Your decisions are available online -- you can log into the online application to view your decision. Everyone is getting an email, in waves spaced 15 minutes apart, with their user name and password, and the announcement that the decisions are ready. We started the emails with the East Coast at 3 p.m. CST, and will conclude with the West Coast at 4:30 p.m. CST. If, for some reason, you do not get this email, and you have never logged in before, your user name is your email address, and you can look up your password by clicking "Forgot your password?"
When you log in, you will be given one last chance to not view your decision online, in case you were just strolling by and suddenly tripped and logged into your application and didn't even want to find out your decision that way. If you do indeed want to know your decision right now, you can proceed and see your letter.
We admissionscats would just like you know that despite our 45 percent increase in applications we are sending decisions a day earlier than planned. The goal date was actually December 14. So, even if I had told you what the goal date was, I would still have been wrong.
What decisions mean
Sometimes they can be confusing.
Admit - Okay, this one is not confusing.
But we would like to take this opportunity to remind you that your offer of admission does not bind you to the University of Chicago. You can wait until May 1 to reply to us. However, if you reply right away, you will have your pick of housing.
Remember, you are still required to fill out the midyear report when it becomes available online in January.
Defer - If you were deferred, it means that we have put you in the regular notification pool. You do not have to reapply, but you are welcome to give us more information. In fact, you are required, along with admitted students, to fill out the midyear report in January.
The defer letter says that we need to check on your senior grades, and to look at the rest of the applicant pool -- this is true. Deferral is an actual admission decision -- it does not mean we did not read your file, and it does not mean you will necessarily be denied later (two uncommon but troubling misconceptions.) This year we deferred more people than we admitted or denied (but not more people than we admitted and denied combined, just to be clear!)
If you requested an early action alumni interview, never had one, and were deferred, we will do everything we can to see to it that you will get a regular notification alumni interview. If you live near campus, you can interview on campus until January 11 by calling 773-702-8650. If you did not request an early action alumni interview but still want an interview, you can request one online until December 15, the deadline to request regular notification interviews.
Defer Incomplete - An entirely separate letter from "Defer." This means that we did not receive enough of your application to render a decision, despite gentle prodding by displaying your credentials to you and sending you an email telling you that you were in danger of being deferred. But don't worry -- you have the entire regular notification cycle to send in the missing documents, notice of which is now available on the credentials checker.
Deny - This is your final decision for the year. You may not reapply this year.
What happens next
We put paper decisions in the mail today.
You will be able to view your decision for a few weeks, after which denied applicants will not be able to log in again, but admitted and deferred applicants will still have full functionality on the online application.
We have a pizza and cake party (yes, nothing has changed since our birthday parties in third grade) and go on vacation.
Regular notification applications pour in while we are away. The deadline is January 2.
We come back to find a big mail monster waiting for us.
Everyone - students who were admitted or deferred early action, and regular notification applicants - fills out the midyear report in January.
