Hi everyone,

Harvard says on its site that decisions will be released "by late March" This phrase necessarily means that decisions must be sent out no later than March 20th.

LATE MARCH neccessarily means that decisions will not be let out in early nor in mid March, the first part and most of the second part of March.(March 1st through March 15th)

If we employ the meaning of the word "BY", we will reach the conclusion that the most likely time for decisions to be released is the last five business days before what ratinally constitutes LATE MARCH, i.e., BY LATE MARCH is the days from March 16 through March 20.

Having said the forgoing, Harvard's course of dealing over the past three years also supports this expectation since most admisions decisoins of the past three years were realeased in the time period from March 15 through March 20.

Spring Break should have nothing to do with tthis matter because Harvard has made a confirmed promise that decisions shall be delivered no later that LATE MARCH. All of us know that Harvard should have been awaire that it would encounter Spring Break BY LATE MARCH.

In 2008 decisions were released as of today, on March 17.
I hope my wishes are right......
Good luck.....

Depends how you define late. Good luck!

This is agonising.

There's been 60 views of this post, right? If anyone hears, please let us know! I need to sate my obsession.

Should also mention that "by" does not mean before, it can also mean "at the point specified". "By 7pm..." could mean at 7pm.

Yes! Ranting gives me more stars!

'by late March' doesn't necessarily mean anything other than 'before 26th March', which is the only concrete date that has been cited. There is no universally accepted definition of 'late March'. Chill out. The decision won't come any sooner for all our hoping and agonising. It will most likely be next Monday.

Lextra! I'm trying! I drank a lot of coffee this morning!

Not aimed at you :)

Send some of that coffee over here, I'm practically falling asleep on my keyboard today.

Lol, you can have mine. My nerves are shot! I'm flitting between youtube, my email account and this Board - it has some kind of hold over me!

In other news, David Beckham is a bit fragile, isn't he. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgOemKqIzEE&feature=popular

hahahaa.
I perfectly understand your eargerness, since I'm going through it too!

BUT, why don't we make a pact, let's try to chill a little bit until next Monday. I'm PRETTY sure HLS will issue its desicions on MARCH 22, 2010. I think by late March we should understand that BEFORE the latest day of March, we will hear from them. That's it.

On the other hand, I'm worried bc my application status hasn't changed AT ALL since November. Is it too weird they haven't even checked my recommendations?

Good luck !

Lol! Ok, a pact! I'll do that! Let me placate you for a second though. My application status hasn't changed either. The Embark system is a bit glitchy me thinks. The recommendations thingy is a bit weird. If you've sent in a recommendation by letter then that will appear as received in the "track your status" page. Otherwise, the online recommendations in the side bar will read submitted.

My recommendations appear as 'received' in the 'recommendations' page (they were all submitted online) but I don't think there is anything to worry about. HLS would have checked with you if anything was missing. They may not always update that page.

Maybe here's some schadenfreude for you -
sometimes when I view my application form, there are all sorts of formatting errors (university names overlapping in text boxes, half of one text box seemingly missing) but I was unable to 'fix' these at the time of submitting. God knows what HLS sees, whether it appears correctly to them or not. I am resigned now, anyway :) and glad to have tried irrespective of outcome! (Though it will likely still smart when I get a big fat rejection :p)

I'm sure you'll be fine lextra! You seem sharp! My recommendations also read "received", not "submitted" as I mistakenly said earlier. My form's formatting was also responsible for a few of my more recent heart palpitations. They're not substantive problems though; just some glitchy things. I think all the data has been captured by the system regardless of what it looks like.

The only way to know for sure, rather than speculating, is to call and ask, attempting to glean any information that admissions staff will be willing to divulge. I have speculated for weeks that the release date is March 22, and while I am anxious about the possibility of receiving word this week, it is probable that the delay will continue for another five or so days.

Agreed. I think your speculation is correct re: March 22. I am loath to call, though. The one thing we can be sure of is that they will let us know when decisions are released; calling isn't likely to do anything other than annoy admissions staff (who are probably fielding many such calls at the moment in addition to loads of expedite requests). I think any request for the specific date is likely to be denied.

This took my mind off it for 3 mins. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUNmLuNdiL8

Agreed. I think your speculation is correct re: March 22. I am loath to call, though. The one thing we can be sure of is that they will let us know when decisions are released; calling isn't likely to do anything other than annoy admissions staff (who are probably fielding many such calls at the moment in addition to loads of expedite requests). I think any request for the specific date is likely to be denied.

The calling idea is not bad but I\'m a foreign student and cannot make the call from my office :(.

My recommendation status says: \"No current status. Please check back later\". It\'s been like this since November and my recommenders submitted them online. Now I\'m worried.

That's fine. If they submitted them online and it reads received then they've been received. It's only for paper recommendations that change the status.