How long after the first round of offers should you wait before contacting a department?

[Catria]

Suppose that a given department has sent out a first round of offers in, say, late January, but one has not been admitted in that first round. No waitlist, no rejection at that point.

 

How long after the first round of offers should you wait before contacting a department to inquire about the status of your application then?

[grad_wannabe]

I think it's okay at this point to contact the administrative office, but not to bother your POI.

[AnomalousApplicant]

I would agree with the poster above me. I have contacted a couple of POI's, but for the most part, I think it is best to contact the department to be on the safe side.

[TakeruK]

My department does this. I know another applicant that asked about this 2 weeks later in the past and found out they were rejected. I think it's about March when they officially tell everyone else the status (after the visit weekend). As far as I know, my program only does one round of acceptances and takes whoever chooses to come. There may be a waitlist, but there are years where we get zero or only one new student because everyone declines. No big deal because it all averages out. 

 

But perhaps this school you're thinking of does have more than one round. If so, I would keep waiting. I would never ask them to clarify unless you need the information to coordinate a visit or something (or to make another decision). However, in my application year, in all cases where this happened to me, I got rejected. But, none of those schools are the schools in your signature so maybe that doesn't mean anything to you.

[Catria]

My department does this. I know another applicant that asked about this 2 weeks later in the past and found out they were rejected. I think it's about March when they officially tell everyone else the status (after the visit weekend). As far as I know, my program only does one round of acceptances and takes whoever chooses to come. There may be a waitlist, but there are years where we get zero or only one new student because everyone declines. No big deal because it all averages out. 

 

But perhaps this school you're thinking of does have more than one round. If so, I would keep waiting. I would never ask them to clarify unless you need the information to coordinate a visit or something (or to make another decision). However, in my application year, in all cases where this happened to me, I got rejected. But, none of those schools are the schools in your signature so maybe that doesn't mean anything to you.

 

Do WUSTL's physics department have more than one round? And how spread out can a round be?

 

I emailed the administrative office, suspecting that the first round may not be over in just 3 days...