Release of ED Notifications Approaches

22

As we begin a new week there are always a lot of questions streaming into our office about how the release of Early Decision notifications will work. I thought it important to step away from our final admissions committee deliberations to share the following with all of our anxious Early Decision applicants:

Early Decision notifications will be released on
Thursday, December 15.

Here is the plan for how everything will operate on Thursday:

* Class is confirmed: In the morning the Admissions staff will arrive at work and wait for Dean Latting to confirm that the Early Decision class is complete. This will be a momentous occasion for all of us in Mason Hall as it will be the last official act of Dean Latting.

* Decisions are checked: Once the class has been confirmed, the Operations staff, along with assistance from the rest of the Admissions staff, will do one final check of all of our decision letters. Our office has a detailed triple-check process we take seriously.

* Decisions are mailed: Upon the completion of these checks, all admit packets and decision letters (defer and deny) are loaded into mail bins and taken directly to either the main Hopkins Mail Services station located in Mt. Washington, or the downtown Baltimore City Postal Office depending on the time of day. All the mail will enter the postal system by late afternoon on Thursday, December 15. Admit packets are sent priority mail so they arrive typically 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, and due to the holiday season the U.S. Postal Service does not guarantee any of these delivery estimates.

* Decisions are emailed: Sometime after 6:00 p.m. EST on Thursday, December 15, we will begin sending Early Decision notification emails. No decisions will be emailed prior to this time, and there is no exact time set when emails will begin being sent. Please do not ask for an exact time or how long it will take all the emails to be sent, as we cannot provide that information.

It can take up to an hour for all of our decision emails to be sent so don’t expect a new message in your inbox right at 6:00 p.m. Have patience. Email notifications are released in random order so there is no way to deduce the order that decisions will be released. Decision emails are sent only to those who included an active email address with their application. (If an applicant does not receive an email it is because either there was no email provided with the application, the email address provided no longer works, or a data entry error. Unfortunately, we do not re-send emails, 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.

* No phone calls: We will not accept phone calls on Thursday requesting the release of a decision over the phone. It is our preference to not release decisions over the phone. If an applicant has not received their decision by next Monday then he or she may call the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. 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.

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 emails sent after 6:00 p.m.? 
The reason we wait to release decision notification emails until the evening is we feel that receiving your college admissions decision should be a personal experience that you share with 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 to send our email notifications. (Yes we understand that this system does not work neatly for international applicants.)

What happens if I do not receive an email decision on Thursday?
If an applicant does not receive an email there a few things he or she can do:

(1.) Check your SPAM folders.

(2.) Check ANY and all email accounts you have ever used during the college search process. We send the email to the account you listed on your application. However, our database system does track all email accounts that have ever been matched to your record, so on occasion the notification email may be sent to old email address. (So check email addresses that you may have used when registering for the SAT/ACT for example.)

(3.) Have your parents check their email 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 Monday.

I applied to the biomedical engineering (BME) program; how will I learn of my decision?
BME decision emails will come as a second email to all admitted students who selected BME as their first-choice major. Those notifications will also be sent on Thursday following the release of all other decisions. Further details about your BME decision will be included in your decision packet/letter.

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.

I hope you all find his information helpful. Back to committee for me. Check back on Thursday as I once again live blog ED Notification Day.

22 Comments

• By H.Wei, December 13, 2011 @ 6:35 AM

  Stunned at first sight of this post, guessing about the ‘early notification’.
  A breathtaking week.. especially for one applying to BME.
  Anxious, curious, …all due to the notification. All of us’ emotions.
  As Ernest Hemingway today may say, ‘Hopkins is a nice place and worth fighting for.’
  I agree with both parts. -)

• By Issac Li, December 13, 2011 @ 11:10 AM

  Praying… so nervious.

• By Haley H., December 13, 2011 @ 11:56 AM

  So nervous! Best of luck to everyone who applied ED!! Thanks Admissions_Daniel for this great blog while we’ve all been anxiously waiting.

• By Kylie S, December 13, 2011 @ 2:10 PM

  Admissions Daniel,
  Thank you for the continuous update on early decision notification – I am so excited and nervous. Best wishes to Dean Latting at Emory.

• By Rebecca, December 13, 2011 @ 4:02 PM

  Thank you so much for the update! I can’t wait for Thursday! Keeping my fingers crossed!

• By Sahini, December 13, 2011 @ 4:39 PM

  I cannot decide if I want to break my laptop, so I do not have to stress about the email notification on Thursday or if I want to stay glued to it, so I would know my status the instant the emails have been sent out. Anyways, thank you very much Admissions_Daniel. Really appreciate it.

• By Confused, December 13, 2011 @ 4:44 PM

  Question. Why there is a cut out of the characters from Twilight in the background in the picture labeled “Admit packets waiting to be stuffed.”

• By Shreyas Bharadwaj, December 13, 2011 @ 5:30 PM

  This really cleared things up. Thanks.

