Regular Decision Notification Dates

Congratulations! You’ve submitted all of your college applications. You’ve spent countless hours studying for the SAT, researching colleges, maintaining your GPA, and writing your personal statement. The hard part is over. Now the waiting begins.

There are a lot of important college admissions dates to keep track of, especially during the fall of your senior year, but when are regular decision notification dates? In this article, we’ll give you a comprehensive list of regular decision release dates and what to expect next.

Regular decision notifications are released several months after early decision or early action notifications. This delay is because regular decision deadlines are later. But exactly when are regular decision deadlines?

Regular decision dates vary. Typically, though, regular decision notification dates occur from Mid-March to Early April. It is also worth noting that Ivy League colleges coordinate their release dates each year. Although this day changes year to year, Ivy League colleges always send out their decisions in unison.

Here’s a list of regular decision notification dates for popular colleges and universities. These dates will help you anticipate when you should hear back from colleges. Remember, colleges may postpone (or advance) their regular decision notification dates as spring approaches.

Generally speaking, the latest you’ll hear back from a college is usually the first week of April because May 1st is National College Decision Day. This means that unless you applied early, you must file your official college decision by May 1st.

Additionally, you will also want to let other colleges know that you will not be attending. Although it’s not required, you should notify other colleges to help them better manage their waitlist. In other words, whenever you officially decline an offer of admission, a college can offer your spot to another student.

Sometimes, instead of an acceptance or rejection, you may be placed on a waitlist. This means that as admission slots open up, students placed on the waitlist will be admitted. The tricky thing about being placed on a waitlist is that you may not hear a final decision until August, which is right before school starts.

Being placed on a waitlist can feel confusing, especially as you consider whether or not you want to remain on the waitlist. There are a lot of factors to consider, particularly when it comes to how being waitlisted could affect your financial aid. That’s why it’s important to understand what to do if you’ve been waitlisted. You’ll also want to review how to write an email to a college admissions office so that your correspondence continues to be professional and polished.