Regular Decision FAQs

First, that chocolate I featured in the last post?  Totally gone.  Within 24 hours.  What can I say?  Committee is draining.  We've still got more work ahead of us, but I wanted to give you a quick update on what to expect regarding regular decision.  Here are a few questions we've been getting:

When are you going to mail the decision letters?  Please say it's soon!
Our official notification date is April 1; we are hoping to have letters in your hands even earlier.  I'll put up a post on the blog when the letters are finally dispatched!

Do you e-mail admission decisions?
Nope.  We believe in the power of the old-fashioned Big Envelope.  It will make you feel like a rock star.  Update: we do e-mail anyone living overseas, simply because regular mail can take so long to arrive.  We give the snail-mail letters a bit of a head start just to be fair.  And of course international students will also receive paper copies of the decision letter.

Will my financial aid information be inside this fancy-pants Big Envelope?

Sadly, no.  Our financial aid awards are mailed separately, usually within a week of the admission decisions.  We have a financial aid staff of three and they're working hard to put together aid packages as quickly as possible.  You can speed up this process by making sure all your documents are in order.  Otherwise you'll just get a letter telling you to submit more paperwork, and that's not at all exciting.

When will I learn about merit scholarships?

If you're selected as a recipient for the Harvey S Mudd Merit Award or the FIRST Robotics Scholarship, this information will be included with your admit letter.  President's Scholars Program finalists will be notified via e-mail and brought to campus for an interview on April 9; we'll select the awardees a few days later.  National Merit Scholarships are given to any student who is a National Merit Finalist, is not matched with a scholarship through NMSC, and names HMC as his or her top choice school.  So if you're a National Merit Finalist, it's safe to assume you will receive an award of some kind.

Will you have some sort of on-campus program for admitted students? 
Absolutely!  It will include cookies, mathemagics, unicycles, research presentations, bonfires, and anything else we can dream up between now and the second weekend in April.  There will be more details in your admitted student packet (see, I told you the envelope was important). 

It's back to work for now, but please let me know if you have any questions about the regular decision process -- I'll update the FAQs accordingly!