<p>Does anyone have any idea when the letters might be mailed?</p>
<p>This reply is prolly pretty useless, but I'm still making it.</p>
<p>I've got pretty much no idea when letters will be mailed. In the thread Can</a> we expect a letter from CalTech on PI Day, Tanman posted saying that he talked with the admissions director last Monday (the 7th, I guess), he said that they just had a few last decisions to decide and Axlines to award.</p>
<p>If this info is correct, that seems to suggest that we could hear any time now. Of course, getting some kind of time from Ben would be great. Hope this helped a little bit!</p>
<p>I don't like keeping secrets, :-P</p>
<p>We mail this Friday if there's no change from when I heard last, but PLEASE do not call the office that day or the next three business days to ask about your decision since it'll only frazzle the extremely nice people who work there.</p>
<p>The mailings may not all go out the same exact day -- there are some random patterns that seem to be used to spread the load, but the mailings are NOT done in any important order -- certainly not based on the decision! So don't go crazy if you someone gets an envelope and you don't.</p>
<p>The numbers are all extraordinarily close to last year's, if you want to look those up in the magazines. Certainly within a percent.</p>
<p>The vast majority of the applications really were amazing, and the last three weeks of decisions have been <em>extraordinarily</em> tough. Good luck to all of you.</p>
<p>Thanks Ben!</p>
<p>I heard the same thing as Ben at lunch today from Margo Marshak (VP of student affairs), so it's still on schedule.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks Ben! <em>Crosses fingers</em> Good luck to all! :)</p>
<p><em>crosses fingers</em> I really hope this isn't set up so I get one rejection a week, as it may turn out to be. The site was just updated definetly saying they will mail tomorrow....so let's hope for the best.</p>
<p>Does Friday also apply to internationals?</p>
<p>From the admissions website:</p>
<p>"All Regular Action admissions decisions will be mailed March 18th. If students have not heard from Caltech by Friday, March 25th, the student can phone the Admissions Office and a copy of that admissions decision will be mailed again.</p>
<p>For students who live outside the United States, offers of admission will be mailed using an express mail courier service. Students residing outside the United States who are not offered admission will receive an e-mail copy of their decision letter the afternoon of Wednesday, March 23rd provided that we received a valid e-mail address on your application. Decisions can only be sent to the e-mail address provided at the time of application."</p>
<p>So, yes. They're all mailed today. G'luck, all!</p>
<p>/me suddenly gets 'ligion</p>
<p>What does not giving data out by phone have to do with "privacy"? I mean, although I don't care, I can understand why some people might be paranoid about someone finding out where they didn't get in. But there's plenty of potential verification - SSN, for example.</p>
<p>And I don't understand at all why they don't put it online (inside your account).</p>
<p>It would be pretty trivial to steal your SSN. For one thing, everyone on the admissions committee of every place you apply to sees that; so if some unscrupulous admissions person from another school wanted to find out if you got into Caltech, they could do that easily via any system that depends on SSN (including phone). And it would be hard to trace, not nearly as easy as that silly thing Princeton did a few years ago.</p>
<p>An online system (connecting the in-house database to our online applications provider) would unfortunately take more effort and infrastructure than we can currently afford. We prefer to focus on getting your decisions to you as early as possible, which currently is with letters.</p>
<p>Just so I don't look stupid here, I have no illusions about the security of SSNs ... but if my cell phone company, bank, and other institutions use it as a password, then it's pretty much accepted anyway.</p>
<p>magefile: Just because other institutions use very very bad security metrics doesn't mean that everyone else should.</p>
<p>If your bank uses SSN as verification I suggest switching banks.</p>