Is it decision time yet?

Since every college and university has a different timeframe for making decisions, students who have applied by now are understandably getting a bit antsy about when they will here a decision.

The Chicago office is beginning to receive a bunch of phone calls, emails and Facebook posts from freshmen students who are asking things like:

"I applied to UIC four weeks ago, when will I have a decision?"

Well, here's UIC's rundown of our decision making process.

First off, it's important to understand the type of admissions processing that we do. Unlike the majority of state universities in Illinois, we're on a process that is called "batch processing" versus the more common "rolling admission."

For students who apply to schools with rolling admission, the nice thing is that you'll likely get a decision more quickly. Also, the order in which you apply becomes a significant factor in the admissions process.

In UIC's system, the order is not as important as the strength of your application relative to the other students applying by the deadline. The advantage here is that as long as you apply by the deadline, your application will be fully reviewed, however, that "relative to other students part", tends to slow the process down.

Most freshmen will actually learn of their decision between January and March. This is because, by January (the month of the deadline), we have a pretty good idea who is applying to the school. We'll be able to assess your application relative to everyone else who is applying. We'll also have had a chance to review your personal statement and take a close look at the coursework you've taken throughout your high school career.

Here's another:
"But my friend has already received a decision, and I applied before them!"

It's true that we begin making a limited amount of decisions beginning in November. The students that are admitted between November and December tend to have strong enough GPAs, test scores, and classes that they are clearly going to be admissible to the university. These students tend to represent the top 15% or so of applicants. The goal of the university is to notify everyone of their freshmen decisions before April 1st, with the bulk of decisions going out between January and March.