Here at The Paul Merage School of Business, all 4 of our MBA programs are on rolling admissions.  But what exactly does that mean for you as an applicant?

Basically, rolling admissions allows candidates to submit an application to the program within a large window of time period.  Though specific dates are posted as deadlines, these are considered “soft deadlines” and should be used only as a target date of submission.  For example if a target deadline is November 1st, the Admissions staff will still review applications on November 2nd, 12th, 21st, etc.  You get the idea.

Here are some pros and one con to rolling admissions:

Pros:

• Applicants are notified of their status within a few weeks of applying.
  • Instead of waiting till a specific date in the future, as an applicant, you are contacted as soon as your application is completely reviewed and a decision has been made.  Here at the Merage School, decisions are usually made within 4 weeks of the completion of your application.
• Applying earlier in the process improves the chance of being admitted and considered for fellowship.
  • There is a finite number of seats available for a class and a set amount of fellowship that is set aside.  The Merage School prides itself on having smaller class sizes which provides for a collaborative environment.  However, this makes it all the more competitive to join the program.  And though 60% of students in the Class of 2014 received some sort of fellowship, the amount of the fellowship varies student to student.
• Specific to the Merage School, rolling admissions allows the Admissions Office to review your application holistically. 
  • Instead of being compared and ranked next to other applicants, we are able to review who you are, where you are coming from, and where you want to go and determine if the Merage School will help you get there – all when we receive your completed application.  Fit is very important for us and we want to make sure that we review each application fairly and give it the time and attention you put into it.

Con:

• Open-ended decision date.
  • Because you are able to submit your application at any time during the admission cycle, the Admissions Office also has the flexibility of when to notify you of their decision.  This may cause some anxiety for those who wish to know final decisions by a certain date.  If this is the case for you, then simply notify the program office and we will try to accommodate to your deadline if possible.

So if you are applying to a business school on rolling admissions for Fall 2013, start your application sooner than later, make sure you have all supporting documents ready, and don’t worry about making it to the Admissions office by a certain date.  The important thing to remember is that you should submit your application at its best – no matter when that may be.