We examine electron-electron mediated relaxation following excitation of a correlated system by an ultrafast electric field pump pulse. The results reveal a dichotomy in the temporal evolution as one tunes through a Mott metal-to-insulator transition: in the metallic regime relaxation can be characterized by evolution toward a steady-state electronic distribution well described by Fermi-Dirac statistics with an increased effective temperature; however, in the insulating regime this quasithermal paradigm breaks down with relaxation toward a nonthermal state with a more complicated electronic distribution that does not vary monotonically as a function of energy. We characterize the behavior by studying changes in the energy, photoemission response, and electronic distribution as functions of time. Qualitatively these results should be observable on short enough time scales that the electrons behave like an isolated system not in contact with additional degrees of freedom which can act as a thermal bath. Importantly, proper modeling used to analyze experimental findings should account for this behavior, especially when using strong driving fields or studying materials whose physics may manifest the effects of strong correlations. -6, 8-10, 12-18] On sufficiently short time scales, the initial recovery in these systems following an ultrafast pump pulse should be dominated by electron-electron scattering which on its own can drive the system into a new steady-state. Conventional analysis has been based on a quasithermal paradigm ("hot electron" or multi-temperature models); [19,20] however, there have been few tests of the validity of its underlying assumptions as a function of the strength of electronic correlations, [21] in particular as one tunes between the two regimes of a metal-to-insulator transition (MIT). [22] The MIT driven by electronic correlations usually is accompanied by a number of interesting ordering phenomena among the spin, charge, and orbital degrees of freedom in a material. An understanding of the key physics which leads to these emergent phases is often at the heart of pump-probe experiments in condensed matter systems, including high-T c cuprate superconductors, [23] nickelates, manganites, ruthenates, vanadates, [22] and even organic materials. [24][25][26] A number of experimental parameters can be used to tune across the MIT including doping and chemical substitution, pressure, and applied fields. What can be learned about the underlying physics leading to these phases as a function of these key parameters requires an understanding of the proper paradigm in which to ask the relevant questions and conduct analysis of experimental data. This is in addition to what can be learned by tuning the interaction parameters of model systems simulated in fermionic or bosonic cold atom mixtures and performing the experimental equivalent of time-resolved, pump-probe measurements. [27][28][29] In this Letter we discuss the evolution of an electronic system described in equilibrium by a simple Hamiltoni...