Calendar flips to December and the countdown is on.
This is the time to get out of the tryptophan slumber and learn how to calculate your costs of attendance at the schools where you were interviewed. What are your anticipated additional costs for travel, new clothes, new tools, etc.? Figure out the differences of attending each of the schools on your list and the impact any possible scholarship/grant amount can have on the calculation.
Then, rank your schools. Then start planning your strategy asking family for money for Christmas or each of the eight nights of Hannukah (or pick whatever winter solstice holiday you celebrate).
If you don't have delivery trackers for FedEx, UPS, or USPS, sign up for them now. If any school sends physical offer packets, if you set everything up correctly, you will be notified when something is being sent to you and when it should be delivered.
You can begin watching the AADSAS portal for "signs" of status changes.
You can start checking your school application portal for "signs", though they will likely switch things over by Decision Day.
Read past posts about which schools like to notify by midnight Eastern Time or midnight their local time zone. Which schools like phone calls (or why)? Which schools send scholarships with offers? Which schools just play it chill?
You can start telling your friends and family not to call you all day on December 13. Set up your text chains and Discord rooms, but no calls. Don't focus on the area code and prefix associated with the schools you interviewed at... some faculty and students love calling from their own phones or "burner" numbers.
Make sure you change your voicemail message to be professional-like, not like...
You can record your TikTok acceptance and not-accepted dances ahead of time. (God, I don't understand this.) Did you buy baseball caps at each dental school where you interviewed? You may want to dance with each of them in anticipation of "good decisions." Pick a good song. Share with your prehealth/predental advisors, clubs, and us.
And of course for those in school: study your butts off. You don't want to be crashing out on your finals because of Decision Day.
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