<p>I received the following message today: </p>
<p>"Your application to University of ______, Spanish and
Portuguese Program, is now complete and shall be reviewed by the
Admission Committee."</p>
<p>Does this mean that it's going to the department? That's good news, if I'm not mistaken...? Good or neutral.</p>
<p>It means your application will get reviewed. Nothing more. lol</p>
<p>...which is good news, considering the alternative. :P</p>
<p>Haha, yes, that's what I was thinking. If I understand the process, the application usually gets briefly reviewed by the graduate admissions office and then they decide whether or not to forward it on to the department? </p>
<p>Maybe I've started making things up in my long, sad waiting.</p>
<p>The only review by the Graduate Admissions office is usually to determine whether you meet basic requirements for admission: application fee submitted, all elements of application present, and (sometimes) cumulative GPA above university-wide minimum of 3.0.</p>
<p>Department make all admission decisions. This is a neutral event, not positive or negative.</p>
<p>Thank you Professor X! And thanks to other posters.</p>
<p>It means that they didn't manage to lose your application materials yet. I got an email like that in December and a call in January from an embarrassed administrator who notified me that my file was misplaced.</p>
<p>Oh no...! Did you have to re-send everything? </p>
<p>Thanks for the response!</p>