When Will I Hear Back?

[jwurth]

I was just curious when people are expecting to hear back from schools? I know one of my programs does interviews mid February but I have a feeling most programs won't be getting back to me until March or April.  

[lisa19]

When I applied last year, I heard back from all my programs in March. April 15th is when most schools want you to make a deposit, so they're going to have to give you a little bit of time to decide beforehand. You can also search on the results page when people heard back last year from your specific programs.

[timberlake]

Sometime in March for most. Valdosta and Jacksonville have application deadlines on March 1st, so I wont hear back until May.

[jpiccolo]

I heard from BYU, Iowa, and Purdue last year in late February (Purdue was a waitlist, the others rejection). The other two were late March. I'm anticipating March for most this year but you never know. I've read a couple places that schools will send a first round of acceptances in early March and then it depends on how many choose not to accept the offer before they send out another round.

 

I'm already getting nervous that after all this work I'm only going to see rejections again...the next two months I'm gonna hate looking at my email!

[bindlestiff]

@timberlake That's rough! If you get accepted to the March schools what will you do? I would hate to have to choose a program without knowing whether or not I got into each of them.

[MangoSmoothie]

You should go ahead and check the results page. It gives you a pretty good idea of when people who applied to your schools in past years started hearing back.

 

http://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/

 

A few of the ones I applied to historically notify in late Feb, but most of them notified by some time in March. It also seemed like most of mine notified by email, but a few were by postal mail.

 

I just finished submitting all my applications, but it felt pretty anticlimactic. I don't think I will really feel done with this process until I get my first result.

[bindlestiff]

@MangoSmoothie Yeah same here, except I'm not sure I'll feel done even then. I bet I won't feel it until I've heard from everywhere and either made a decision or moved on to plan B. And in either case, I'll have a lot to start obsessing over. It never ends!

[MangoSmoothie]

bindlestiff, Exactly! I think I'll feel "done" when I get (if I get) my first acceptance, because then I know I will be going somewhere. I dream of having to have the hard task of deciding between two or three programs that accepted me. lol Even one acceptance and I'll be happy, even if it's off of a wait-list in June.

[SLPosteriorCricoarytenoid]

All of the six programs I'm applying to historically send out decisions the second week of March. March is going to be one stressful month. I agree with the person above. If I can just get one acceptance (preferably right away so I can stop with the stress), I will be happy. Grad Cafe doesn't help with the stress either haha. 

 

I think the best thing to do if you get an acceptance is to definitely wait until you hear back from your other programs (Latest April 15). You wouldn't want to jump the gun and accept an offer at one place only to have another program accept you and find out that the latter would offer more funding or experiences than the first. I've heard of people backing out of programs they accepted offers at and it can cause all kinds of problems, even for the grad programs. The school I'm at for post bac this year had empty slots in the master's program last year because people backed out too late so they couldn't fill them. There's people who would give an arm and a leg for those spots so that wasn't a good deal.

[sayjo]

Last year, I heard back from University of Illinois in early/mid February, which surprised me because I wasn't expecting to hear back so soon.  Purdue notified me about a week later.  I'm pretty sure I heard back from the rest of my schools sometime in March.