Vanderbilt considering interest in an unfinished PhD application

ItsJustSchool
Fri, 12 Dec 2014 18:38:49 +0000

They are simply “squaring up the edges.” If you were a bit out of touch with reality, shall we say, and they never accepted or denied your application, you could cause a headache for them. You could say submittal of references are out of your control- why were you not notified so that you could rectify this? The school could have to devote resources, if you were not quite “with it”, to dealing with you. Perhaps it is easier just to shoot out an email to all who begin the process.

This is done by many schools. You are procedurally an applicant when you have turned in a partial application. That way, you are followed all the way to the end, and not left hanging at any point. Schools even go so far as to calculate you as an “applicant” (though you have zero chance of admittance) in their acceptance percentage calculations.

They do it as cheap insurance. You have to be included in some process until the end of the cycle, in order not to be lost in their system. I agree with you, or at least what I infer from your post, that it would be just as easy to send a letter saying that you will not be considered for admission this cycle because, as of the deadline, you had not submitted a complete application package. That makes more sense to me.

If you apply during a later year, are you now supposed to check “yes” in the “Have you ever applied for admission to Vanderbilt in the past?” box?

I would not worry too much about it.