Peabody is the building, Jack is the dog, and I'm Dean J (she/her, btw).

There are years of posts here. The search box works well, but please consider the age of the posts when you find them. The college admission process changes every year!

References to emailing updates to your application are from the years when we didn't have the current applicant portal. Please follow the instructions in your portal to submit all updates.

Welcome to the blog and thanks for reading!

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

You've been waiting for it...notification update

It's the information for which you've been waiting!

Please read this entire post and if you pass this information along to a friend, pass the entire entry, not just a snippet. From now on, letters of a kind will go out together. There will be no "waves" of letters. The US Post Office will obviously get some of you (Virginians) your letters first. Those of you in rural areas or far off places will obviously have to wait a few days longer for letters to arrive.

Friday, March 30th - Decision letters will be mailed
Friday, March 30th, 5:30 PM - Those who submitted applications online will see a decision on the status page of their online account. Please do not hammer the online application site. The decisions will not appear before 5:30 PM. Check time.gov if you want to keep an eye on the official time.

The Jefferson Scholarship Foundation will notify the winners of their scholarship this weekend, at the end of the selection process. If you are a Jefferson Scholarship Finalist, you know that you have been admitted, though notification from the Office of Admission will not be made early.

Some special scholarship groups will send notification letters before our notification letters. We have verified decisions, so if you receive a letter from another office awarding you something, it's an early indication that an admit letter is coming to you.


Every year, letters sent by other offices create a flurry of phone calls to the Office of Admission. Please understand that there are no appeals when it comes to academic awards or distinctions. In addition, for privacy reasons, we cannot give out decisions over the phone and we can only talk to you, a family member, or a school official about you. Please see my post from the winter about calling the Office of Admission with questions if you are thinking of doing so.

I don't know if knowing the notification date makes you more worried or puts you at ease, but I hope it's the later! Hang in there!

Late night update: Remember that all decision letters are thin!