• By Chris Taylor, December 13, 2011 @ 5:41 PM

  As the parent of an applicant I just want to thank you so much for the wonderful work you do explaining the process and keeping everyone up to date. I also really appreciate your obvious compassion for ALL the applicants. I do hope ALL applicants will read your advice for how to approach the arrival of that email message and take it seriously to heart (especially the Third Point) — it’s the best thing I’ve seen on this topic. For those of you unfamiliar with Admissions_Daniel’s “Third Point” of advice for those preparing to receive that admissions email, it bears repeating and careful reflection:

  “THIRD, and most importantly, after you receive your e-mail decision my strong suggestion is that you log-off of your computer and go spend some time with your family. No matter what decision you receive, get off the computer after you receive your e-mail. This is a major milestone in your young life, and you should share your initial reactions and emotions with your family and those closest to you. These people have been there since the first moment of your life, and they will be there FOREVER. Your family is not some online community. Your family is not Facebook. Your family is not some annonymous screenname. Your family is not this blog. Please heed this advice. Receive your decision and sign off. Don’t update your Facebook status. Don’t post a comment on this blog. Don’t go post your emotions on some Web site. Share your thoughts and emotions in the REAL WORLD first. The virtual world will be there later for you to provide a social media spin on your news.”

  Like all of your parents and your family, I care too. Good luck to everyone, but don’t take the decision, whatever it is, as some sort of a judgment on who you are or what you’re capable of. Life will go on, whatever the decision from Hopkins is, and you will be fine. Remember, the vast majority of applicants to places like Johns Hopkins are like you, they’re well qualified and would do very well at Hopkins. The problem is that there are too many well qualified applicants and too few places at Hopkins to accept all the qualified applicants. So what do you do when there are far more qualified applicants than there are spaces available? How would you choose? There is no formula for how to choose the best mix of people that will make up the optimal class. This mix is something that the Admissions staff has to work on. It’s more of an art than a science. Would every Admissions committee come up with the same result? Absolutely not. I’ve been on admissions committees at schools in the same league as Hopkins, so I speak from experience. So you really should not take it personally if you’re not accepted on Thursday. The good news, if you’ve been reading the posts of Admissons_Daniel and Admissions_Shannon (and I’m sure the other Admissions officers too) is that you’re in AMAZINGLY capable and caring hands. Do take his advice on how to approach Thurs., it’s the best I’ve seen. Be with your family, regardless of the outcome. In the long-run they matter more than any admissions decision. And, regardless of the outcome, get up on Friday morning, realize that the rest of your life is before you and get on with it! Life is far too short and precious to waste a moment of it! May the Force be with you all! Oh, one more thing, how about a new photo of Soze!

• By Rick J., December 13, 2011 @ 8:21 PM

  Good luck to everyone else who applied!! Admissions_Daniel, thank you for putting a human face on the college
  admissions process and all of your advice and information, all the hard
  work you put into your job and this website really shows even though
  none of us know you.

• By vaibhav, December 13, 2011 @ 8:53 PM

  Dear Daniel,

  Thank you very much for your crystal clear instructions. The thought behind the timing of the email so that it can be shared with the family is fantastic.

  Nervous tension for the next couple of days.

• By Admissions_Daniel, December 14, 2011 @ 6:33 AM

  @Confused:
  The cardboard stand-ups in the background of the picture are not just of the Twlight cast but also Miley Cyrus. These stand-ups are something our SOHOP planning crew have used in the past to recruit overnight hosts. I didn’t know they were going to make a cameo in the picture but I think it is pretty funny.

  @Chris Taylor:
  Thank you for your comment. I do hope all of our applicants heed my advice of reacting to their admissions decision news in the real world before the virtual world. It concerns me greatly when seconds after receiving their admissions notification students are posting on College Confidential or on Facebook about their status, rather than sharing the news with the people that matter most in their lives. And unless he is camera shy, I hope to post a new picture of Soze in my live blogging on Thursday.

• By David, December 14, 2011 @ 9:06 AM

  Thank you for the updates Admissions_Daniel.!!
  I’m so nervous right now!! :) good luck to all the applicants!

• By Wesley T., December 14, 2011 @ 11:16 AM

  Good luck to everyone! And can’t wait for the live blogging tomorrow. :)

• By Amy G, December 14, 2011 @ 11:46 AM

  Thank you so much Admissions_Daniel, this blog made notification process very clear, great job!
  Good luck to my dear daughter and all applicants.

• By James Kim, December 14, 2011 @ 10:02 PM

  Admissions_Daniel, thank you so much for your work!!

  Good luck to everyone!

  Let’s go to Johns Hopkins University!

• By Cecilia M, December 14, 2011 @ 10:52 PM

  Thank you so much for taking the time to give us details and share some of your process with us. This is has helped me relax a little bit.
  Good luck, everyone!

• By SZTT, December 14, 2011 @ 11:12 PM

  God! I love Johns Hopkins!!! SO considerate! It must be really lucky to be a JHUer! Thank you,JHU.

• By Terra Firma, December 15, 2011 @ 12:46 AM

  JK Rowling via Albus Dumbledore wrote;
  “We are not judged in life by our abilities but by our choices.”
  If you have the ability, Johns Hopkins is defintely the right choice! NRC

• By Justin D., December 15, 2011 @ 6:41 AM

  Good look everyone, and remember to breath.

• By M. C., December 15, 2011 @ 9:56 AM

  Dear Daniel:

  As a single parent of an applicant (and a permanent resident that didn’t go to college in the US) I have experienced first-hand the stress that comes with the college submissions process. Your blog and the advice that you share for all applicants has been very much appreciated. It is obvious that you are very compassionate about your job and that you care about Johns Hopkins prospective students. Thank you so much for bringing some human aspect into this bureaucratic process. And I love your “Third Point” what a wonderful reminder!

• By Alysha Davila, December 15, 2011 @ 4:47 PM

  Freaking. Out. 1 hour and 13 minutes left…

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