@Darksand99 - Well UMass got 43K+ Apps this year which was about 5K more than expected…so their already questionable system is probably completely overwhelmed. If they actually process these apps on time they may have an acceptance rate this year in the low 50’s, but they will screw it over if they can’t handle all these apps…
@SQBrit Son didn’t apply EA – borderline candidate so we thought RD was way to go. Penn State claims to have had 90K apps and while there was frustration on the acceptance board there for a while it has all settled down. (At PSU if you apply by Nov. 30 you get a decision by Jan. 31 – and they honored it. But peeps were mad when a Dec applicant was admitted before they had heard. Waiting is hard!). UDel’s board was equally frustrated a week or two ago, but it has simmered. I’m sure there are kids on the fence at many, many schools – and when you’re sitting on the fence, a real one or a metaphoric one, it’s a real pain in the butt.
“We” are part of the problem. Kids get accepted to schools they have no intentions of attending but until they decline the offer or May 1 arrives, the schools can’t give away that slot. Thus the equally painful ‘wait list.’ I’ve urged my son to find the decline button on the portals or send an email for the schools he has opted to not to attend. UMass might have been a ‘safety’ for a kid who’s going to Harvard, but it was a reach for my kid. If Harvard didn’t decline, and UMass is holding the spot for them, my kid or @SQBrit’s has to wait. My point is: it isn’t easy for the colleges either.
waitlisted
@logan713 sorry to hear that but i’m sure u will find a better place to attend. Wait-list doesn’t mean rejection, don’t lose hope even though its hard.
Honestly the admissions department at UMass Amherst gets an F in my book. Reading countless stories of people who had all information in way before date. They claim they had a staggering amount of applications, well so did every single college. The common app has made applying to numerous colleges too easy. In my day you had to physically fill out an application to each college and write a unique essay. Now one application, one or two essays, pay the money and click away to apply. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to whom is accepted. I know of people with marginal stats being accepted in early February, and kids with stellar records being wait listed. So glad my daughter made her decision and is going elsewhere. She doesn’t even check spire. I do as a matter of integrity, of which Umass Amherst doesn’t appear to have any. Her spire has said under review for well over a month. Seriously it takes a month to review a very strong app? To those who didn’t get in, don’t get discouraged. Sadly you may have been the victim of an inept management system.
No actually she was going in undecided since she is wavering between several majors.
Yes every college is getting record admissions. However Umass Amherst is the only one I have heard of that cannot handle to influx.
@logan713 I’m really sorry to hear that. It seems that waitlisting has become more common these days. I hope that you don’t feel badly about it - almost everyone is waitlisted somewhere it seems! What are your thoughts?
@Brucemag I wish I could feel sorry about Umass being in a pickle over the record number of apps but I don’t. All the other state schools have adjusted to the trend which was completely predictable, why can’t UMass? The end result is that they come across as arrogant and insensitive at best and incompetent at worst. Why are local or in-state applicants the last to know? Is it because we are more likely to put up with shabby treatment!? It did not go unnoticed that international applicants were told wwweeeeeeelllll before everyone else. Calling this a random process fools no one. If Umass can’t handle the high number of applicants they should opt out of the Common Ap like many other state schools -Clemson, USC, UPitt and VT to name four.
I agree that kids should not apply to schools they have no intention of attending. We applied to 6 and every one was seriously considered as a contender at some point. Being waitlisted to 3 schools really threw us for a loop and thwarted the possibility of declining the less favored. The irony of being waitlisted is that it made me wonder if we should have applied to MORE schools. And around and around we go. So now we have 2 acceptances (1 safety) and still waiting on UMass.
I have to say I agree. As the mother of a freshman son we waited last year till April 3rd (after being deferred EA). But to not receive notice until April 15 and beyond is crazy. They should really hire more admissions reps and come out with a date that makes sense (like April 1st) that everyone is notified by. There will be those that receive acceptances after the admitted students day and that is just not fair. Umass is a great school and my son is very happy there but their system needs a major overhaul. Next year they are likely to receive more applications and they need to adjust. As a side note my son wanted to take a class for next year and was closed out because they are holding 350 seats for freshman. So there are some pluses. For those accepted-get into a NSO with the earliest date possible-it ups your chances for the classes you want.
