A minute for an update

The weeks are speeding by for the Admissions staff, but today I’m going to slow things down to give readers an update on what we’ve been up to.

Like most of the rest of the east coast of the U.S., whatever we’ve been doing, both on the weekend and on weekdays, has been interspersed with snow shoveling.  In an unusual reversal, there are areas well south of here that have received more snow than the Boston area (where, though we love to complain about the weather, the fact is that we are having an average snowy winter with an unpleasant snow-laden couple of weeks recently).  But I digress…

So, admissions.  What’s happening with the process for Fall 2014 applicants?  Well, nearly all applications have been read, and most of them have been read at least twice (generally by a student, followed by a staff member, and then sometimes by a professor).  With everything else going on, I’ve missed my chance to cajole one of my Admissions friends into writing about a day of reading applications at home.  Fortunately, Liz anticipated that I would ask and took some pix of her preferred reading set-up, which seems to involve creating a lovely environment:

keeping herself hydrated

and arranging the applications in some secret order to break up the reading.  (We all have our own special way of approaching a stack of files.)

As I said, most of the reading is complete, but the deciding is still in progress.  All the admissions committees for the various programs have sessions coming up, and it will still be several weeks before decisions have been made on all applications, and then another few weeks before decisions are announced.  (Not to mention that the MIB and LLM programs will receive a small batch of additional applications by the March 1 deadline.)  That said, everything is moving along.

A side note, related to Liz’s pile of files.  It’s our plan (ardent wish) that this will be the final year when we’ll be working with paper applications.  The contract has been signed to develop a new application and review system.  Not having to lug home applications will make a big difference to us readers.  (“Thank you,” say my shoulders.)  Equally important, we think that we’re going to be able to structure the application to be friendlier to our applicants.  More on all of that later in the spring, when we have firmer details.

From here, we’ll finish off all of the reading and deciding (on both admission and scholarships) and start the data input process that ultimately results in applicants learning their decision.  Frankly, for those of you sitting at the edge of your seat waiting to hear from schools, there’s still a long slog in front of us.  But at least I can assure you that, almost surely, someone has “met you” by reading your application, and the end of your waiting will be coming soon.