Øieblikket

So the first Columbia acceptances are coming out now. This particular waiting time is probably the worst suspense of the whole bloody affair …

This an interesting topic (and your suggestion is awesome, Big Ariana!). I might suggest a specific issue that could come up in such meetings: placements / job prospects. I find it extremely helpful to get a sense of the placement record, not just of the department itself, but of people working on a specific subfield. Of course, a more reliable source of information might be other grad students, but it's still interesting to hear professors' own assessment of their placement successes/failures. My experience is that they can be quite candid.

If I was I wouldn't be lying awake at 1-2am every night checking TGC! Also, apologies for the misunderstanding. On that other issue, I might add that I know of at least one program that admitted two students from the same school - by by now I'm a little too far into anecdotal territory to feel entirely comfortable. Then again, aren't anecdotes the only thing we have to warm us by in these troubling weeks?

At Columbia, we were told that the department would have to justify any acceptance of their own past students extremely well to the grad school and so needed particularly strong applications from such students in order to accept them. But I know of at least three people (one a long time ago, two recent) who got in in spite of that. Also don't know how common this policy is.

I'm an international student. I don't enter my GRE's because I don't want to encourage taking them too seriously, i.e. paying to take the test again and again to perfect your stores. I realize this criticism may be about as effective as spitting in your customer's coffee. But my impression is that GRE's really don't matter that much. I'm sorry of this causes any inconvenience for people.