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I checked my status online this morning (1/23), and it had changed from "application under review" to "Your department has recommended you for admission. The Graduate School will be reviewing your file. Please refer to this page for updates." Does anyone either a) know what this means, exactly or B) get the same message? I guess I should just sit tight and wait for an actual email from the department, but the suspense is killing me.

Best of luck with your own applications!

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Wow!!! Congratulations, you're in! That's amazing, I don't have to tell you how hard it is to get into Wiconsin-Madison.

I didn't apply there but if the department "recommends" you for admission, that means you're admitted. The graduate school isn't very involved in making big admission decisions, it's up to the department. They're probably just reviewing your file to make sure the department didn't accidentally admit you with a GPA below the minimum or something, as I understand it. Does anyone disagree?

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Thanks for the encouragement, tritonetelephone, and good luck with your applications.

It's a bit of a surprise, really. I only put in three apps this year (mostly because I'm broke, partly because I'm lazy, and also because I study Vietnamese, and only a few schools offer it at the advanced level). Wisconsin was my reach, so it bodes well for my other apps (to Cornell's development sociology program and to the soc. program at U.Washington-Seattle).

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I didn't apply there but if the department "recommends" you for admission, that means you're admitted. The graduate school isn't very involved in making big admission decisions, it's up to the department. They're probably just reviewing your file to make sure the department didn't accidentally admit you with a GPA below the minimum or something, as I understand it. Does anyone disagree?

You're correct. If you beat out other applicants to get into Madi, there's no way the graduate school isn't going to let you in. Congrats to the OP.

This is the second person I've seen today claim they got into Wisc; the other was for History of Medicine. They're on top of their shit up there, apparently.

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I checked my status online this morning (1/23), and it had changed from "application under review" to "Your department has recommended you for admission. The Graduate School will be reviewing your file. Please refer to this page for updates." Does anyone either a) know what this means, exactly or B) get the same message? I guess I should just sit tight and wait for an actual email from the department, but the suspense is killing me.

Best of luck with your own applications!

Me too!!!!!! Do you know if that means we're definitely in and they're just checking out the basic requirements now? I'm sooooo ridiculously excited right now...

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According to their web site (http://info.gradsch.wisc.edu/education/admissions/faq.html#0.1_process):

"The admission process is as follows:

* Your application data is entered into a central database. You receive an email acknowledgement regarding receipt of your application and fee (this email includes information about your online application status check).

* The academic program(s) to which you are applying has a faculty admission committee review your application and materials.

* The academic program makes a recommendation for admission to the Graduate School Admissions Office.

If you are not selected for admission, the program will notify you.

* The academic program to which you have applied will forward supporting materials to the Graduate School's Office of Admissions and Academic Services.

* The Graduate School's Office of Admissions and Academic Services reviews your application and materials to ensure that the Graduate School minimum requirements are met. (Includes financial support requirements for International Students)

* The Graduate School makes the final admission decision.

* Your residency (Wisconsin resident or non-resident) is determined by the Office of the Registrar's Tuition Residency Counselors."

So that sounds good.... :D

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Thanks for looking that up, ejuliast. I would like to think that I meet the minimum requirements of the grad school, so that sounds pretty good. Congratulations to you and to hardboiledegg as well. I'll post if I get some sort of confirmation from the dept or the grad school.

And, yeah, the weather in Madison seems downright frigid. And I've been living in the tropics the last few years, which will make it even harder to adjust. But I'm sure the library and the department are heated (unless budget cutbacks have gotten waaaay out of hand).

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Oh my god, mine also says Your department has recommended you for admission!!! :D

I guess I need to hurry up and submit my FAFSA, though I've been waiting to get my official income/tax info before filling it out. Any advice on if I (and other people in this position) should estimate our way through the FAFSA now, or wait until we get the official numbers to submit it?

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Congrats, waitinginohio! I just hope this doesn't turn out to be some sort of sick, sick joke. But I guess I wouldn't want to study anywhere that would be so cruel as to toy with our emotions this way.

As for the FAFSA, I have no freakin' clue. I don't think there's much in the way of need based aid, but you might need it for loans. I have no idea about timeframe or deadlines, though. If anyone else could enlighten us on this issue, please do so.

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Congrats, waitinginohio! I just hope this doesn't turn out to be some sort of sick, sick joke. But I guess I wouldn't want to study anywhere that would be so cruel as to toy with our emotions this way.

I'm starting to get freaked out myself. Then again, this explains the skewness in those GRE polls - many people around here are at the top of their applicant pools.

How many peoples does Wisconsin accept?

