12: PhD Admissions Timeline

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Hi everyone. Today I'm going to be publishing this episode a little later than usual, just because we're in the middle of the holiday break. I was debating whether or not to maybe take a pause from recording a few episodes. But then I figured you know what? I have a lot of content, a lot that I have to say. These episodes are fairly short, so I might as well just put something out there today and hopefully, you can listen to it when you have a chance. What I was thinking about talking about today is the general admissions processing timeline, and specifically what a typical PhD admissions timeline looks like. If you just applied to graduate school this fall quarter or fall term, then odds are you may be wrapping up your applications. Maybe the last set of applications are due early January. If you're applying to master's programs, I know you still have deadlines. Those usually don't end until February, March. And some more applied programs have rolling deadlines that go on very late: June, July, August. But I'm going to assume for the purpose of my conversation right now that you applied to PhD programs, and that the bulk of your deadlines were December 1st and December 15th. At this point, you're done applying and you're wondering, okay, when am I gonna start to hear back from programs? And how do I hear back? What happens next?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So, December 1st, December 15th, are really common deadlines. Then from there, you do have some end of December, early January deadlines, which irritate me, because that's not a good time to apply. I mean, you're trying to spend time with family. A lot of departments are closed during the holidays. How are you supposed to submit things if you need to order transcripts and GRE scores? Good luck getting a hold of people around this time. But anyway, going back to the point of the admissions timeline, some students may hear as early as now, as early as maybe even a few weeks after you apply, like two weeks after you apply, you may hear back from programs. But that's not common, so don't freak out if you haven't heard anything. That tends to be- so students in the history of my ten year history working with students who have been applying to graduate school, I've noticed that it's not very common to hear as early as now. But every once in a while it does. When it does, it tends to be in STEM fields. Right now, actually, for this application cycle, I'm working with students- how many? I think I have sixteen, close to sixteen students applying to graduate school. Among them, two STEM students have heard back and they've been invited to interviews or an open house. One student actually did get an acceptance letter. Very, very rare. Oh my gosh, I don't want to freak you out. This is so so rare. Then we had another - so two STEM students heard back. Among them, one of them got an open house invitation, another one got an interview. Then we also had a social science student get invited to an interview. That's three students among the sixteen who have heard back. Again, this is very early. In the past couple of years, the earliest that students had heard back was in January, unless they applied early. I've had a student who was invited to apply early, applied in November and heard back by December. But let's say you haven't heard back, and you're on a more traditional timeline. The more traditional timeline indicates that folks are on winter break right now. They're not reviewing applications. They probably aren't going to touch them until January. Then they got to get a hold of a committee and figure out which students they want to take on, how many spots they have available. All of this takes time. So typically, students don't hear until February, and not just anytime in February. It tends to be mid to late February. Some people will hear as late as early to mid March.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

By mid March, if you haven't heard anything, then if I were you I would contact the departments to ask for an update. That is a perfectly good time to ask, because we do have a deadline that is very common for most graduate programs. The common deadline for graduate programs for you to submit your Statement of Intent to Register is April 15th. That's why I say, if you haven't heard by mid March, you should be contacting them, because you're going to need some time to make a decision. They're going to need to send you your award letter. You're going to need to review that. A lot of programs, especially PhD programs, invite you in for interviews. And again, that takes time. It takes time to plan out your trip, book tickets, go stay there for a few days, come back. So that's the first thing that you need to know, is that at this point, you may start to hear back in January. But more often than not, the most common thing is you should expect to hear back in mid to late February. Then from there, you may get invited to an open house. You may be invited to an on campus interview, or some programs will not admit you, they'll just invite you in to come check out the campus, and they will interview right then and there. Other programs will send you an acceptance letter without a funding package and ask you to come visit, attend an open house. Then they'll send you the funding package later. Some programs will just send you the acceptance letter and the offer letter, and may or may not even have you come to an open house. But open houses or campus visits are very common. That is something to expect and to plan for and to budget for. Because some programs will pay for everything, other programs will only pay for your flight. Some programs will only pay for part of your flight. We've even had cases where they've invited students to an open house and not paid for anything. If you're applying to out of state schools, that can add up. So just keep that in mind and that's also something to let them know. If they're inviting you to an open house, that's something that you reasonably can ask them is: well, will my travel expenses be covered? Will lodging and airfare be covered? What about meals, etc. ?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Okay, so January, February, March, they're doing their admissions processing, notifications will continue. April 15th is when you are expected to respond to them and to submit your Statement of Intent to Register for their financial support offers. One thing I want to say is, if you hear back from a program and let's say that you have a top school. That's your number one. If you get in here, you're not going anywhere else and you've applied to a dozen schools. You hear from your top school, they say yes, you know you're going there. Then you get other yeses from other programs. Don't keep people waiting. If you know where you're going to go, definitely say no to the other programs, because most programs also have waitlists. Some students are wait listed at their top schools, and they're waiting until someone says yes or no in order for them to get a spot. So don't wait too long. But also don't say yes right away. Why don't you want to say yes right away? Because you want to make sure you review your financial package before you say yes, before you submit your your Statement of Intent to Register, before you SIR. Don't say yes right away. Review your funding package, negotiate if you can, if you have more than one- yes, more than one funding package. You want to get as much as you can in terms of financial support. It's completely okay, and expected to do that. So keep that in mind. You know, take some time to review. Don't take too much time. Don't wait until the very last day April 15th to let them know yes or no. All right. So then, by May 1st- this is the final application deadline for other departments. Usually in May you're starting to get your student account and email, your online registration instructions for new students. In June, you'll get a final admissions decision. They'll ask for anything else that they may need to ensure that everything is okay. They'll maybe ask for your final transcripts. If you sent them transcripts only up until the fall quarter, they might want to see your winter and spring grades. Or if it's fall term for you and you're in semester system, they might want to see your spring grades. So keep that in mind.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

What does that mean for you? I'm trying to think of what else is important when it comes down to your timeline. February hearing back, April you're letting them know your decision. From then, you're trying to make plans about where you're most likely going to have to move. Most people don't go to graduate school where they went to their undergrad institution. You may want to ask about relocation expenses, if those things get covered. And yeah, wrap up if you're still a student. Wrap up your term, wrap up your semester, graduate. Make sure your grades are okay. Don't let senioritis get to you. Then I also recommend, June, July, August, before you start your next term, before you start grad school, try to get a summer job and save up as much as possible because moving does cost money. Even if you're moving from one city to another and it's relatively close by, maybe an hour or two, it still costs money to move. So just keep that in mind. Save up for moving. And contact other grad students who are in that program to get to know them and build community.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I think that's everything you need to know in terms of the admissions timeline. I will share more about how to prepare for a campus visit. I will also share more about what a mock interview looks like when I conduct mock interviews. What types of questions to expect if you have a grad school interview. But that's for another day. That is to come. In the next couple of episodes, I'll cover those topics. All right, thank you so much for listening and for bearing with me during the holidays. I know these past couple of episodes, I've been a little bit out of it. But I'm definitely looking forward to the new year, to bringing you some really great episodes and new content and more thorough content too. All right, happy New Year.