<p>A friend told me that when colleges get your apps they separate into 3 piles: presumptive accepts, maybes, presumptive nos. These are based on your numbers only (GPA/SAT). They spend the most time with the maybes looking to see who to tilt over one line or the other. So maybes will be the last to hear an admissions decision (closer to the Apr 1 date) and the definitely no's and yes's will hear fairly quickly. </p>
<p>I've heard that some graduate programs and law schools work like this but I've never heard it about undergrad. Does anyone know? </p>
<p>Do acceptances/rejections all come at once or can we start expecting them in a few weeks to a few months? </p>
<p>I think each school does that differently. Many do have clear admits and clear denies, but I doubt it is based on test scores - especially for the clear admits. I was told my son was a clear admit at his school, and his test scores were just average (for that school). I suspect the clear denies would mostly be based on a combination of test scores and grades - though even those ones would probably get a quick look to see if there is some extenuating circumstance to explain the bad showing. </p>
<p>The clear denies will hear along with all the other denies and acceptances. Sometimes schools send ‘likely letters’ to top of the class. This is for schools that do not have rolling admissions, obviously.</p>
<p>One reason that a top school should go through the app of someone with a low SAT and a low GPA is that many top schools assure parents and students that they read every application twice.</p>
<p>Another reason is that the applicant has just paid $50 or more to have their application read.</p>
<p>I am surprised that there wasn’t a greater outcry last year when Duke admitted that it put a huge number of people on its waitlist because it hadn’t read all the applications.</p>
<p>Many schools have a single decision announcement date. Look on their websites. I don’t know of any non-rolling schools that would trickle out decisions. It doesn’t make sense – especially with online notification.</p>
<p>“Read” could mean a lot of things…like reading someone’s SAT and GPA twice. And an application fee is said to be for application processing; that doesn’t necessarily mean having it read. Adcoms have thousands of applications to deal with. I wouldn’t even bother.</p>