Getting wait listed is actually a good thing at umass. People on the wait list are guaranteed admission for spring 2016 semester that’s like getting in just for a later semester . But it is really frustrating for people like my self who applied in October not to hear till now and still have to wait. If your really set on going to umass all you have to do is wait a few months and get a roommate for the spring semester. I hated the whole process and didn’t love the school so I decided on another school, but in general I think that’s a pretty good deal. And I’m someone who has been really critical of the school.
my D still waiting - admission’s response this morning to my inquiry:
“Thank you for your email. We are mailing out decision letters and hope to have them all sent out before mid-April. We mail out approximately 3500 letters 2-3 times per week, and have a record 41,000 to send this year. There is no particular order to how they are released. SPIRE accounts are updated 10 days after decisions are mailed out.”
Accepted today through Spire! No letter! Applied RD to Linguistics, from FL, low SAT but great GPA and EC… Only 11k in Aid… Will decline though… already paid registration @ BU. Have faith… This is what my Spire said:
Congratulations on your admission to the University of Massachusetts Amherst!
Your admissions decision has been mailed, and you can expect to receive it in the next 7-10 days. We encourage you to review your Application Status Check for more information.
Those last two posts, read together, are priceless. Admissions writes @PAR403 that letters arrive 10 days BEFORE Spire update (they’ve said that consistently). Within the hour @Stvincent1 writes Spire has updated with admit (Congrats!), and Spire says that letters will be received 7-10 days AFTER Spire update. No wonder UMass admissions isn’t particularly admired on this site!
4/10/15 No mail. The wait continues… “hope to have them all sent out before mid-April”? How wishy washy. Leadership failure.
Although it doesn’t make things any better for those who are still waiting at this very late date, the UMass admissions decisions had a lot of new moving parts this year. Beyond just getting a lot more applications than in the past they have moved away from a general purpose undecided option to assigning students to exploratory tracks that will provide better faculty connections and exposure to potential majors. Since these tracks were not an option on the common app it is all having to be done manually which has got to be time consuming. Also, they are now guaranteeing spring admission to those on the waitlist (at least I think this is new) which means they probably have to be more selective than in the past. These are all improvements to the process but I suspect turned out to be more difficult to execute than they initially expected. Hope it works out ok in the end for everyone.
Denied. Received letter today
@SQBrit oh no! I keep checking back to see how you are fairing in the wait and can’t believe you are still waiting!
I’d keep checking spire though, just in case the envelope didn’t make it through the usps system correctly! I get wrong address mail all the time.
I have to agree with a previous post that puts much of this problem on the common app! I hope by the time my DD applys in a couple of years these colleges reconsider and go back to their own apps and I think it will cut down on these record numbers greatly as well as the huge number of waitlists. I think the application system is too easy to apply to any and every school, even if you don’t want to go there just to see if you would get in and clogs the whole system.
I think the kid that was in the news recently that got accepted to all the ivy leagues is a perfect example. While his achievements are admirable and scores great and he deserves his acceptances, I couldn’t help but think that just because it is an ivy doesn’t mean the program he was looking for was the ‘best’ at all the schools he applied to. All ivys are different and don’t have the top program for every major. His comments on the news indicated that he was only seriously interested in 2 of the 8 so why ‘clog the system’ and take an acceptance away from another student at a school you have no intentions of going to? His “hooks” aside, which were never mentioned in the reports, he really wasn’t going to go to most of them, so why waste the schools time and take that spot just because you can? And even if that spot he has got you on the wait list I find frustrating since most of our kids that are on these wait lists have to shell out approx $500 to secure a spot else where and lose that money if and when they are pulled from the wait list at the school they would have chosen first. Most of these kids, and parents, don’t have that kind of money to just throw away. This is what is happening, not just with the ivys but everywhere. The head of admissions at umass asked how many schools kids applied to during the presentation and when the hands shot up when he reached ‘over 15’ I had to shake my head.
Ok, rant over!
I waited months and just got rejected so that says a lot about this school. was my top choice and it took me until today to figure out my plans. they need a new system, very disappointing.
@ajs1997 - @kcasey43 I am so, so sorry. That is just awful. I feel crushed for you. Honestly, if they make us wait this long they really should accept everyone! This is like making people crawl across the Sahara desert and then telling them the well just ran dry. So unfair! What are your plans now? =((