Rolling admissions clarification

[lilninja]

You all might already know this (if so, I apologize), but I learned today that non-rolling admissions is not what I thought it was. I was under the assumption that those schools waited until some common acceptance date in order to give everyone a chance to interview. In fact, the schools do grant acceptances thoughout the fall and winter, but do not fill the entire class. While this is nice, it does sound like it would be a lot tougher in the spring, when there might be only 10 spots left. I mean, I know they "save" spots, but I think they will have filled msot of the class by then. So non-rolling admissions is really rolling-admissions to a certain point. I hope this makes sense.

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[SMW]

Drat!! But thanks for the info.

 

[tBw]

huh! Thanks for clearing that up lilninja...I had also been thinking non-rolling admissions meant no admissions till a certain date...oh well

 

[coop]

i think you are generalizing too much. Some places have a true non-rolling admission process. Harvard sends out everything on one date at the end of february, pitt does something similiar, maybe some schools do as you described, but I've never heard anyone refer to such a system as non-rolling. Where did you get this info from? was it with regard to a specific school?

 

[SMW]

What about Columbia? True non-rolling or not?

 

[lilninja]

Coop - I am generalizing to a certain extent. While most medical schools have rolling admissions, a select few like to state that they do not - I know that some truly do not make decisions until a certain date (Harvard is the only one I have heard of). I have noticed that when I have called schools, they have often tried to play down the level of timing by saying "Don't worry, we are not on rolling admissions anyway." But when I asked them about the details (I have talked to people at Cornell, USC, and Dartmouth) they all said the same thing. They have all said that they are not rolling, yet they accept people before everyone is interviewed - they just save spaces until everyone is interviewed. They do not start accepting right away like many schools do, but rather say they will start accepting in January or March (but this is still well before everyone is interviewed).
"Non-rolling" is just the term I used to explain schools who did not classify themselves as rolling admissions, which seems to be the majority.
It must sound confusing - I am not 100% awake right this minute - Hope this makes more sense.

 

[lilninja]

Oh, I didn't apply to Columbia, so I don't know about that one.