What does a rolling admissions mean?

I know that they will accept students in waves and that if you didn't get accepted, your app will roll over to the next wave cycle. My question is that if the school receives a rejection letter from a student which is.... basically the student declining certain school's acceptance offers due to the fact that they got the one they really wanted. So what does the school that got this rejection letter do now. Do they wait until the full forty five days are up and then send out a bulk of acceptances then, or will they send out acceptances before then, perhaps right after they received those declines from the students?
I'm wondering this because I want to know if I should be anticipating any acceptances from my schools in the middle to end of December or not. Or are my chances over until mid-January when the next wave officially starts?

 

I see what you're saying, but as far as the AZ dental school goes, they only send out a bare minimum of acceptances because they don't intend to fill their class at the beginning. But I can see what you mean for most schools when they do it that way. So as far as AZ goes, should I keep my tent up all of december?

 

MMMM.....Chocolate......That sounds good. Nothin' like 2 obsessed SDNers sharin' the moment. Although that moment may turn ugly the day only one of us gets that email. But we'll stay positive and say we both get that email at the exact same time and we share that one moment that will unite us for life.... Umm....that is....in a strictly professional Doctor Doctor context.