I'm waiting to hear back from 2 programs. One program was just this past Friday, so I'm not too worried about that right now. The other, however, had their last interview weekend 2.5 weeks ago. 5 days following the interview, I received an email from my POI indicating that "admissions decisions will be communicated shortly." That was 2 weeks ago. I realize there is still plenty of time, but I have a few questions.
- This program extends offers via the Graduate School, according to what I've seen. To what extent can that cause delays (albeit considering the other issues below)?
- To what extent can a POI being technically dubbed affiliated faculty affect admissions speed (i.e., is it reasonable to assume they attend to full-fledged faculty first)?
- To what extent can a department having at least one new faculty hoping to admit more than one student affect the admissions process for other faculty members (FWIW, I am not worried about funding whatsoever with this POI, but just the order of the Graduate School's operations)?
- To what extent can having a Master's, and therefore being much more flexible in terms of what assistantships or teaching assignments you can take, affect the process? In other words, would it be reasonable to assume they might attend to Master's applicants' offers after those of younger applicants because the latter can only be assigned to certain assistantships?