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offers

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:42 pm
by orion43
I have a deadline for accepting one of the offers I have. I am wondering if it affects the decisions if I email them and ask them for my application status from other places I applied to which I have not heard of. If its polite, what info would I include in the email to sound polite?

Re: offers

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:45 pm
by PhysicsIsCool
That's odd. I was under the impression that April 15 was the typical decision date. What school is earlier?

Re: offers

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 8:07 am
by orion43
Its a Canadian school

Re: offers

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 9:06 am
by astroprof
Many Canadian schools also follow the US Council of Graduate Schools policy of an April 15 deadline for responses regarding TA, RA, and fellowship positions. You may want to simply ask if you can have an extension, as you have not yet heard back from all of the schools you have applied to. At the same time, you can certainly write to the other schools to inquire about the status of your application. In your e-mail, you may wish to mention that you currently have an offer from a Canadian institution, and that they are requesting a decision soon (it is important to mention that it is not a US institution, since otherwise you will get the "why isn't it an April 15 deadline?" response, as you did here). However, at this stage in the process, schools have either made a decision, or they have not (it takes time to read all the applications!!!), so it is not clear that you will learn much from your e-mail inquiries right now. By mid-March, though, it is certainly fair game to inquire about your status if you have not heard from a school, as some schools do not notify wait listed applicants automatically.

Re: offers

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 11:24 am
by TakeruK
When you ask the other schools, don't ask them to hurry up their decision. Instead, just ask them when they think they will have a decision so that you can ask your Canadian school for an extension.

Re: offers

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 12:21 pm
by blackmass
astroprof wrote:By mid-March, though, it is certainly fair game to inquire about your status if you have not heard from a school, as some schools do not notify wait listed applicants automatically.
Sorry to jump in here, but that's interesting -- so it's theoretically possible to be on a wait list without knowing, in which case you could potentially hear from a school with an offer after the April 15th deadline? So if one hasn't received a rejection by April 15th, it's possible that they're on a wait list?

Re: offers

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 12:46 pm
by TakeruK
blackmass wrote:
astroprof wrote:By mid-March, though, it is certainly fair game to inquire about your status if you have not heard from a school, as some schools do not notify wait listed applicants automatically.
Sorry to jump in here, but that's interesting -- so it's theoretically possible to be on a wait list without knowing, in which case you could potentially hear from a school with an offer after the April 15th deadline? So if one hasn't received a rejection by April 15th, it's possible that they're on a wait list?
Yes, not all schools will explicitly notify you that you are on a waitlist. Especially since some schools might not have a "ranked waitlist" and the waitlist is just a "did not reject" list. These schools might wait until they hear back from enough first-round admits before having the committee meet again to discuss which candidates in the "did not reject" list / waitlist to make second round offers to, since for balance and other reasons, they might want to see who says yes/no before making more offers.

So, it's not a rejection until you get an actual rejection. However, not hearing anything by mid-March is normally not a great sign and I'd definitely want to contact the school to get more information! If you look on GradCafe though, you might be able to see whether or not the program(s) you are wondering about normally admit people past some date. In my experience, higher ranked astro programs make decisions faster than mid or lower ranked programs. It's pretty rare to see an admit to a high ranked astro program in April, for example.

Re: offers

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 1:06 pm
by blackmass
TakeruK wrote:
Yes, not all schools will explicitly notify you that you are on a waitlist. Especially since some schools might not have a "ranked waitlist" and the waitlist is just a "did not reject" list. These schools might wait until they hear back from enough first-round admits before having the committee meet again to discuss which candidates in the "did not reject" list / waitlist to make second round offers to, since for balance and other reasons, they might want to see who says yes/no before making more offers.

So, it's not a rejection until you get an actual rejection. However, not hearing anything by mid-March is normally not a great sign and I'd definitely want to contact the school to get more information! If you look on GradCafe though, you might be able to see whether or not the program(s) you are wondering about normally admit people past some date. In my experience, higher ranked astro programs make decisions faster than mid or lower ranked programs. It's pretty rare to see an admit to a high ranked astro program in April, for example.
Ok, thanks for the reply. I did notice that last year Harvard made some offers as late as July, which I thought was pretty strange. I imagine by then people are pretty sure about where they're going, so an offer like that must throw a huge stick in everything. I guess it's still early enough that not all hope is lost.

Re: offers

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 1:53 pm
by TakeruK
blackmass wrote:
TakeruK wrote:
Yes, not all schools will explicitly notify you that you are on a waitlist. Especially since some schools might not have a "ranked waitlist" and the waitlist is just a "did not reject" list. These schools might wait until they hear back from enough first-round admits before having the committee meet again to discuss which candidates in the "did not reject" list / waitlist to make second round offers to, since for balance and other reasons, they might want to see who says yes/no before making more offers.

So, it's not a rejection until you get an actual rejection. However, not hearing anything by mid-March is normally not a great sign and I'd definitely want to contact the school to get more information! If you look on GradCafe though, you might be able to see whether or not the program(s) you are wondering about normally admit people past some date. In my experience, higher ranked astro programs make decisions faster than mid or lower ranked programs. It's pretty rare to see an admit to a high ranked astro program in April, for example.
Ok, thanks for the reply. I did notice that last year Harvard made some offers as late as July, which I thought was pretty strange. I imagine by then people are pretty sure about where they're going, so an offer like that must throw a huge stick in everything. I guess it's still early enough that not all hope is lost.
That is strange. I had to look it up for myself :P It looks like that was an offer in Physics (I had only applied to Harvard astro). It could also be a late entry where they forgot to enter the actual date of offer. But it could be one of the rare late offers. A friend of mine got into a top planetary science program really late (after the Fall semester already started so my friend actually had to begin in the Spring!). I don't think anyone should count on this, but it really does show that it is not a rejection until there is a rejection letter!

Re: offers

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 2:01 pm
by blackmass
TakeruK wrote:
That is strange. I had to look it up for myself :P It looks like that was an offer in Physics (I had only applied to Harvard astro). It could also be a late entry where they forgot to enter the actual date of offer. But it could be one of the rare late offers. A friend of mine got into a top planetary science program really late (after the Fall semester already started so my friend actually had to begin in the Spring!). I don't think anyone should count on this, but it really does show that it is not a rejection until there is a rejection letter!
Wow, that's late. But you're right! It's not over until there's a rejection letter. I'll try to keep that in mind to ease my insanity. ;)