kadel

Just got the expected rejection email from nyu's mcc. Form, impersonal, from a grad officer. Boo hoo. Plus I've been binge watching Buffy and it's season 6 and willow is blowing it...boooo hooooo!!

Ah darn it sorry Katla I think you're right tho, I feel like it's better knowing at this point. Agitation is just getting to me... Feels like rejection anyway, only with more uncertainty lol. On that note, anybody apply to Cuny? Hear anything about that process? Search suggests I'll be waiting a while longer :'(

That's what I was thinking too. It's possible that everyone on grad café right now is in the middle of the pack. Not going to be rejected out right initially, but not going to be extended an interview unless the first group of interviews go really badly or something. I imagine will here within a week or two, but sadly it seems like not much sooner? Sry for typos voice-dictating due to injured thumb and too tired...

Yay thank so much for sharing! I was feverishly wondering who's rejection that was... Hopefully we'll all be 5 x 5 soon

If you look to the left of the body of the post, you'll find most people have listed the field for programs they are applying to underneath their profile data. For example, the person you're asking about says they're applying for anthropology phd programs. If people apply to more than one type of program, it seems like they usually list that kind of information in their signature. None of this is required of course, that's just one of the ways people here communicate to each other. If you want to add that info for yourself, you can edit your profile by clicking the links at the upper right of the page.

I was wondering about this too and I had an idea. It could be in part about the whole issue of yields/waitlists. Some schools seem to prefer contacting their first choices before even letting their second choices know they're on the waitlist, apparently. In that scenario, it would make sense to wait to inform all the rejects at once since some of them may be bottom-of-the-waitlist but never make it that far when the acceptances decide to take the offers, so they might be trying to reduce uncertainty about offers. Even tho obviously we feel this is way more uncertainty because this is taking forever and I'm losing my mind lol.

Oh it seems like there's probably only ten or twenty people on here who applied for MCC - I mean I've only seen about 5 or 6 users even mention it on a forum or in their sig, so that could even be an overestimate on my part. Honestly we don't seem to have too high a representation of their 200+ or whatever applications, so the results search may never help. Check previous years - it's practically random, and no more than two or three PhD listings per year whatsover. MCC is also an interdisciplinary program, and what I'm learning is that it seems like there's a higher representation of people in disciplinary fields active on this website. Perhaps just true for academia generally? Fewer people in interdisciplinary fields? But on the site it's also much easier to use when your work fits more naturally within a traditional field - I mean everytime I look at the menu I think, dang what do I click on? Also, nowaynohow has certainly shared more precise info than any of us could ever have access to, so you probably shouldn't give this person a hard time, even tho I know the frustration is making us all goofy. If you looked more closely at nowaynohow's post anyway, you'd see the field listed is "anthropology," and numerous anthro rejections from NYU have appeared on the board, so there's nothing being withheld there.

Yes!!!! Congrats!!! Pleasant weather decisions, here you come

Well that linked story is totally crazy and sad. I had a friend who was accepted by a great humanities department for a PhD, but initially rejected by the graduate school because of low quant scores on the GRE. They were in the 130s, really just low, but obviously irrelevant to the course of study. So, when even after a retake it was impossible to get the score up above the minimum, the department just petitioned and eventually the acceptance went through just fine. I think that's really more common than these instances where the school outright rejects the candidate and it's "final"… And if the university at large approves, I can't imagine they would ever revoke. The linked thread seems to refer more to clerical error type situations.

Ohh congratulations!!!! Harvard has such awesome resources yayy!! Despite the brutal New England winter representation among your options, looks like you have amaaaazing choices!! You know, these choices are actually so amazing that a funny side effect for other candidates is, in a few weeks some people are probably getting in off waitlists at some unbelievable schools! Wouldn't it be funny if that happened in real time with someone on this board? Lol

Nope really hoping someone around here hears soon so we can start moving on to the "implied" phase/2nd stage of grief

This thread is everything

My work also involves a lot of grant-writing, and I find this to be so true as well!! Especially the part about asking the right way. Foundations and such have agendas of their own and they need to know you'll be able to work towards something that will reflect back well on them, and as specifically and clearly as possible. It's probably like when you spend your entire time in your SOP talking about your brilliant work without letting the committee know how it'll actually fit into their program. But you can always get feedback, and beyond simple name recognition I imagine it has something to do with the number of people who end up getting big grants only after applying once or twice ... I do work in visual art though, where the old narrative of slaving away in poverty/obscurity until you're rescued by a rich patron maintains some allure(/truth ). Thanks for sharing the insight, I didn't realize how much this attitude was informing my thoughts on how to improve my applications for next round, but thinking of it like this is SO much more encouraging than just glumly mumbling "there's always next time" to myself

Out of upvotes but this is a very helpful perspective for me, so thank you for posting.