If you’ve reached the admissions decision stage of the application process, congratulations! Your admissions journey is almost over, after months of hard work and anticipation. Depending on whether you’ve applied to an ISAAGNY member school, you may receive all of your NYC admissions decisions on the same date, or they may arrive on different days. Regardless, you’ll ultimately receive all of your decisions, which means it's time to interpret them. 

First, an important reminder: as a parent, you cannot control your admissions outcomes. Each decision will not make or break your child’s educational future; regardless of each individual decision, you will ultimately find the best school for your child. While receiving decisions can be a very high-stakes, stressful time for families, we encourage you to remember that this is one moment amid your child’s long educational journey, and it will all work out in the end (we promise!). 

When you receive your admissions decisions, you’ll get one of three answers: a NYC admissions offer (acceptance), waitlist, or regret. Let’s break down each outcome: 

Acceptance

Congratulations, your child has received a NYC admissions offer! Take a moment to enjoy how gratifying it is to match with a school you’re interested in. 

If you were accepted to your first-choice school and you have no hesitation in accepting the offer, you should accept it immediately to secure your spot, and decline any other offers you received. Not only does it allow you to move forward with matriculation, it’s the courteous thing to do; your place at the schools you decline can now be offered to other deserving families on the waitlist. 

If you received multiple NYC admissions offers and are not immediately sure which one to accept, that’s okay! Your offer(s) will come with a reply date(s), your deadline for making a decision. You can take all the time you need, up until that reply date(s), to reassess your priorities and decide which school is the best fit. Many schools will offer additional events or campus visits to help you make your decision - we strongly recommend taking advantage of these opportunities to learn more about the school. Read more about how to choose the perfect school for your family here. 

Acceptance and Financial Aid

If your family was accepted to a school, and had previously applied for financial aid at that school, you’ll typically receive your financial aid package offer alongside your acceptance decision. It goes without saying that you should consider your financial aid offer carefully, and don’t hesitate to call the school to ask for more information. 

Waitlist Offer

Receiving a waitlist answer is often the most confusing outcome for parents and students. Your initial feeling will probably be disappointment; it’s okay to sit with that feeling for a beat, but you’ll soon have to decide how to move forward. 

Your first step after receiving a waitlist offer is to decide whether you like the school enough to stay on the waitlist. You’ll typically evaluate this after receiving all of your other admissions decisions, so you can compare this school against others that you may have been accepted to. If you would like to keep your spot on the waitlist, you need to follow the directions in the waitlist notification to secure your spot - do this as soon as possible upon deciding to stay on the waitlist. 

If you don’t need to keep your spot on the waitlist for any reason, you should also move quickly to let the school know. Letting go of your waitlist spot in a timely fashion is the courteous way to help another family receive that spot. 

Letter of Regret

If you receive a letter of regret, you and your student will probably be disappointed, sad, and/or frustrated. That’s understandable: you poured time into this application, and rejection always stings. Allow yourself to feel those emotions, but consider using the decision as an opportunity to reframe rejection for your student. We believe that rejection letters are opportunities: they mean that the school appreciates your time and effort, but thinks that you’re a better fit for another school. In other words, they’re trying to do your family a favor by encouraging you to attend another school where your child can thrive. 

We are entirely genuine when we say that the admissions process always works out for each family. While a rejection can rightly be extremely disappointing, it's simply the first step; the next step is to find the school that is the perfect fit, and your student will benefit.

We Can Help Assess Your NYC Admissions Offers

The decision phase of the admissions process can be very stressful - sometimes more stressful than the application phase! We at Admit NY are here to help - we’ve crafted an Admissions Decision Package that can help you sort through your NYC admissions offers and choose the best school for your child. Learn more about our Admissions Decision Package here.