[分享]美国一个graduate admission director 告诉你录取过程

suedeyUID：2308049

As a director of a graduate program (and as an empathetic human being), I should post this information.

If some posters have received acceptances to a program to which youhave applied, and you have not yet heard from that program, please donot assume that means you have not been accepted, or have not been funded.

We rank candidates, and notify our top candidatesfirst, extending offers of fellowships and assistantships. We must waituntil they accept or decline to know whether we can move to thenext-ranked candidates, and extend offers to them.   Forexample, my program has notified our top two candidates, but we arestill in the midst of ranking the rest. No one except those two havereceived either offers or awards.

For those of you who receive emails from a department reporting thatyou've "been recommended for admission," please be assured that thismeans you've been admitted to your program, providing the GraduateSchool confirms the accuracy of all items on your application.

Departments, not the Graduate School, determine admissions. You willreceive the actual paperwork from the Graduate School in a bit. Administrivia takes some time.

It seems incredibly unlikely to me that any program would extend anoffer to a candidate during a visit/interview. If candidates are beinginterviewed, that would mean to me that all applications are stillbeing considered and all candidates are still in the midst of beingranked.

We have X amount of funded lines each year. The committee meets, andranks candidates. This takes a couple of meetings. Sometimes, thedepartment agrees on the very top candidates early. As the director ofthe grad program, I push for early consensus on a couple of candidates,because then I can notify these top candidates with offers andincentives. They have, like everyone else, until April 15 toaccept/decline, although in my experience, none of my candidates haveEVER waited until that late to decide.

I hope to encouragethem to accept/decline much earlier. That way, I can move down ourranked list and extend offers. I also know that one program in my fielddoes not notify until the first week of April. So if a candidate tellsme s/he is waiting to hear from University of Late Notifications, Iknow I'm going to have to wait on that candidate. *Sigh of resignation.*

At the next committee meeting, I am going to push my faculty to get allrankings completed. I also want them to identify all of the declinedcandidates. That will enable me to send that list to the GraduateSchool immediately, so they can send out those letters. And, moreimportantly to me, I can notify the accepted candidates of admission. Iwill not be able to give them any information about offers/awards,however, until I hear from my top candidates. I find this distressing,since I want to convey enthusiasm for each accepted candidate, but myenthusiasm sometimes is not "heard" unless it is immediately backed upby an award.

But I must wait for our top choices to make theirdecisions. I COMMUNICATE with them in the interim, and I expect (andreceive) honesty from them. Often, they tell me they are waiting forUniversity of YZ, and that's fair enough. I know when University of YZnotifies. When they finally hear from U of YZ, the candidate contactsme, and I can move down the list, if necessary, and call to extendoffers to the next-ranked candidate.

My department'sapplicant pool is deep enough (and our program is strong enough) sothat we always have a couple of accepted students who commit to attendwithout support. I sometimes have the pleasure of calling one of thesestudents a few days before April 15 with an offer of support. I lovethose calls.

I do hope this helps to demystify the process a bit.

Best wishes to all of you.


祝大家都有好心情, 还在等offer的不要急, 就快来了!

[ 本帖最后由 suedey 于 2007-3-3 01:47 编辑 ]

hustzwjUID：203387

thanks for sharing ^_^

raoUID：2223600

xiexie,gongxi lz

gao_mingchenUID：200233

thanks

kenna_chuUID：2134466

ding

Mr.CommandoUID：2151775

多谢了！

suedeyUID：2308049

i just added more stuff, all in english, but i guess it's a good practice for your language

karen_lbyUID：2129800

Thank you!!

fzUID：2116906

thanks

3pUID：2241222

很不错的帖子，收藏了

dao2006UID：2271854

这么说只有拿到AD后才有可能变OFFER了？

zoelee_1106UID：2167522

对于在焦急中等待消息的xdjm来说，这篇帖子真是太及时了！
谢谢lz的分享！

levender22UID：2134283

Thanks for sharing!^_^

yanheUID：2135513

thanks for sharing

Bigmouse0128UID：2296383

Ding!