<p>Hi!</p>
<p>People who have read my previous thread will add two and two together, but my POI at a big name university has emailed me saying I was in.</p>
<p>We all know that every prospective applicant website mentions that only the official letter grants official admission.</p>
<p>I am thrilled but I cannot help thinking... What if? :(</p>
<p>How likely is it to be rejected following a POI acceptance email? I told my parents and my friends and now I truly regret doing so.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>pending you didn’t lie on your application or mess something up with it there is a virtual guarantee of being accepted. I myself was contacted by a potential advisor saying I was in at a top program about 2-3 weeks before official acceptance was granted. Advisors at top universities especially tend to have a certain level of tact about applications and rarely state anything they don’t know beyond a doubt without admitting it to students. They realize the importance of the prospect on students careers.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about it. I had the same feeling waiting for official information from said school for a few weeks but given the quality of school and POI I would not be worried if I were you.</p>
<p>First of all, congratulation! An offer from a POI is essentially an offer from the University, so I wouldn’t worry about the offer disappearing. </p>
<p>I absolutely understand where your nervousness is coming from, it’s a very vulnerable time for all us who are applying.</p>
<p>Thanks for your replies! It is a very stressful time indeed.</p>
<p>Actually I am almost having the opposite problem now.</p>
<p>The professor is so friendly and helpful that now I feel a little bit awkward since I am still waiting to hear from the other big uni. If I were accepted at both of my top choices, it would be a hard decision but I am a softie and I am already dreading having to turn down the offer! Yet I know that being afraid to say no is not the right way to decide on something as important as grad school.</p>
<p>Are other people experiencing that as well?</p>
<p>Can anyone tell me what POI means?</p>
<p>Professor of interest or what?</p>
<p>^
Yeah, professor of interest.</p>
<p>Graduate admissions is always the decision of the program, so an acceptance from a professor is a real acceptance. The official letter often comes from the Graduate School; they just make sure that everything is in order – transcripts, minimum GPA, scores, etc. I’ve never heard of graduate admissions denying the list sent to them by the program.</p>
<p>Funding is often the wild card, especially outside of the biomedical sciences. Sometimes the program guarantees the funding and informs the applicant upon acceptance. Sometimes that information comes from graduate admissions via the financial aid office, so you may have to wait. University-endowed fellowships can take even longer.</p>
<p>BTW - don’t feel bad if you need to turn this professor down. They ALL know that many students are accepted at multiple programs, and unless they have the “top” program in you field there is always the possibility that you have been accepted somewhere “better”. They may be disappointed, but they will get it over it REALLY quick.</p>