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GRADUATE SCHOOL:
The Whole Acceptance/Rejection Process

The schools in general have a process that goes something like this:
They get a whole lot of applications, and then figure out who their very top choices are. These people are probably they group that they'll be offering fellowships to. After that, they'll pick a second round of people to admit. What happens after that differs from school to school. Some schools will decide right there to reject people who didn't get in from the first two rounds. Others will wait for a time, sometimes to see if they get any early rejections (with those resources not taken by one student, they may be able to offer them to another) or to see if one of the candidates gets an outside fellowship (like an NSF) and then possibly offer admission to others later. In my experience, if you've been rejected from a school there's not much of a point in contacting that school to see if they can let you in anyway after you've won a fellowship, but they may tell you why you weren't admitted, and if it was close they may encourage you to reapply if you are interested.

So that's the general process. Please note that there can be major variations in this (one school payed for me to come down and only after I'd been there admitted me). Schools will start accepting you in early February, and most acceptances (except for those that are waiting on fellowships and such) will be out by the middle of March. If you know someone who got an acceptance letter (or email, or phone call) and you haven't heard from the same program yet, do not assume that you have been rejected from it; what this probably means is that you have been moved to the second group of applicants, and they'll pass judgment on you later. At the same time, I'm certainly not saying that you're going to get in, just keep in mind that you haven't definitely been rejected yet. Also, some schools do mail out acceptances in very small envelopes. So always at least open your mail before discarding it (or throwing darts at it).

 

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