Waitlist FAQs

It is difficult to provide an exact date on which you will hear. At this point, offers of admission have been extended to applicants who were initially accepted to the program. We are now waiting to see how many of these applicants will confirm their offers of admission. The deadline date to do so is May 1. However, that does not mean that you will have any news on May 2. You may, in fact, hear before May 1, as we approach that deadline, or shortly thereafter, or anytime during the summer months. Rest assured, as soon as there is any change in your status on the waiting list, the decision will be communicated to you immediately, be it an offer of admission, or a final refusal from the waiting list. When that will be, we unfortunately cannot give you an exact time at this point.

Information with respect to positions on the waiting list are generally not shared with applicants. This is because, at this point in the proceedings, it does not give you any sense whatsoever of what the final outcome may be, or what your chances are of being offered admission. Each year is a new and unique year. In some years, the waiting list for the program you have applied to is not accessed at all in order to meet the departmental quota, and so even the top ranked applicant on the waiting list will be refused. In other years, almost all applicants on the waiting list will be offered admission in order to meet the departmental quota. The situation varies from year to year. You will be notified of any change in your status immediately.  

If you have been offered admission to an alternate choice program, and intend to study in that program next year at Concordia (in the event that things do not work out with your wait-listed priority program) – then yes, you should confirm that offer and follow all procedures required to secure your place in that program.

We always assume you remain interested in your priority choice, and we will instruct the admissions office to apply your confirmation deposit to the priority choice if you are admitted from the waiting list. You would then receive a revised offer of admission, and modify your course registration, accordingly.

If you are subsequently refused for your priority program for which you are currently wait-listed, you would then simply carry on with the alternate choice, and you will have met all deadlines to confirm, and be registered.

Absolutely not. We will always assume that you remain interested in your priority choice program, and if a place becomes available and we come to your name on the waiting list, we will instruct the admissions office to issue an offer of admission immediately. The fact that you have confirmed your offer in an alternate program at Concordia will not change this process at all, please rest assured.

Please email tony.cuco@concordia.ca to inform us in writing.

However, please keep in mind that if you do cancel your application, your status and position on the waiting list will be affected, as you will be removed from consideration for the program. It will then not be possible to be added back afterwards.

This is a difficult question for us to advise you on, as whatever you decide to do is a very personal decision. As indicated above, we are not able to give you a definite timeframe in which you will have a final answer. We certainly don’t want you to miss an opportunity elsewhere, but we are not able to expedite anything on our end with respect to the process and the time it takes for us to determine who will or will not be offered admission from the waiting list. It is therefore entirely your decision to make as to what you decide to do with an offer you have in hand from another institution.