[BostonCard]

Bear in mind that the primary factor in setting the calendar is probably what other graduate schools are doing.  For a lot of reasons, it makes sense to have a calendar with broadly similar dates as other programs.  Applicants want to do all their applications at around the same time.  Recommendation writers (and I say that as someone who went through the process last fall) want to deal with submitting all their recommendations at around the same time and don't want to have to track which recommendation has been submitted to which school for which student.  Interviews (if that is part of the process) should broadly happen at around the same time, though with Zoom this is less pressing.  And students will want to hear about acceptances and weigh which schools to go to at around the same time, and they definitely want to hear from all schools before they have to commit to any of them.  In practice, that means applications happen in the fall, interviews in the winter, and acceptances in the early spring, with a typical commitment deadline in mid-April.

Is there room to compress that a little bit?  Sure.  But this is not a situation where power hungry bureaucrats are wielding power by pushing arbitrary deadlines.

BC

[BostonCard]

Bear in mind that the primary factor in setting the calendar is probably what other graduate schools are doing.  For a lot of reasons, it makes sense to have a calendar with broadly similar dates as other programs.  Applicants want to do all their applications at around the same time.  Recommendation writers (and I say that as someone who went through the process last fall) want to deal with submitting all their recommendations at around the same time and don't want to have to track which recommendation has been submitted to which school for which student.  Interviews (if that is part of the process) should broadly happen at around the same time, though with Zoom this is less pressing.  And students will want to hear about acceptances and weigh which schools to go to at around the same time, and they definitely want to hear from all schools before they have to commit to any of them.  In practice, that means applications happen in the fall, interviews in the winter, and acceptances in the early spring, with a typical commitment deadline in mid-April.

Is there room to compress that a little bit?  Sure.  But this is not a situation where power hungry bureaucrats are wielding power by pushing arbitrary deadlines.

BC