And the Decision is...

As Greg has said, he's "99% sure" he's going to Georgia Tech. We've paid our deposit, submitted a prioritized list of dorms and notified UVA and U of Illinois that Greg won't be attending. The final 1%, and only remaining uncertainty, is his waitlist status at Stanford. I don't think any of us are expecting him to be accepted there given the long odds, but there's still a chance (and a few crossed fingers).

Greg made is final decision about a week before the May 1 deadline. He'd decided on GT preliminarily and intuitively by mid-April and was living with the decision. Since this is such an important step in his life I encouraged Greg to validate his gut feeling with a few more hours of research and a 'plusses and minuses' analysis.

GT was still the clear winner over UVA after this process. The big factors that swung in Tech's direction were the strength/reputation of GT's engineering program and its proximity to home. Early in the process Greg was more interested in getting out of Georgia, but apparently this feeling changed as the decision loomed. Greg was also interested in a strong liberal arts curriculum to pair with his engineering focus. UVA won on this point, but in the end Greg weighted this as less important than the engineeing curriculum.

Georgia Tech is a great school and I'm very proud of Greg's acceptance and his decision to attend. I know he'll have continued success and great college experience there.

Dear Mr. Cobb

Today is decision announcement day at UVA and Duke :-)




March 26, 2009

Gregory Cobb
Roswell, GA 30075
United States

Dear Mr. Cobb:

Congratulations on your offer of admission to the University of Virginia! One of the greatest pleasures in being an admission dean is inviting distinguished and talented students to join our academic community. We acknowledge your achievements and express our confidence in your continued success. On behalf of the Admission Committee, it is my pleasure to extend this offer of admission to you. We have mailed you an official letter with important enclosures which you should receive shortly...

Greg W. Roberts
Dean of Admission

Admissions Notifications Going Online

We're getting close to when admissions decisions are announced (roughly the start of April). MIT recently announced that they'd be publishing their decisions a couple of weeks early this year (for a very clever reason) and "exclusively on-line". Clearly this is the way all schools will communicate decisions in the future.

Greg heard from University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign several weeks ago. That acceptance was posted online, followed a week later by the 'big envelope'. Just today Georgia Tech rolled out their online notification system for the first time. Fortunately Greg was accepted there as well. He's now into both of his 'safety' schools. I wonder how we'll hear from the other three?

Update: I checked their admissions sites and here's how "the other three" seem to notify applicants:

• Stanford: will send an email to applicants after 5pm PT on April 1
• UVA: Traditional letters and status available on your personal application status page on their site.
• Duke: It seems like they email you with instructions for how to check online

Update II: ...and here's more detail from the UVA Admissions blog on when and how to see your decision.

MIT Decision Day: 2 Weeks Early This Year

Matt McGann just posted on the MIT Admissions blog that admission decisions would be posted online on Saturday 3/14, at 1:59 pm.

At first I scratched my head. This is more than two weeks early! How does an overloaded admissions department get through all those applications and accelerate their decision by this much?

Once I read the comments, and Matt's post more carefully it became clear. He wrote:

"Receiving your decision online is as easy as pi. When decisions are released Saturday at 1:59pm"

Hmmm... easy as pi. 3/14 at 1:59...

3.14159 = pi. :-)

Clever these MIT guys... Happy pi day! (at least for those smart and lucky enough to be admitted.)