So, you have hit the submit button and had one peaceful night of sleep knowing you don’t have to cram all your hopes and dreams into another 250 word essay. Now what you get to look forward to is that sweat inducing anxiety of whether you will get an interview or not.

Now, most schools that have an ounce of compassion will say you can expect to be contacted b/w X and Y date. And every round of admissions, we extended invites up till the last minute on that LAST day. This doesn’t happen because you aren’t an awesome candidate. It happens because no one got to your application till that last day. You have no control over when an admission officer reads your application and pushes you to interview. Read that last sentence again. And believe it. What this means is that the person who got an interview 8 seconds before the deadline is no less compelling to adcom than the first person who got invited. So relax and DO NOT contact the admissions office to repeatedly ask when you can expect to be invited. That is really annoying and a great way to ensure that their response to you is “Never. Never is when you can expect an invite”.

So what can you do while you wait?

• Make sure you have checked your spam filter so school interview invites will come through.
• Let the admissions office know if you have any travel coming up that will mean you won’t be able to have an interview where you listed you live. This doesn’t mean you can’t travel it just means you have to let them know ASAP of your travel.
• Email the admissions office with any noteworthy updates to your application- e.g. a promotion, raise, award. But don’t email them ALL the time. And remember just continuing to do your job and not getting fired is not something you need to update them on.