious applicant wouldn't help your case.

 

We're all anxious. As others have stated in some of the other threads, this is the first of many anxiety-ridden months we'll experience over the span of our (hopefully long and productive) careers.

Edited February 19, 2014 by kdavid