Ph.D. Acceptance Dates

[Dr. Old Bill]

Hey folks,

 

Because I was a bit curious, and had a bit of time on my hands, I went through and cross-referenced the USNews Top 40 Graduate English rankings with the 2014 Ph.D. applicant acceptance dates found through Grad Cafe's Results Search. It appears that some institutions sent out most of their acceptances on one day, while others opted for "rolling" acceptances and spread them out across a week or more.

 

Please note that this list is very approximate, as it is based on third-party information, and only on last year's figures. And I don't personally endorse the USNews rankings, but it seems to be the simplest go-to guide for the top schools. People can feel free to add more schools as they wish!

 

That said, the following list gives you some idea when acceptance decisions could be made this year. Waitlists and rejections are a different matter altogether.

 

• Berkeley – Late January to Early February
• Harvard – Mid-February
• Stanford – Late January to Mid-February
• Columbia – Mid- to Late February
• Princeton – Late February
• UPenn – Mid- to Late February
• Yale – Mid-February
• Cornell – Mid-February
• U. of Chicago – Early March
• Duke – Late January
• UCLA – Early February
• U. of Virginia – Early to Mid-February
• Johns Hopkins – Mid-February
• UMich-(Ann Arbor) – Mid-February
• Brown – Mid-February
• UNC-Chapel Hill – Mid-February
• Rutgers (NB) – Mid- to Late February
• U. of Texas-Austin – Mid-February
• U. of W – Madison – Late January
• NYU – Late February
• Northwestern – Early February
• CUNY – Mid-February
• Indiana-Bloomington – Early to Late February
• Urbana-Champaign – Mid- to Late February
• Emory – Early to Mid-February
• Ohio State – Late January to Early February
• Penn State – Varied widely
• UC-Davis – Early February
• UC-Santa Barbara – Mid-February
• Vanderbilt – Late January to Early February
• U. of Iowa – Early March
• UMD-College Park – Early to Mid-February
• U. of Washington – Early to Mid-March
• WUStL – Mid-February
• Rice – Early February
• U. of Minnesota (Twin Cities) – Early February
• USC – Late January to Early February
• Carnegie Mellon – Mid-February
• UC-San Diego – Early February
• UC-Santa Cruz – Mid-February
• Notre Dame – Late February
• U. of Pittsburgh – Early to Mid-February

 

 

Mid-February is (unsurprisingly) the most dominant acceptance period, though Vanderbilt, OSU, Stanford and a few others seem to be early accepters. The Penn State figures are rather baffling, and a cursory glance at the Results Search page shows that there was really no consistency in 2014, and some rejectees weren't even notified.

 

Hopefully some of you will find this helpful!

Edited November 14, 2014 by Wyatt's Torch

[oldmangandhi]

Thanks for putting this list together!

[queennight]

I am actually very much so surprised - and a bit frightened - I thought acceptances would be focused more around early-mid March. But I guess most schools prefer February! Jeez; talk about soon.

[cloudofunknowing]

Based upon what I saw on here - & my own rejection, which came via post, & was then viewable online (but without any email notifications) - Harvard notified in mid to late March last year. Acceptances, I believe, were sent via email.

[Dr. Old Bill]

Interesting. The Results Search shows five acceptances were sent on February 19th, with most rejections coming on March 4th (and a few later, it seems).

 

This list is just for acceptances though. I could have done a separate list for rejections, but that would have been too depressing...

 

Based upon what I saw on here - & my own rejection, which came via post, & was then viewable online (but without any email notifications) - Harvard notified in mid to late March last year. Acceptances, I believe, were sent via email.

[mikers86]

And as always, they're subject to change. I remember the approximate dates from previous years didn't match up with several of the notifications (read: rejections) I received. I can say that Duke is always mid-late January, Harvard almost exclusively notifies acceptances via e-mail, and if I remember correctly, Penn has a tendency to not notify rejections. It's also crucial that you acknowledge an acceptance soon after you receive it. 

[Dr. Old Bill]

I am actually very much so surprised - and a bit frightened - I thought acceptances would be focused more around early-mid March. But I guess most schools prefer February! Jeez; talk about soon.

 

Seriously! Based on these dates, you should know the results of a full half of your applications in around 2.5 months!

[Dr. Old Bill]

And as always, they're subject to change. I remember the approximate dates from previous years didn't match up with several of the notifications (read: rejections) I received. I can say that Duke is always mid-late January, Harvard almost exclusively notifies acceptances via e-mail, and if I remember correctly, Penn has a tendency to not notify rejections. It's also crucial that you acknowledge an acceptance soon after you receive it. 

