TripWillis Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 I'm back on alert today for Rutgers, since I was told to expect word "after April 10th." Just checkin' the e-mail and lookin' at the phone. Yup. Just doin' those things and those things only. *whistles* Juuuusst waitin'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiona Thunderpaws Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Coping? What is this coping you all speak of? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxious_aspirant Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 If I were to say things as they really are, out loud: "Sorry, kids. I know you don't really understand existentialism yet, but I haven't checked my Gmail in over five minutes. Your questions will just have to wait. Amuse yourselves by continuing to yell at each other as you debate whether or not god exists; I'll be in this corner on my computer. Try not to start any holy wars while I'm out of commission." lyonessrampant, rainy_day and WendyMoira 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
transcendental Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Coping? What is this coping you all speak of? I've taken to flipping coins to see where random chance will tell me I'll be going. Also, rocking back and forth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lolopixie Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Waiting on LSU. My one and only hope. And I have this week off of work and no money to go entertain myself with :/ dun dun dun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rainy_day Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Ugh, sorry to hear my absented spot couldn't come through for you. At least they had the courtesy to let you know either way... Good luck with the other two! It's quite alright! I've received some really helpful feedback on my application, and I've already started prepping for next year. Is it strange & masochistic that part of me is hoping for rejections so that I can fix my app and try again? Yes, yes it is. Btw, I'm really pulling for Rutgers to pull through for you, Trip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datatape Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 I'm officially done for the year. I just heard back from LSU that they have approximately 50 students on the waitlist and I'm dead in the middle. That was my last real chance at getting in anywhere. In a way, it's incredibly relieving to be free from the wondering and waiting, and in another way it is so, so, so incredibly disappointing and embittering that everything I did wasn't enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lyonessrampant Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Sorry to hear that Datatape. If you apply again next year, I wish you the best of luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxious_aspirant Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 50 students on a wait-list! Egads. Is that the norm? Because I'll be a bit less optimistic about our chances in that case... Condolences, Datatape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jma310 Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 @anxious- was your waitlist umass? did you get the email this morning? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiona Thunderpaws Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Datatape, I'm sorry to hear that things didn't work out this year. Hugs! I get what you mean about being bitter yet relieved at the same time though. I kind of want someone to put me out of misery one way or the other so I can't check my email like a normal person without my pulse racing while it loads. I also totally get where you're coming from rainy_day. I thought I knew was I was doing this application round, but especially after finding this place I realized there was a lot of stuff I could've improved on as well. It was never my intention to apply to grad programs at 22, but I'm glad I did because even if it doesn't work out this time around, I know how the system works, and I know I can play the game better if I get another chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lolopixie Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 (edited) I'm officially done for the year. I just heard back from LSU that they have approximately 50 students on the waitlist and I'm dead in the middle. That was my last real chance at getting in anywhere. In a way, it's incredibly relieving to be free from the wondering and waiting, and in another way it is so, so, so incredibly disappointing and embittering that everything I did wasn't enough. Did you call? I emailed them a while ago and have not heard back on my status on the waitlist. So sorry that you didn't get in this year. I'm a walking testiment that life does go on after rejection. There is always next year. This is my 2nd time applying, and I have been through the exact same thing you have. I am getting ready to ramp up for round 3 because I'm less than optimistic about getting into LSU. Edit: I recommend in the meantime that you find a position in a field you are interested in - back up plan. My 2 cents. Edited April 10, 2012 by lolopixie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datatape Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 I called last week and left a message for the graduate secretary, asking her to call me back. When I didn't hear anything for a while, I emailed the DGS directly, ccing the graduate secretary. The secretary is the one who emailed me back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swagato Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 I guess I'll camp out in this thread for a bit. I had written this year off (I'm in Cinema and Media Studies), but then U. Iowa (a great, GREAT program in my field with phenomenal placement rates for decades) decided to tell me I'm on their "short" waiting list. Well, rats. Anyway, I affirmed my interest to the Director (who was the person that emailed me), asked about expected cohort size, and whether he could provide any further details (like rank on the list, for example...). Iowa being a public university, I'm a bit confused as to how their system works. My experiences have only ever been with private institutions. I was told they hope to have more information in about a week. Doing a bit of digging, I found their graduate class data (http://www.grad.uiowa.edu/graduate-program-data/48F/Film%20Studies-Ph.D.). Perhaps some of you could translate what it means if they admitted 7 for 2011, but only 3 enrolled? My guess is that just means 3 finally enrolled out of the 7 offered admission, but does that include or exclude any 2011 waitlisters? Or were there 7 total offers including initial + any waitlist admits? Do universities typically extend offers to more than they anticipate admitting? So I may be on a list of alternates, Z, that they will turn to -after- going through their anticipated admits (X) + their safety admits (Y)? Hope that makes sense. I guess my confusion with this scenario is: what if every one of their offered admits says yes and then they end up with more confirmed admits than they expected? