Why do schools not always send acceptances and rejection letters at the same time?

[noumenope]

Is there some administrative reason, or is there an element of hedging (as in, if not many of the first batch they make offers to accept them after a couple weeks, they may accept a few more - almost like an informal wait list)? Just curious.

[rising_star]

It's to torture and stress out applicants. Just kidding . Honestly, it's due to hedging in many cases. It's also the case that, at most US universities, budgets for the upcoming year are still being planned right now, which means that departments may not know how much funding they'll have available for TA positions. In addition, professors may be awaiting decisions on grants, which affects their ability to employ RAs (which in turns affects the number of available TA positions). A lot of things are still in flux from Jan to March.

[noumenope]

Okay thanks, I had a feeling it was something like that. I still haven't heard from UCLA or Chicago even though others have heard back up to 3 weeks ago. I guess no news is good news at this point? Luckily I have a couple other quite solid options now, in case my "reach schools" don't come through.