 

Yes, this is definitely a more "frame of reference" thread. Like everything else in the admissions process, even the acceptance dates are subjective. But the list should give a very general sense of when acceptances are sent out, if nothing else.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Wyatt's Torch

[Scottstein]

duke accepts by mid-jan?? 

[Dr. Old Bill]

duke accepts by mid-jan?? 

 

No...late January. Looks like most acceptances went out on January 28th and 31st this year.

[SilasWegg]

I'll never forget the valentine's day massacre of 2013 by the CUNY Grad Center. So many valentine's day broken hearts!... my heart included

Edited November 14, 2014 by morristr

[jhefflol]

This is giving me a slight panic attack 

[unræd]

I mean, the time and effort that went in to this is phenomenal, and deserves thanks and lauds.

 

But this is one thread I will not open again until April.

[zanmato4794]

I think this list should be your writing sample.

 

Edit: almost all of these are just in time to make or break my birthday.

Edited November 15, 2014 by zanmato4794

[rdsull89]

UC Riverside tries to notify by mid-February

[toasterazzi]

OSU was definitely the first school I heard from last year in mid to late January, and they really do make every effort to get in contact with people sooner rather than later. 

[1Q84]

I'm curious about early acceptances. Do those happen often? Under what circumstances? When is "early?" Early January? Anyone have experience with this and/or received one? 

 

I know hreaðemus already got into Cambridge (but is the UK system just generally earlier?)

[mikers86]

"Early" generally means within the last week or so of January to maybe second week of February. It's really dependent on when adcomms meet, cull applications, and can work through the remaining applicants to come to some kind of consensus. You can look back over the last several years on the decisions page and figure out roughly the schedule certain programs follow, but they do change from year to year. As for individual early acceptances that break from the widespread acceptances, I don't have any experience with that. You could make all sorts of assumptions - an adcomm thinks a certain candidate may have several top offers and so they want to offer admission early, or a few early acceptances were decisions that were completely unanimous and didn't need much deliberation, etc. Who knows. But I think it's less common for the second type of early acceptance to go out - offers normally go out in waves or all at once.

[hreaðemus]

I know hreaðemus already got into Cambridge (but is the UK system just generally earlier?)

 

Just a quick note to say: the UK system is not much earlier than the US system, as far as I know. But! At Cambridge (and, I think, quite a few UK universities), admissions are rolling. I submitted my final materials on Oct. 28th and was accepted Nov. 12th -- I don't think I was early acceptance, exactly, but some people apply in Oct. and are admitted in April, while others get a timeline more like mine. It seems to be a very opaque process. 

[sillyrabbit]

Just saw this thread, and I must say that these dates are starting to feel intimidating...especially now that we are officially in January!

 

And yet, I have three more apps to submit...

[jhefflol]

The USC Late January listing just made my stomach flop. Yay for crippling anxiety!

[1Q84]

The USC Late January listing just made my stomach flop. Yay for crippling anxiety!

 

I noticed this a while back too but that also seems to be only the past cycle. It seems like further back it was mid-February. Wonder if last year was just a hiccup.

[bgt28]

Now there are numbers to my madness that have nothing to do with the GREs. Oh God lol. Bright side? Already the 3rd. YAS.

[hypervodka]

Woke up to two emails from UConn and an email from UMD that turned out to all be form letters or application inquiries. Moderate heart attacks all around.

[hreaðemus]

Woke up to two emails from UConn and an email from UMD that turned out to all be form letters or application inquiries. Moderate heart attacks all around.

 

Ooof, that's terrifying. My inbox has been silent as a tomb the last few days, and I am simultaneously grateful and full of jitters.

 

I do find that one thing that calms me down is imagining how hard professors have to work to go through all our applications and decide who to accept. I know that at Berkeley we get nearly 400 applications, and our incoming graduate cohort is about 14... since most of my favorite professors currently sit on the applications committee, or have in the past, I think of how kind and careful they are, and of how challenging it must be to read through so many applications, knowing our hopes and dreams are on the line. I figure they need the whole month to make good choices, even if the process drives me batty.

 

Of course, I don't know how accurate this fantasy is! But it gets me out of my own selfish headspace, and lets me sleep at night. I like to imagine they're on our side, even if it doesn't always feel like it...