<p>If a college is going to reject you, do they let you know right away or is there some sort of cut off date?</p>
<p>You have to wait–usually rejections and acceptances are notified at the same time.</p>
<p>^Except sometimes they send the rejections by regular mail and the acceptances by priority mail. (These days though most schools send e-mails at the same time.)</p>
<p>At some schools, you will be given access to an applicants’ web site, where the decisions will be posted – both acceptances and rejections at the same time.</p>
<p>Rejections don’t come earlier, I think, because the admissions committee can’t really decide whom to accept and whom to reject until they’ve seen all the applications.</p>
<p>A possible exception to the rule is colleges with rolling admissions – a system favored by quite a few large state universities including Michigan and Penn State. There, you may be able to get an acceptance or rejection quite early (but you still have months to give them your decision if you’re accepted, and it doesn’t count as an Early Decision application).</p>