<p>Those of us who are awaiting Stanford's SCEA (a.k.a. REA) early action decisions had a lot of questions, and learned a lot, as we contributed to, read through, and dug up old CC threads. For the benefit of current and future applicants, here's a list of what we learned. Much of it applies to RD (regular decision) applicants, too.</p>
<p>If anyone wants to add to the list, please copy-and-paste it into your post, adding new items at the bottom.</p>
<p>Good luck all! Hope this helps!</p>
<p>1) Stanford generally says that the decisions will be released on or around December 15, but they are often released before then. Here are the dates and days of the week on which they've been released over the past 12 years:
December 14, 2012 (Friday)
December 9, 2011 (Friday)
December 10, 2010 (Friday)
December 9, 2009 (Wednesday)
December 12, 2008 (Friday)
December 14, 2007 (Friday)
December 15, 2006 (Friday)
December 15, 2005 (Thursday)
December 10, 2004 (Friday)
December 10, 2003 (Wednesday)
December 17, 2002 (Tuesday)
December 11, 2001 (Tuesday)</p>
<p>2) If an applicant's parent is an alum of Stanford, whether of undergatuate or a graduate school, the parent gets in the mail what's unofficially deemed the legacy letter, a.k.a. the unlikely letter. (The letter essentially says not to get your hopes up; getting admitted to Stanford these days is a lot harder than it used to be.) The letter often gives a release date for the decision that's earlier than the "official" December 15 date. This year (2012), the letter said that the decisions would be released "after 3 p.m. Pacific Time on December 14" -- which this year was accurate. In past years, though, the release date has been not only earlier than the official December 15 date, but also earlier than the date in the legacy letter.</p>
<p>3) In past years, Stanford has announced the actual release date on the day of release, any time between around 2 a.m. PT and noon PT. The announcement has been posted on the undergraduate admissions news page, here: Admission</a> News : Stanford University</p>
<p>4) This year, the announcement appeared on Stanford's Twitter feed at about 3 p.m. PT on the day BEFORE decisions were due to be emailed, here: <a href="http://twitter.com/ApplyStanford%5B/url%5D">http://twitter.com/ApplyStanford</a>
It popped up on Twitter a short while before it popped up on the admissions news page. </p>
<p>5) On the release date, decisions are emailed beginning at 3 p.m. PT. The admissions officers warn that though they begin to send decisions at 3 p.m. PT, it may take several hours before your decision reaches you. If for some reason you don't get your decision by email, you will have to wait a few days (this year, until December 19) to call or email the admissions office and get your decision.</p>
<p>6) The subject line of the email will say something about Stanford admissions, but you won't be able to tell from the subject line whether you've been accepted, rejected, or deferred.</p>
<p>7) If you are accepted or deferred, you'll get a second email with a Stanford online I.D. in it. However, that email may come significantly later than the decision email (and in some past years, has actually come BEFORE the decision email). If you see two emails, then, you'll know you've been accepted or deferred. If you see just one, you may have been rejected, but you also may not have gotten your second email yet.</p>