Decision Day!

An intense two weeks have led to today.  We’ve had a rescheduled-to-evening final MA/MALD Admissions Committee meeting, scrambling LLM and MIB Committees reviewing March 1 applications, hours reviewing scholarship applications, additional hours checking our system to be sure everything is set up correctly, and even more hours (and people) ensuring every letter is right and then stuffing envelopes.

While we apply the final finishing touches, let me run through what you can expect to learn tonight when we release decisions.  (All decisions, by which we mean decisions for all degree programs on every complete application that was submitted by the final March 1 deadline.  No trickling of decisions for us.  No releasing of decisions by telephone or email either, so please be patient until 5:00 p.m. U.S. EST (GMT-5).)

First, when your decision is ready, you’ll receive an email to check your Application Status Page.  (Reminder for those who haven’t bookmarked the page:  To access your Application Status Page you can either click the “Start an Application” link on the Admissions website or the application link.  You’ll log in with the email and password you used when you created your application.)

I’ve already described the different decision options on Tuesday and Wednesday.  In addition to learning the admission decision, when admitted applicants log in, they will be able to find their scholarship award.  If you’re in a two-year program, you’ll learn your two-year award so that you can plan ahead.  We make scholarship decisions based on a combination of merit and need.  That is, for any level of merit — as determined through the application review process — the larger awards go to those with greater need.  We hope that all applicants will be happy with their awards, though we know that only Admissions Committee members have the full picture of the breadth of need (and merit, for that matter) among the admitted applicants.  Fletcher’s applicant pool is diverse in every possible way.

Beyond all that, let me just say that it is truly a pleasure to work with our applicants.  On the road, here at Fletcher, and through correspondence, Admissions staff members connect with hundreds of people who submit applications each year.  Our connection with some applicants goes back many years.  At the same time as the Admissions Committee’s mandate is to put together a class that will succeed at, contribute to, and benefit from Fletcher, there are many people who may not be admitted at this time but who we know will ultimately be great students.  We hope to see you again.  Meanwhile, I want to thank all of you for your interest in Fletcher and for reading the Admissions Blog throughout the year.