<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I was just wondering how frequently these informal e-mail acceptances are sent out. Are they sent out to all accepted applicants? Are they only sent out at certain schools or by certain admissions directors/faculty members? How often is a recipient of one actually denied admission? If you don't receive one from a school that you know has sent them out to some applicants, is this bad news? How long after the audition are they typically sent out?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>About the same weight as a “verbal” in this thread <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/661256-about-those-post-audition-verbal-acceptances.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/661256-about-those-post-audition-verbal-acceptances.html</a></p>
<p>Along the same lines: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/658376-acceptance-letters.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/658376-acceptance-letters.html</a></p>
<p>As to how many, and to whom, and when, it’s school specific. It could be to a few, to top 50%, or all in contention. If you did not get one, I would not automatically call it “bad news”. At the risk of being politically incorrect, “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.”</p>
<p>It depends on who said it and what position they are in. If someone said something like “I would like to have you in my studio” but they aren’t the ultimate decision maker, it means only what he said. On the other hand, the person who sent that has the ultimate decision making, it could be considered binding…but in the end, until you have the written letter, it really is still technically up in the air. There could be open room, if for example you get an e-mail from the head of the admissions committee telling you they got in, it could be considered a legal acceptance, and if they end up sending you a rejection notice it would raise questions I suspect. I am not a lawyer, so please take this with more then a grain of salt, but informal messages can have legal weight, if the person doing so has the authority, this I remember from management and business law courses I have taken. If someone has the authority to admit people, for example the head of a music performance program where his/her word goes, and they send such a communication, the school would have questions to ask if someone else overturned it (they basically would have to show that something came up unknown at the time of the informal message, like the applicant seriously thinks Montovani was a classical music god <em>lol</em>…or they were a mass murderer or whatever). This isn’t ironclad, even in the business world, but you might have some leverage questioning a decision if you had such an informal message,if the school really interests the student might be worth pushing back.</p>
<p>Then there was the year a major conservatory mixed up the pile of “acceptance” letters with the pile of the “rejection” letters…oops! Yes, they had to permit any student who received a favorable response in error to enroll, but, as the story is now told, not one of those students made it past the first year. It seems to me that with e-mails being sent and phone calls being made by this prof or that director, things are poised to have an error of that sort occur again.
Yes, we all want to know what is to come for our youngsters and the kids would like to firm up their plans for the fall, but I honestly wish that all of the “private” communications from the schools would cease and that all would be held to a definite date on which all letters had to be mailed. That way, all would be notified on the same schedule and we’d know that we had “x” number of days in which to chew our nails and hold our collective breaths as we open the mailbox!</p>
<p>I know - exactly. I am waiting to hear from two other schools.
I reeeeeeeeally wish they set a date as to when it would be mailed out at least.</p>