Oh, and here's the rest of that email since people are interested. It may give you an idea about timeline.
Dear XXX,
It has been awhile since your visit to Penn and, as promised then, I wanted to give you an update on what is happening here in Philadelphia. Our interviews finished a few weeks ago. Although we are still several weeks away from sending out our initial round of acceptances at the end of March, we have reached a point where the end is starting to be in sight. Gary explained the acceptance process when you were here, but that was awhile ago, so let me remind you. As in past years we will send out a small number of initial acceptances in a few weeks and at the same time try to give everyone else an idea of where they stand - that last is especially important because every year we make a number of offers to people on the waitlist and I have no reason to believe that this year will be different. Our re-visit weekend (Penn Preview) is at the end of April.
At this point you have visited a number of programs and may have started to receive offers of admission. You are almost certainly forming opinions about where you would like to be next year, even as you wait to hear from all of the programs that have not yet made offers. If you have questions about Penns program that have come up since your visit, I would be happy to try to answer them as fully as I can. Similarly, you are welcome to share your thoughts about attending Penn with me. Many of you have done that already. It is entirely up to you.
Finally, if this year continues to be like past years, chances are that things will get somewhat stressful for you (and all of the other MD-PhD program candidates across the country) as May 15th approaches. That is the date when AAMC traffic rules say that applicants to programs (and that includes Penn) that do not have a required start date earlier than July 1, have to narrow their acceptances down to one, but can still remain on waitlists. However things turn out, I wish you well through the next few months. The good news is that you shouldnt have to do this more than once.
With sincere regards,
Skip Brass, MD PhD
