graduate admission director

[Interview with Dean Joss, Stanford Graduate School of Busine]Editors Note: Xing Talk is a new column runs regularly by Xing Zong, a Chinese graduate student at Duke University pursuing a Ph.D. degree in physics. As a rock...+阅读

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

If some posters he received acceptances to a program to which youhe applied, and you he not yet heard from that program, please donot assume that means you he not been accepted, or he 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 hereceived either offers or awards.

For those of you who receive emails from a department reporting thatyou've been remended 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 he X amount of funded lines each year. The mittee 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 he, like everyone else, until April 15 toaccept/decline, although in my experience, no

ne of my candidates heEVER 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 he to wait on that candidate. *Sigh of resignation.*

At the next mittee meeting, I am going to push my faculty to get allrankings pleted. 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 MUNICATE 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 he a couple of accepted students who mit to attendwithout support. I sometimes he 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.