Update on the Release of Early Decision Notifications

Knowing that all the Early Decision applicants are quite anxious right now, I thought I would step away from Committee work and provide an update on how the ED review process is proceeding. In addition, I have some updated information about how the release of Early Decision notifications will work this year.

So this past weekend I spent finishing up first reads on the ED applications from my region (ME, NH, RI, VT, and MA). It was a lovely weekend in Baltimore as we had our first snowfall of the winter season on Saturday and by Sunday afternoon all the snow was gone. I also got to relax a bit, which was necessary knowing that the coming week was going to be quite hectic. My dog Soze also got to rest a lot as these pictures detail -- he is finally beginning to enjoy the new chair I bought for him when we moved to our new apartment at the end of the summer.

I arrived in the office on Monday morning ready for a busy week of Committee work. By late morning the counseling staff was in our conference room with Dean of Admissions John Latting discussing how the applicant pool looked overall and what our process would be for Committee. Updating the numbers I released in a previous blog post, our official ED applicant pool for 2009-10 is 1,155 applicants, up just about 10% from last year. Following the discussion, we split into our Committee teams and got to work. And over this past week, my colleagues and I have evaluated and re-evaluated, discussed and discussed more, debated and argued, and as the weekend approaches the final touches are being placed on the ED JHU Class of 2014. We will have a bit of work to do early next week, but as we had expected decisions will be released on Tuesday.

And here is how everything will work on Tuesday:
(Make sure to review this thoroughly as there have been some changes from previous years.)

* ED notifications will be released on Tuesday, December 15, 2009.

* Admit packets and decision letters (defer and deny) will be dropped off at the Baltimore Post Office by late morning and enter the postal system later that afternoon. Admit packets are sent priority mail so they typically arrive within three days.  Our decision letters are mailed first-class and can take 4-7 days to arrive. Please note international addresses will always take longer for both types of mail.

* Starting at 7:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, December 15, we will begin sending Early Decision notification e-mails.It can take up to an hour for all of our decision e-mails to be sent so don't expect a new message in your in-box right at 7:00 p.m. Have patience. E-mail notifications are released in random order so there is no way to deduce the order that decisions will be released. Decision e-mails are sent only to those who included an active e-mail address with their application. (If an applicant does not receive an e-mail it is because either there was no e-mail provided with the application, the e-mail address provided no longer works, or a data entry error. Unfortunately, we do not re-send e-mails, so in such situations the student must wait for the mail to arrive.) We do not have a system of posting our decisions online or through a portal.

* We prefer not to release decisions over the phone. If applicants have not received their admissions decision by Thursday, December 17 then they may call the Office of Undergraduate Admissions (410-516-8171). We will only release the decision to the applicant, a parent or guardian of the applicant, or the applicant's high school guidance counselor. Decisions will be released only if the identity of the caller can be reasonably assured. Please do not call asking why a certain decision was rendered as Admissions Committee decisions are confidential and we are unable to discuss the factors behind our decisions.

* For applicants who applied to the biomedical engineering (BME) program, we have made a change this year. In previous years, since decisions about acceptance into the BME are departmental decisions we would not release such information through e-mail or over the phone, and applicants would have to wait for their admit packet to arrive. This year we will be sending BME decisions via e-mail. BME decision e-mails will come as a second e-mailto all admitted students who selected BME as their first-choice major. Those notifications will also be sent on Tuesday following the release of all other decisions. Further details about your BME decision will be included in the admit packet.

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As I have been writing about our decision releases for a number of years now, I can always anticipate some of the most frequently asked questions:

Why are e-mails sent at 7:00 p.m. EST? Haven't they been sent at 6:00 p.m. in previous years?
The reason we wait to release decision notification e-mails until the evening is we feel that receiving your college admissions decision should be a personal experience that you share with yourself and your family. We do not believe students should be receiving this news in the middle of the school day. So we will wait until the majority of our applicants are out of school (4:00 p.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. EST) to send our e-mail notifications. (Yes we understand that this system does not work neatly for international applicants.) We are waiting an additional hour this year to allow the staff who are involved in the release of e-mail decisions to make it home and prepare for the release process.

What happens if I do not receive an e-mail decision on Tuesday?
If an applicant does not receive an e-mail there a couple of things he or she can do: 1. Check your SPAM folders. 2. Check ANY and all e-mail accounts you have ever used during the college search process. We send the e-mail to the account you listed on your application. However, our database system does track all e-mail accounts that have ever been matched to your record, so on occasion the notification e-mail may be sent to old e-mail address. (So check e-mail addressess that you may have used when registering for the SAT/ACT for example.) 3. Have your parents check their e-mail accounts too. Not sure how that happens, but it has happened in the past. If none of those methods work, then unfortunately the student will need to wait to receive the decision in the mail, or can call on Thursday.

Every year some e-mail notifications just don't work. There are a number reasons for an applicant not receiving an e-mail notification including: no e-mail was provided on the student's application, the e-mail provided on the application is no longer active, there was a SPAM filter blocking the message, or some error occurred that caused a bounce-back. WE ARE UNABLE TO RE-SEND E-MAILS. Once again, in such situations the applicant must wait. We understand how frustrating that can be, but unfortunately mistakes can happen when processing over thousands of applications.

I was deferred. What does that mean?
Stay tuned. I will post information for deferred applicants a couple of days after the release of decisions.

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I hope you all find this information helpful. Back to Committee for me. Check back on Tuesday for my annual ED Notification Day blogging. I'll leave you with two things that make me happy - my niece and nephew & Glee:

 

Comments

[Ali]

Thanks for the update.

[Adam Zeldin]

The change in time is very considerate to people on the west coast who are often times just beginning to head back from school at 3 (6 EST).

I had friends who had other emails from other east coast schools received in the middle of class. It would often require that they to sneak to a computer to access their email.

Fortunately, I was at home 2 years ago when I received mine.

Good luck with the decisions.

[Jessica Yang]

Thank you for the update!!! I love the building covered in snow so it is now my desktop background =)

[Noah Guiberson]

"By late morning the counseling staff was in our conference room with Dean of Admissions John Latting discussing how the applicant pool looked overall and what our process would be for Committee."

If I may ask, how did the applicant pool look overall?

[Jesus]

Thank you for update

[Eric Wan]

This is exciting news! Can't wait :)

[Daniel Benarroch]

I was so nervous, checking my e-mail every 30min! And i live in Spain!
I can't wait for tonight, even if it's late here, I will wait!
Thank you for the update!

[Eric Wan]

I feel like I need to credit you for getting me addicted to Glee. AUGH XD