1/26: Wow, I just noticed that I wrote "peoples". I need to stop judging other people for their grammar.

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I know - it is a bit freaky. But I checked the results page for last year, and there were 7 people who posted admits in late Jan and early Feb. And Wisconsin is a big program, with yearly cohorts of 25 or so (which means they admit... 40? 50? I really have no idea what their yield is, but the pool of admitted students must be fairly big). And, people who are on this forum are probably both bright and a tad obsessive, so it makes sense that we have a few people who've gotten the same message. I guess it's time to take some deep breaths, though.

Have a great weekend, and keep hitting refresh on those inboxes! This particular agony will be over soon enough (and then the real agony can begin).

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I am just curious - assuming the message implies admission in most cases, what's one to expect as far as financial aid? That is, I am well aware that Madison does admit students without financial aid, but what do you guys think are the chances of getting financial aid? I am just trying to determine how excited to be about this! LOL

~Socio

P.S. Of course, the mere news of admission is very exciting and makes me more hopeful about my other applications, but UW-Madison is my first choice! (Then again, isn't it everybody's? lol)

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A prof. at my school who got her PhD from UW Madison in 2002 said that a good number of students didn't have funding (or at least not enough to cover all of their living expenses) for the first year at Madison, but because so many drop out after the first year it's rather easy to get funding for the rest of your time there.

The FAQ section on their website makes it sound a bit better (http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/soc/grad/admissions_faq.php):

13. What are my chances of getting funded, and when?

Chances vary depending on factors such as your academic record, skills and the size your cohort turns out to be. The department nominates a number of students with the most promising academic records for University fellowships. Generally about 5 or 6 recipients of these fellowships will accept the offer. In addition, some of the admitted students obtain graduate assistantships or traineeships, and some come in with outside fellowships, such as NSF or Fulbright awards. Of 22 students in the Fall 2007 cohort, 21 came in with funding; in the Fall 2006 cohort, 27 students entered the program and 25 had funding for their first year. Unlike many departments, we do not have a policy of admitting only students for whom we have initial funding. If you come in with no funding and if you do well in the program, your chances of eventually getting some kind of assistantship are quite good. International applicants must complete a financial statement which shows sufficient funds to support themselves for their first year in the program, plus show the intent for funding to continue through the duration of study in the U.S., after the Department has recommended admission to the Graduate School. Additional information about International Student Expenses can be found at: http://info.gradsch.wisc.edu/admin/admi ... linfo.html

That makes it sound like most people get funding. However there's a good chance that most people without funding didn't decide to go, which skews the numbers. Not to mention they don't say how much the funding is... it might not be enough to live off of. Also, from what I've seen in the results sections, some people still didn't know their funding status in March.

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A prof. at my school who got her PhD from UW Madison in 2002 said that a good number of students didn't have funding (or at least not enough to cover all of their living expenses) for the first year at Madison, but because so many drop out after the first year it's rather easy to get funding for the rest of your time there.

That's about what I would expect - the relatively weak completion rate is one of the reasons I didn't bother applying to Madison. If I were one of you who just got your acceptance letter/website message, I'd be very interested to learn about how many of those who left did so because they disliked something about the program and how many failed (or felt they were in real danger of failing). IMHO, so many students leaving for either reason should be a real red flag.

At big state schools it's usually possible to find funding through other departments/centers on campus that don't have their own dedicated stream of grad students if you don't get funded through your department (if you're proactive enough to seek such opportunities).

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That's about what I would expect - the relatively weak completion rate is one of the reasons I didn't bother applying to Madison. If I were one of you who just got your acceptance letter/website message, I'd be very interested to learn about how many of those who left did so because they disliked something about the program and how many failed (or felt they were in real danger of failing). IMHO, so many students leaving for either reason should be a real red flag.

At big state schools it's usually possible to find funding through other departments/centers on campus that don't have their own dedicated stream of grad students if you don't get funded through your department (if you're proactive enough to seek such opportunities).

Yeah, but have you checked out Madison's placements?

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Actually no... for such a high-ranking program, I would have expected a placement list to be front and center on their admissions site, but I couldn't find it - although I could just be missing an obvious link somewhere (it's happened before). I can't think of any stars in my subfield that have come out of Madison recently, but I could certainly be misinformed or unaware...

I wasn't trying to dampen anyone's excitement about Madison, just pointing out that these big-state programs have real problems that one should always investigate before committing five to eight years of their lives to a PhD program. I would still jump on Madison (or Ann Arbor, Berkeley, Chapel Hill, ect...) if it ended up being my only top-15 offer. And if you've been admitted this early to such a strong program you will surely have a lot of choices to evaluate.

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