After Campus Preview Day

After Interviews: Important Information

What if I don't receive an internship offer?

Each year we have a very strong applicant pool and some qualified applicants are not placed in an internship prior to accepting admission to U-M. We encourage you to matriculate if you feel CSHPE is the right graduate program for you, even if you are not yet placed in an internship. If this is the case, Dr. Madden will work closely with you during the late spring and summer so that you can be placed in a role that aligns with your interests. Additional internship opportunities will become available after the traditional placement timeline.

Matriculating at U-M (Accepting Your Offer of Admission)

By April 15, 2023, which is the national admissions deadline as determined by the Council for Graduate Schools, please indicate whether you plan to matriculate at U-M.  To do this, you should respond to your official Rackham admission offer online via web application status (http://wolverineaccess.umich.edu). It is important that you matriculate to U-M before officially accepting an internship offer. 

Important: The decision to matriculate indicates that you are no longer considering other academic programs and have chosen to attend U-M in fall 2023. 

The "Two-Day" Rule: What if I receive multiple internship offers?

In some cases, a student may receive multiple internship offers. In order to ensure the internship placement does not pause, if you receive more than one offer, you will have two business days to decline the offers that are not your current most preferred offer.  In other words, if you receive more than one internship offer, you must decline all but one, that which you identify as the placement you are most interested in when considering all the ones you have been offered.  At that point in time, you are not required to commit to the single offer you are continuing to consider (that deadline is April 15).

To decline the offer(s) you are no longer considering, please send an email to each of the internship providers who have extended an offer to you, and copy cshpe.internships@umich.edu, to clearly identify which offer(s) are declining and which is your current most preferred offer, which you are continuing to consider.  After you communicate which internship offer is not your current preferred offer and decline it, that internship position can then be offered to another candidate, who is likely eagerly waiting to hear. Another way to think about this is that you must decline all but one offer, but you need not accept an offer until April 15, per the agreement through the Council for Graduate Schools (see below). 

If you know with certainty that your current preferred offer is your most preferred internship site out of all the internship sites, and that you will accept your offer with that specific internship site if you matriculate at U-M, you may communicate that to the internship provider and CSHPE. This will prevent you from receiving unnecessary communication from additional internship sites who could extend an offer to you, which you would not be interested in.  You are not required to express that your current preferred offer is your overall top choice. 

Each student in the master's program can pursue only one internship at the start of their program, so you should carefully consider what your priorities are in your internship. Please contact Dr. Madden if you have multiple offers and would like to talk through your decision!

Examples of sample text for your email to accept, decline, or continue considering an internship, when the two-day rule is relevant, are here.

Below is a possible example scenario: 

Morgan interviews with four internship sites on Campus Visit Day: the Spectrum Center, Dean of Students Office, Newnan Advising Center, and Intergroup Relations (IGR). On March 15, she is excited to receive two internship offers, from the Spectrum Center and Intergroup Relations. Morgan understands she must identify which is her current preferred offer that she has by March 17, because this is two days later. In other words, Morgan can only continue to consider one offer, although she understands that she does not need to accept an offer until April 15, or sooner, if possible. 

Morgan decides to decline the offer from Intergroup Relations and email both internship sites, copying cshpe.internships@umich.edu, and thanking both sites for their offers. As Morgan continues to think seriously about her options for graduate school, she is leaning heavily toward matriculating at U-M but has not made a final decision yet regarding where she will be enrolling in the fall. Her current 'active' offer is with the Spectrum Center.

A week later, Morgan receives a third offer, from the Dean of Students Office, which was her top choice internship! Morgan knows that she has two business days to decline one of the two active offers she currently holds (now, with the Spectrum Center and Dean of Students Office), but knows her decision much sooner and sends an email almost immediately to thank both sites and decline the offer from the Spectrum Center. Morgan emails CSHPE.internships@umich.edu to share that the offer from the Dean of Students Office is her overall top choice and that she will accept it if she matriculates at U-M. She has decided that she is no longer interested in considering an internship with the Newnan Advising Center, who she interviewed with but has not heard from. As a result, she will no longer be considered by Newnan as a potential applicant, and the Newnan team can extend an offer to someone else waiting to hear who may be a fit for their role. 

A few days later, Morgan logs in to wolverineaccess.umich.edu to enthusiastically accept her offer for admission to enter the fall 2023 master's cohort in CSHPE! At the same time, she emails both the Dean of Students Office and cshpe.internships@umich.edu to say she is pleased to accept the internship offer with the Dean of Students team and is thrilled to further her professional experience with them.