I applied for undergrad admission on september 23rd with the Golden Gopher application and it is now february 12 and i still have not heard anything. I’ve even called my admissions counselor hoping that something was missing and that was why it was taking so long. This is my top choice, the first school I applied to and the last school i’m going to hear back from. It’s making me feel like I’m going to get denied since it’s taking this long.
I am in the same situation…
My son applied OOS in mid-September with the Golden Gopher application. It was his first college application. Five months later … crickets.
He’s no slouch: 33 on the ACT (34 Math, 35 Science). National AP Scholar (including 5s on Calculus BC, Biology, Physics-Mechanics, Physics-E&M, Calculus AB, Physics B, Computer Science A, American History, and Psychology), NM commended, Varsity Basketball, two-year hospital volunteer, paid work experience, 3.53/4.0 cumulative unweighted GPA from one of the toughest high schools in America, 3.88 junior year unweighted GPA. Although not required for the Golden Gopher application, he was interested enough in Minnesota to even supplement his application with essays and recommendations.
He applied to seven other colleges after his Minnesota application and by the end of December had been accepted to each of them, most of them with nice merit scholarships, including the three other public universities he applied to.
Beaudreau, have you called and spoken with anyone? Or is it a safety school?
@Alfonsia. Thanks for asking. I spoke directly with an admissions counselor (not a student) for quite some time in early January. She was very nice and seemed very interested in what I had to say. Ultimately she would only advise patience and that all decisions would be out by the end of February. The high school college counselor has spoken with admissions many times. As recently as two weeks ago, she got the “end of February” response.
We sent my son’s ACT scores and AP scores to 12 or 13 schools last summer. He had independently gotten interested in Minnesota. Then, after he was asked to apply, he did his on-line research (particularly into the Minnesota engineering college) and started to get very interested. I graduated from two Big Ten schools and both my wife and I told him how much we liked Minneapolis.
Unfortunately, because he was already well into his senior year and starting basketball, we could not work out a visit. Perhaps, Minnesota is doing a little “yield management” and has decided that since my son did not demonstrate “interest” with a visit, he is not likely to accept if offered. But I can only speculate. I can say that he was very interested in September and October. We saw quite a few students with apparently similar or worse credentials excited about their admissions. We thought that he would be next.
Now, after five months of crickets, and three or four months of stroking from seven other colleges, Minnesota definitely has some ground to make up. If he had been accepted early, Minnesota may well have been first on his list. We have already scheduled two admitted-student visits for next month to help him to make his decision. It’s not too late for Minnesota, but it’s getting close.
I’m in the same situation… I called 1-2 weeks ago and the lady I spoke with was very nice and just explained to me that they had over 40,000 applicants this year. She said that they haven’t made many decisions and also hadn’t made a decision on me. The wait sucks and I feel the same way about the denial.
I’m sure there must be other colleges that take five months to make admission decisions, but I don’t know of any. Virtually all of them say, "If you apply by x, you will have a decision by y. Several of the colleges my son applied to are as big or bigger than Minnesota. He applied later and has long since been accepted.
We went through this last year with his older brother. He applied by November 1 for engineering at Michigan, Texas A&M, Texas, Purdue, Arizona State, Georgia Tech, and Rose-Hulman, He was accepted to all of them by January 15 and had all the merit scholarship offers within another week. Then, we were able to go over them as a group and make a decision.
I’m sure that Minnesota knows its business far better than I, but it sure seems counterproductive to encourage top students to apply with the easy Golden Gopher application and then make them wait for five months. In business, if you are making a blind offer (you don’t know who else is making offers or what they are offering, you do not want to be the last one to make it. Someone else will make the deal before you do.
Col school of mines is behaving in a similar way with my kid. They sent him their golden ticket and then ignored him LOL.
It sure can be frustrating. From what I have been able to gather, they have different admissions groups making decisions…State A and state B might represented by a different adm counselor as is race A and race B or first in family to attend college or Nat Merit or Engineering versus Bio science. It would be interesting to understand how they pull this all together.
Have any of your trackers changed within the last few days? I also applied in late September–4 days after OP in fact. After months and months of waiting I started giving up-- checked earlier today and saw that I have been accepted into CBS. I still don’t know if I’m happy though; I feel like I have waited so long for a decision I thought would have come way sooner. I am so unsatisfied with the way UMN seems to handle its admissions from the looks of everyone else’s situations and also myself. I basically forced myself to lose interest in UMN and turned my focus to another school which I have started to fall in love with and now I have to decide if I want to regain my interest in Minnesota again. I hope everything works out for the rest of you.
@asthrera you don’t even need to make any decisions at all till May 1st (other than probably getting your name on the residence hall waitlist and paying the $25 fee for that). You have several months to sit on that offer, think it over, visit the school if possible, see what CBS is like . . . as of Mid February (and it might have been a month earlier for all you really know) you have been an accepted student to one of the hardest colleges to get into (remember that overall acceptance rate is 44% but CBS, CSE and CSoM are lower than that). Your stats are impressive and there are lots out there who would would gladly trade places with you right now. Enjoy your success this week and then devote your energies to choosing a college that will help you over the long run, as opposed to what you are feeling right now. You obviously have some great choices - an enviable position to be in.
How long do you have to wait for a response when your application says" Your application is being very carefully considered"?
@Cyraxs
On the Sunday before I admitted, I saw that message there. I got accepted the next day.
I applied in August with the Golden Gopher application. I found out that I was accepted in early November. I’m also an out of state student.
Accepted to CLA
1970 on SAT
3.7 GPA
Great ECs
No demonstrated interest
Good to know. It has been two days for me. @CaliCash, did you apply as a transfer student to CSE as well? I only applied to CSE (and submitted my application on January 16th). (I am also an in-state transfer student–just an FYI.) About me: I have a 3.84 cumulative GPA and 4.0 technical GPA; and, I will graduate with my A.S. in mathematics this spring with honors.
Is anyone aware of how long it takes for scholarship info to come in after accepted?
@MitchIsTheMan97, do they not give their scholarship offers with acceptance to their college?
I applied to the College of Science and Engineering, using a golden gopher application in mid October. I saw no updates in the tracker at all until last week. I checked today and I see a congratulations message stating that I’ve been offered admission to the College of Liberal Arts??! No letter, no email… just a status update… and that too CLA? Way to connect, guys…
In the meanwhile I’ve been accepted into the engineering programs in every other university I applied to (Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Iowa and Iowa State). In my mind, Minnesota was to be a semi-safe school… with Illinois and Purdue being #1 & #2, closely followed by Wisconsin, so I really don’t care anymore… but I can’t help wonder what goes on underground in gopherland…
@gurchie the packet’s in the mail. It takes a couple of weeks. My D was accepted to CLA and didn’t receive an e-mail either. The tracker is the fastest way to check the status.
It must be a tad disappointing for you but you have some really fine choices there among the other schools so congratulations!
Thanks Mamelot… not really disappointed, just bewildered… before offering me admission to a school I didn’t apply to to, shouldn’t they feel the need to address the status of the one I did apply to? A rejection with the alternative offer would have been the right closure.
In any case Minnesota was only #5 on my list and truth be told, I only applied there because they waived the app fee and required no essays or recos.