program acceptance vs. school admission

Graduate School
1

<p>I got a letter in the mail offering me a teaching asssistantship and tuition remission for my dream program (forestry at Oregon State). However, I noticed this said nothing about being accepted to the graduate school/the admission page online still just says "processed". Naturally, I have a heart attack, and call everyone ever. They all told me basically the same thing: I've been admitted to the program, but not accepted to the graduate school, yet. </p>

<p>Has anyone ever heard of someone being offered an assistantship but then not get in to the graduate school? Am I being a crazy person?
I really, really want to move to Oregon and not be a barista for the rest of my life. Or, at least, be a barista in Oregon (not really). The professor I'm going to work under sounds amazing, and told me she was on the graduate admissions committee, etc. I'm still freaking out that this is real and am somehow convinced I won't get in and will be stuck in stupid Florida forever.</p>

2

<p>It’s probably a case where the department makes the admission decision and writes a letter offering you a position but the Graduate College has to officially send a letter of admission. This means you will get two letters and more confusion will ensue about which one you need to reply to (probably both). When I was running Graduate Admissions at my university, Illinois Tech, we started with basically the same system, where departments sent their own letters of admission and applicants were continually getting confused. We stopped that practice and generate a single letter of admission now which is a lot easier to understand.</p>

<p>All that being said, don’t worry, it is a mere formality. The department makes the decisions and they are never contradicted by the gruadate college.</p>