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hiphopanonymous Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 what if every one of their offered admits says yes and then they end up with more confirmed admits than they expected? This happens sometimes. Most schools admit more than they plan to enroll. Often twice as many, in fact. The school that I'm waitlisted at, for instance, admitted 21 people this year for a cohort of 10 or 11. In addition, there are 10 people on the waiting list. We waitlistees will hear good news only if more than half the people admitted decline their offers. UPenn (in-?)famously suffered a massive over-enrollment a couple years ago and had to drastically scale back the number of offers they were able to make the following year because they'd used up too much funding on their larger-than-anticipated class. They're back to normal, now, I think. It seems like most programs have it down to a pretty good routine, but these things do happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxious_aspirant Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Doesn't it seem like it makes more sense for schools to admit their intended number, and have a waiting list equally as long? Then maybe a secondary wait-list just-in-case? Or maybe I'm just sad because this makes me wary of my own status... *"...if I ran a university..."* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hiphopanonymous Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Doesn't it seem like it makes more sense for schools to admit their intended number, and have a waiting list equally as long? It would certainly seem more humane, but it doesn't ultimately make more sense. Even the very best programs enroll about half their admits. If they only admitted their desired cohort number, they'd be bound to give those students until the 15th to decide. And when half of them went to Harvard instead of Berkeley, or vice versa, Harvard or Berkeley would be scrambling to put together half its cohort in four days. Not going to happen. They need to admit a substantially bigger number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TripWillis Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Rutgers, inform me. cread 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiona Thunderpaws Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Once again TripWillis, you have picked the perfect song. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swagato Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 This happens sometimes. Most schools admit more than they plan to enroll. Often twice as many, in fact. The school that I'm waitlisted at, for instance, admitted 21 people this year for a cohort of 10 or 11. In addition, there are 10 people on the waiting list. We waitlistees will hear good news only if more than half the people admitted decline their offers. UPenn (in-?)famously suffered a massive over-enrollment a couple years ago and had to drastically scale back the number of offers they were able to make the following year because they'd used up too much funding on their larger-than-anticipated class. They're back to normal, now, I think. It seems like most programs have it down to a pretty good routine, but these things do happen. So what you're saying is that there isn't much realistic chance of a waitlist admission, if I understand correctly? Not only must I hope that they didn't extend admissions by too much (i.e., offering 20 spots hoping for a cohort of 5), but also that enough admitted students must decline such that they can turn to the waitlist. And on top of that I would have to be high enough on the list, or, if not ranked, then my research interest should align favourably. Great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxious_aspirant Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Swagato sums up everything I have to say about this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WendyMoira Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Swagato-- I don't know how many programs are like this, but I got a pretty explicit description from Pitt, and it seems to make sense. They do extend more offers than they want to enroll (for example, 25 offers for 15 slots, or whatever), but the graduate school usually promises the department to fund all of those 25 offers should all of them accept. They also keep a wait-list of 8-10. When one of those 25 declines, though, they can extend that offer to one of the wait-list people. But, that doesn't mean they still end up funding all 25. By the time they are able to extend those wait-list offers, it's often so late that the wait-listers have already made other plans. Thus, by the time all is said and done with those 25 (or so) "slots," they have a combination of original offers and wait-listers that tends to be around the target 15. Make sense? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anxious_aspirant Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Example: The UMass dept. site says they usually have openings for 15 incoming students. According to this forum, they've accepted 18 total. Does that most likely mean they overshot by 3? Or that the department site has outdated information? And of course, there's no way to really know any of this. But, equally-of-course, we are going to stress out about it. Yay, crazies! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hiphopanonymous Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Just to be clear, when I said "We waitlistees will hear good news only if more than half the people admitted decline their offers," I was referring only to other people on the same waiting list that I'm on. Your school may well work differently, although I think what I described is close to SOP for most departments. Certainly there are variations. Bigger programs may take more people off the waiting list--but they may also have longer waiting lists. 10 is the shortest I've heard of, but I don't think that means I'm any more likely to get in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiona Thunderpaws Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 By the time they are able to extend those wait-list offers, it's often so late that the wait-listers have already made other plans. Fortunately for me (and others), I don't have this problem. A dubious gift indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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