Rejection email?

[studentaffairs1234]

Hi! This is my first time ever applying to grad school (masters) and I was wondering if it is a thing for grad schools to not let you know if you didn't get in? Like, if I was rejected will they just leave me hanging or do most schools send out an email letting you know?

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

Typically schools will send a rejection email rather than leave you hanging. 

[fuzzylogician]

24 minutes ago, studentaffairs1234 said:

Like, if I was rejected will they just leave me hanging or do most schools send out an email letting you know?

Depends. Schools do not send rejections at all more often than they should, and they may send them fairly late, if they do. At this point, though, it's very early and I wouldn't expect too much. 

[TakeruK]

Here are the types of rejection notifications I've received:

1. Generic email automatically generated by the application software telling me that a decision has been made and I should log onto the portal. When I get there, it says my application was not accepted/rejected. No personal contact at all.

2. An email directly from the chair of the admissions committee of the department I was applying to. They are generally generic and say something like, "your application was very interesting/good/whatever" and that "we had a great number [sometimes including the number] of qualified applicants but we can only accept a few [sometimes includes this number too]" and then something about wishing me best of luck. Sometimes they are a little more personalized. Usually the email is at least addressed to me (probably procedurally generated) but not always. Sometimes a person I was directly in contact with during the application process also emailed me (after the official notice) to "debrief".

3. A snail-mail letter on fancy paper with the official letterhead from the Graduate Program informing me that I was not successful. 

In some cases, you get more than one rejection (yay!). I think the one school that sent #3 also did #1. I also know some people who hear nothing (I heard something for every grad school app but many postdoc jobs never responded). Or they might get an automatically generated rejection in July/August when the system officially closes out the previous year. 

[samman1994]

If I may just piggyback off this topic, when is the deadline then for schools to send you a rejection letter? Or better yet, if they don't even send them sometimes at all, when is the deadline for an acceptance letter? How long should one wait to hear back from a school if they haven't received any of the above methods of rejection?

[Eigen]

The start of the school year you applied for?

Generally, rejections fall into two categories: early rejections that mean they wouldn't consider you as a candidate, and late rejections that mean you weren't competitive with the rest- but they would consider you if space opens up. 

The latter category can go on to the start of school in the fall. Some in this latter category just push the task off until summer when there's more time.

There are also schools from which you will hear nothing ever, just like jobs. 

[TakeruK]

1 hour ago, samman1994 said:

If I may just piggyback off this topic, when is the deadline then for schools to send you a rejection letter? Or better yet, if they don't even send them sometimes at all, when is the deadline for an acceptance letter? How long should one wait to hear back from a school if they haven't received any of the above methods of rejection?

If you need to know your status in order to make another decision, then you can and should ask about it. Let's say you have an offer from your 2nd choice school but haven't heard anything from your first choice. Most schools will require you to make a decision by April 15, so if the deadline is nearing and you haven't heard from the top choice, you might want to inquire before committing to the other school. In addition, if you suspect that the first choice schools have already made decisions and you already know you will take your 2nd choice school if you don't get into the first choice, and it's later in the season (subjective, but probably like after...March 15?) then you can probably ask at this time since there's no point waiting until April 15 to accept the other offer.

In many cases, schools already made rejection decisions but don't always send them out until much later. Sometimes it's in case they need to change their mind but also usually because they spend their time doing all the work of arranging the visits for accepted students, etc first and de-prioritize rejection notification. So if you need to confirm a rejection, asking about your status could do that and allow you to move on with your process.

In the GradCafe's results survey, you might see these pop up ("asked and received rejection"). It's not that the process of asking resulted in an instant rejection, but that they just didn't release the decisions yet. 

[LolJustAdmitMe]

Depends on the school. Some have already let me know and some haven’t sent an email at all, despite me seeing that ppl have already gotten invites. Last round of apps, I didn’t hear back from Hawaii, Wisconsin and another school I can’t recall until March/April. That could be because that’s when they got around to sending out their rejections or I could’ve been unknowingly waitlisted but from my perspective and the amount of folks who posted the same rejections from programs at the same time, I’ll say it depends on the school and when tthey care to show their cards.

I automatically tell myself it’s a ‘no’ if I see people getting invites to avoid getting excited over possibly being waitlisted. So once you see others getting invites, just count yourself out and be pleasantly surprised if you receive a waitlisted notification! Lol

Edited December 26, 2017 by LolJustAdmitMe