AAS Working Group Recommends New Best Practices for Graduate Admissions

Working Group on Graduate Admissions
American Astronomical Society
 

The AAS Working Group on Graduate Admissions (WGGA) wishes to highlight two recommendations for immediate adoption by the community to improve the current astronomy-wide graduate admissions process. These recommendations are drawn from research detailed in the AAS Graduate Admissions Task Force Report (GATF), and are a part of a broader set of best practices that the WGGA is preparing to submit to the AAS Board of Trustees for a pending official endorsement.

1. 1 April “Down-Select” Date
   We strongly encourage applicants with early offers from multiple PhD programs to narrow their choice down to their top two programs by 1 April.
   
   Declining offers in a timely fashion (rather than in the final few days of the admissions process) allows programs to extend offers to new prospective students, gives those students more time to make their decisions, and supports better management of program yield and planned class size. The GATF report found that between 2018-2023, 45% of applicants who received offers received them from three or more schools; this represents a significant number of offers that will eventually be declined. When possible, doing so by 1 April increases the likelihood of these offers being successfully extended to other waiting applicants.
   
   The WGGA wants to emphasize that this is a recommendation and not an official or enforceable deadline. Per the  “April 15th Resolution” agreed to by the Council of Graduate Schools, “[s]tudents are under no obligation to respond to offers of financial support prior to April 15; earlier deadlines for acceptance of such offers violate the intent of this Resolution.” Applicants should take all the time they need and make full use of the information offered to them by prospective programs, advisers, peers, and other public resources (for example, the Astrobites guide to choosing a graduate school) when making this important choice. Our intent is for the 1 April down-select date to serve as a guide for the decision-making process and a target date for applicants who are considering multiple offers.
    
2. Program Transparency and Communication
   We strongly encourage graduate programs to clearly communicate dates, decisions, and updates on their admissions process. In particular, whenever possible, programs should commit to and share key dates (via website updates, emails, or similar) when they will share news with applicants.
   
   The GATF report highlighted poor communication and opaque timeline information as a significant source of stress for applicants, who noted that ambiguity on when they would receive application decisions or updates was especially difficult. This uncertainty can place enormous pressure on programs and applicants alike to make critical decisions about offers and acceptances with incomplete information or on extremely short timescales.
   
   Clearly stated “notification dates” from programs, for example, would inform applicants that they can expect concrete news on their application — admission, rejection, or placement on a waitlist — by a specific date (it is, of course, crucial that programs are able to then follow through on this promise). This gives applicants a clearer and less stressful timeline for when they can expect news, and when they will have a complete set of information regarding their grad school choices and can proceed to the decision-making stage. The WGGA also encourages programs to send rejections as soon as candidates are removed from future selection rather than waiting to send acceptance and rejection letters simultaneously.
   
   The WGGA recognizes that not all decision timelines can be easily predicted, particularly at later stages in the application process (for example, offers from waitlists). However, even committing to regular check-in dates where applicants’ status is confirmed or updated can keep lines of communication open and increase transparency for students. 

We hope that programs and applicants will adopt and adhere to these best practices during the ongoing AY25-26 admissions cycle, and that this will make the process more streamlined, less stressful, and more effective for all participants.