When does the notification cycle begin?

[coyabean]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I've got some nerve. But, I like to borrow worry and trouble.

So, when should we expect notifications to start coming back? I had someone from IRT say that every year it gets earlier and last year she had some coming in by the end of December! My earliest preferred app deadline is November 1 so I cannot imagine they would make me wait until March or April...right? RIGHT?!

[fuzzylogician]

Well some people hear early but usually most decisions are made in late January-early march (very roughly!). It seems a common way this process works is that first the strongest candidates are identified and get offered admission, and at the same(?) time the weakest candidates are identified and weeded out of the selection process. This then iterates a second/third/fourth time, etc. where in each cycle the applicant pool gets smaller, and there are fewer available slots. So, strong and weak applicants may hear very early, but the closer you are to the cutoff point the longer you have to wait. Some schools will have unofficial waitlists and will not notify people on them of their status until they get acceptance/rejection notifications from the stronger applicants they admitted in earlier cycles. To complicate matters, this year some schools delayed decisions even further because of difficulties estimating their budget. I assume this year could be just as bad in some places. I found that the best way to anticipate when decisions would be made by my schools was to find out when decisions were made in previous years. First of all it gave me a ballpark estimate, and it also turned out to be quite accurate. Check out the results page on thegradcafe - you should get a pretty good idea of what you're up against..

[coyabean]

Wonderful advice! Thank you. And that process of weeding out the masses makes sense...I mean if I weren't the one waiting for a response, of course.

[rising_star]

coyabean, I recommend looking through the survey results to see when programs notified last year. As for a range, I heard back by Jan 20 from a school with a Jan 1 deadline, and as late as the last week of March from a program with a Jan 15 deadline. So yea, definitely a range.

(And don't take this part the wrong way but I wouldn't be surprised if in your case you heard earlier, rather than later. Mostly because the program has to admit you if they want to nominate you for University-wide awards [like diversity fellowships], whose decisions are usually made in mid-March or so.)

[coyabean]

coyabean, I recommend looking through the survey results to see when programs notified last year. As for a range, I heard back by Jan 20 from a school with a Jan 1 deadline, and as late as the last week of March from a program with a Jan 15 deadline. So yea, definitely a range.

(And don't take this part the wrong way but I wouldn't be surprised if in your case you heard earlier, rather than later. Mostly because the program has to admit you if they want to nominate you for University-wide awards [like diversity fellowships], whose decisions are usually made in mid-March or so.)

LOL you're so sweet. So not taking that any way but helpful. where are these survey results? I have looked but don't see it.

[rising_star]

LOL you're so sweet. So not taking that any way but helpful. where are these survey results? I have looked but don't see it.

http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php