Shedding some light for future Januarians

Most blog readers are probably considering applications for September 2009 enrollment, which makes it a little too easy for me to forget the smaller (but still significant) group who have already submitted applications for January 2009.  Although every aspect of our work, office, lives(!) in March is tied up with the September process, the January work is much more mellow.

As you prospective Januarians know, applications were submitted by October 15.  We’ve been grabbing small batches of files and reading them in brief bits of time around travel and all the other activities that occupy us in the fall.  At this point, every file that is complete has been read once, and nearly every file has been read twice.  From here, we start the final review process.  We check our own work and make sure we can count on the right number of students in chairs in January.  (Like Goldilocks — we don’t want too many students and we don’t want too few.)  And then we start the notification process.

On the one hand, we have a very manageable number of applications to review for January enrollment.  On the other hand, we also admit a very small class.  We bring the same standards to review of January applicants as we do to the September applicants, but the piles of files are much shorter.  And here’s our special challenge:  We need some time to get the work done right, but we also know that international students need time to obtain their U.S. student visas.  So we feel the pressure to wrap up the process in a very tight time frame!  Applicants can count on hearing from us by the week of November 17.  I may be able to refine and update that prediction as the week goes on.

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