When would you follow up?

[trey333]

I completed my app to the real estate development masters program at Texas A&M in October.

Deadline was 12/1; I confirmed that they had received everything and they told me that they would be making decisions "right after the holidays"...

Everyday it feels a little more like right after the holidays to me:/

When would you check in? End of the month? Mid February? 

[Espeon]

I would look in the results survey and see if you can find last year's notification dates. That has somewhat helped to calm my nerves! 

Edited January 12, 2017 by Espeon

[fuzzylogician]

I would suggest looking at the school's academic calendar to see when they officially returned from the break. At my school, for example, this will have only been the middle of last week. With that in mind, they will certainly need at least a few days to go over all the applications and make a decision, probably more than that. Assuming maybe a two-week period at a minimum for them to make decisions and get them approved by the powers that be, you might at that point begin to expect to see some results. (You might also check the results survey to see if there are entries for previous years that might give you some indication of their timeline). This would mean that it's probably a bit early to expect results just yet. I'd probably give it at least another week or two, then email to ask about the timeline and when you might expect a result, if you can't just keep waiting. That said, unless you have some other offer that is time-sensitive, I don't think you'll get much out of emailing. I assume that no one will give you a precise date but instead you'll get a vague statement like the one you had before, and I'm not sure that will help your anxiety. 

[Quickmick]

@trey333 I, too have an app out with TAMU in a different department. If you have logged in to AIS recently the banner at the top says "we are receiving thousands of documents daily, please all 14 days to process." 14 days just to process the inbound correspondence. My potential advisor let me know they try to get results out early Feb, and this is for a program that usually only has to wade through 30 applications.I thought the timeline might go something like 12/1 apps due, the office of the graduate school organizes them and has them ready to hand out before the break (but they stay in the bin). Winter break, nothing happens. People trickle back in last week, the apps go out to departments where they get a couple/few weeks with them then they go back to graduate studies w/a recc.That is all waded through and decisions go out. Feb seems very reasonable in ths light, and I won't be contacting anyone unless I haven't heard anything by late March--but that is just me.

[cjbennett94]

An interesting perspective on TAMU:

 

I got a call from a POI mid January. We talked about my experiences, GPA and GRE (both very good) and research interests. We talked for over a half hour and had a very positive talk. He was going to recommend me for admission w/ funding, and told me to expect a call from the dept. head within the week.

That was 3 months ago. I never heard from him again, and received not so much as an email from the dept. head. I ended up getting a great offer from a different school, so I'm not to down about it, but it was just plain weird how I got radio silence after hearing how excited and positive he was.

On that note, I'm a Texas resident, but all my offerers are from out of state schools. Outside of TAMU, I haven't even got a blip from UT, U of H, Rice, etc. With the situation at the state capitol, I almost wonder if schools are gun-shy about taking on a lot of students. I've seen some on the results forum but less than previous year