Why schools don't send offers all at once

Graduate School
1

<p>Why don’t graduate school (engineering) send admission offers all at once to all the accepted students? Is there a reason for this?</p>

2

<p>Enrollment management. Most graduate programs have limited funding and need to be careful not to overenroll.</p>

3

<p>If they can admit X students, then they usually send out X offers all at once. After that it descends into chaos - at random intervals some of those students will turn the offer down, which means they are constantly sending out NEW offers to replace the rejections.</p>

<p>They could send out >X offers, knowing that some will reject it, but most schools are reluctant to risk admitting more students than they want.</p>

4

<p>Waitlist management; limited funding offers; long admissions process; etc.</p>