Deadlines for regular decision applications are coming up or already passed, and once your applications are in the long wait for results begins. This is the most stressful part of college admissions for many students since you can no longer affect the outcome; you just have to wait to learn your fate. While this can feel like an endless period of time, don’t worry, it’ll be over before you know it.
In this article, we’ll tell you when you can expect to hear back from various universities you applied to RD. This parallels our article on ED admissions decisions. Let’s jump in!
Admission Decision Release Dates
| School | Decision Release Date |
| Babson College | Mid-March |
| Boston College | April 1st |
| Boston University | Late March |
| Brandeis | April 1st |
| Brown | Early April |
| Caltech | Mid-March |
| Carnegie Mellon University | April 1st |
| Case Western | March 19th |
| Columbia | Early April |
| Cornell | Early April |
| Dartmouth | Late March-Early April |
| Duke | Late March-Early April |
| Emory | April 1st |
| Georgetown | April 1st |
| Georgia Tech | TBA |
| Harvard | End of March |
| Johns Hopkins | April 1st |
| MIT | Mid-March |
| NYU | April 1st |
| Northeastern | April 1st |
| Northwestern | Late March |
| Notre Dame | Late March |
| Princeton | April |
| Rice | April 1st |
| Rochester Institute of Technology | Mid-March |
| SMU | Mid-March |
| Stanford | April 1st |
| Tufts | April 1st |
| Tulane | April 1st |
| UC System | March |
| UChicago | Late March |
| University of Michigan | Early April |
| UNC-Chapel Hill | March 31st |
| UPenn | April |
| USC | April 1st |
| University of Virginia | April 1st |
| Vanderbilt | Late March |
| Wake Forest | April 1st |
| Washington and Lee | April 1st |
| Washington University of St Louis | April 1st |
| William & Mary | April 1st |
| Yale | April 1st |
What Does “Mid-March” Mean?
Many universities are irritatingly vague about when they will release their decisions. This is intentional; colleges want to give themselves leeway, and not make promises that they can’t deliver on. While this causes irritation for students, universities have judged this annoyance better than the alternative.
Mid-March generally means you can expect to see your results anywhere from the 10th to the 20th, although this can and will vary depending on the school and year; just because results were released on a certain date last year doesn’t mean they will be this time around. When the results come out is dependent on a number of different factors.
The reason for this uncertainty is the number of applications schools receive. Colleges receive and need to process tens of thousands of applications. Each of these needs to be read, sometimes multiple times weighed, evaluated, and judged in the context of its peers.
While schools want to say with certainty when applicants will hear back, they don’t know how many applications they will receive. Therefore, they don’t want to make commitments they won’t be able to deliver on. Admissions officers are dedicated professionals, but they are people too, and can’t spend all their time reading applications in order to finish before a hard deadline.
Thus while softer deadlines are unpopular with students, they are unlikely to go anywhere, especially if the trend of increasing applications continues.
What is “Ivy Day?”
All eight Ivy League schools release their decisions on the same day. While the exact date for this has not yet been decided on for 2022, we can assume it will be in early April this year. They do this on purpose, it is part of their branding as an elite group of schools, and helps bolster their prestige and reputation.
For students, it is nice to know when exactly to expect results, but due to the number of people trying to access these systems at once, crashes and long load times are quite common.
Other schools will sometimes release their results at the same time to try and take advantage of the cache associated with Ivy Day, but they generally receive far less attention.
Don’t Panic
The most tempting thing for you to do now is sit and stew on your applications, agonizing over the long hours and minutes until decisions are released. We urge you not to do this. For one thing, it’s terribly dull; just waiting for something to happen. For another, you still have high school left to do! Ace a test, continue your activities, hang out with friends! Enjoy your final hurrah before college starts; you can’t impact the results anymore, so why waste energy worrying about them?
You may get into your dream school, or end up falling in love with a school that you applied to on a whim and got into. Do not begin making specific plans about attending college until you are accepted, but making general plans about finances, housing, or what you want to study is a good way to spend time. Overall, we urge you to enjoy yourself.
Final Thoughts
While it may take longer than you want for admissions decisions to come out, do not worry, they’re coming quicker than you expect. This wait will feel long and agonizing, but that’s another reason to keep busy; it makes the time go quicker.
College admissions is a stressful time, and the stress doesn’t necessarily end just because the apps are finished. We urge you to take some time for yourself and to do things you enjoy. Make the most of your time, and your high school activities; you’ll be off to college before you know it!
