Accepted upon inquiry?

[baconface]

I seriously only just thought of this (and couldn't find it posted anywhere):

Has anyone ever (first person or through secondhand) heard of anyone getting an acceptance via application status inquiry? There's, of course: the standard no-reply, some kind of rejection, and wait-listed. I've just never heard "good" news come from inquiry and curious to hear if anyone else has.

[TakeruK]

I feel like it's harder to get good news via inquiry because usually the lag time between the committee making a decision and notification of acceptances is very short compared to notification of rejection. In addition, from gradcafe histories, it seems like acceptances tend to come out before rejections (for most schools), meaning they don't hesitate to email/call accepted students but seem to wait a while longer before notifying rejections.

It would make sense for them to do it this way since there is a bit of work and logistics for accepted students -- notifying, giving details on finances and visits, setting up the visit, forwarding the application to the Graduate School if necessary etc.

I also think even if there were say 10 spots, and from a first meeting, the committee already decided on the top 5 spots and were going to meet one more time to debate the last 5 spots, if you were one of the top 5, they still wouldn't let you know the good news upon inquiry, because it's really hard to "take back" an acceptance. I would guess that they would wait until they finalized their first/next wave before notifications. And it may also again be easier logistically to process all accepted students at once.

So I think that's why it seems like you can only ever get bad news upon inquiry. But this means that the inquiry process itself isn't "getting you rejected", the inquiry just sped up the same result. (I guess an inquiry could cause an immediate rejection if you worded it really poorly or something!)

[bfollinprm]

I called UT Austin around the first of April last year; they said they were likely to admit me but couldn't guarantee funding yet so couldn't write the offer (I think a professor was debating whether to give me an RA, but they were out of TA's). Since I wasn't going to go there without visiting anyway (since by this point I had already visited UCD and liked what I saw), I just withdrew my application at that point (after raising a stink for making me wait so long, and trying to get my money back).

So sort of a positive result of an inquiry, but definitely not a textbook case. In most cases, the phone call in to check your status is just for your own sanity--at some point, knowing you're rejected is good because it frees you to be excited for the places you did get accepted into.

[Andromeda]

I had one friend who wrote and it turned out he was accepted but hadn't gotten the email as it had gone straight to his spam folder- apparently his undergrad university email system sucked. But yes, unless it's a circumstance like that I've never heard of someone getting a straight-up acceptance, but it's proof that it never hurts to ask I guess!

[admissionprof]

I once got a call from a student that we'd accepted about an hour after the committee meeting and about an hour before we were to send out emails/make calls. So I told them. But it is very rare.