oliviaeden

In hopes to get-in somewhere, I ended up applying to 15 schools. I feel like I binged on too much cake, the kind with lots of thick, clumpy icing; and now that the frenzy is over, I'm stuck with a bad taste in my mouth and heaviness in my gut (not to mention one very-drained bank account). I haven't heard one word; but there's been many acceptances with full-funding posted within the last few days for two of my top schools. I feel the rejections coming on. It makes me regret. I know that I'm getting ahead of myself, there's a lot more chances to go . . . but the once shining, hopeful "what if" has turned into a pensive, depressing, "what if not." What if I'm not good enough? Ouch. A year ago when I decided to do this, I didn't realize how agonizing the waiting and the rejections would be. Knew it would be rough, but not this rough. Typically I am the type of person who'd just busy myself with formulating Plan B and Plan C and Plan D.... But as of now, my stomach hurts too much. Anyone got an antacid?

Thanks for making me laugh. Rare these days.... hours.... minutes

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Double Shot, I second your idea about schools notifying applicants all on the same day. Bravo! The method as it is now is the equivalent of pealing off a super-stuck bandage, real sloooooow, where each little hair is being tugged on painfully and rentlessly. I say.... tear that darn Bandaid off in one rip, please! Thanks for your post, made me smile.

I've applied to 15 universities for fall 2012 in hopes to get into a graduate program that would be a good fit for me. I have learned a great deal about the application process and how idiosyncratic it can be from university to university. The one area that makes this process more grueling than it needs to be is the GRE, especially if you’re an applicant like me who lacks a cushy score. The research it takes just to find a school’s particular GRE perimeters is at times overwhelming. The calls and emails I have sent out about this number too many. Graduate websites and online applications are so good to offer printable lists to streamline the application process for their prospective students. Often, they include a portrait of what a typical, successful students in their program may look like such as: GRE scores average this number; GPAs average this number, etc… In fact, when it comes to GPAs, these schools often denote a number, such as undergraduate GPA must be over a 3.0 or a 3.5 for funding consideration. Yet, these schools often do not provide the same benchmark for the GRE. Why? Why do they choose to use elusive language, such as saying, “Send in your competitive GRE scores.” I scratch my head, “Competitive GRE scores?” Okay, how am I to know what score this school considers competitive? After searching and finding the same discreet language on the department page, the graduate studies page, the application checklist, the student handbook, I called this particular department twice and received an email address of someone who could answer my question. “300” she writes in response to my email. “The target score for a file to be reviewed is 300.” Although I am safe to apply, (barely safe, but safe) my curiosity urges to me onward. "So if an applicant sits right below a 300," I ask, "then they will not be reviewed no matter their other application materials.” “Yes,” she confirms, “that’s my understanding on how the graduate office processes files.” Even though I am very interested in their program and I think I would be a good fit, I can't help but wondering...why can’t this school publish this information directly on their website: “Applicants must have the target score of 300 on GRE in order to be considered for graduate study?” Yet, I guess the answer I seek is partly found in this person’s response. Although she was very polite and quick to reply, in all her responses, she referred to potential students not as applicants but files. We are files, files to be processed—or not to be processed. I get it. If I were employed to go through an exorbitant number of applications, I am sure that the stacks would slowly stop representing people and become files. However, this does not excuse schools from using ambiguous language and making potential students think they have a shot of acceptance when in reality many schools do use empirical data such as GRE scores as means to eliminate applicants (files) outright. And since the nature of this game has to be by the “process of elimination,” then wouldn’t it be better to let applicants know this information up front, especially when dollar amounts of letters, transcripts, score reports, and application fees (not to mention postage, paper, and ink) add up to be over $100+ per application. Whatever a school's reasons for this ambiguity (even if it is simply because benchmarks can and do vary year to year) updates on websites cannot be that taxing. And I find it hard to believe thousands of dollars of application fee revenue is anything but pocket change to big universities; so I left with the feeling that this is simply bad business practice that does not get called out enough. I am questioning applying to any schools that can't outright state that there are certain criterion such as a GRE number that immediately mark an applicant as unreviewable and ready for the shredder. I value holistic scoring and therefore would most likely fit in at a school that parallels this philosophy. Perhaps, my experiences here are singular, but I wanted to at least share this with others who are embarking on this process that GRE bottom-lines do exist even though the language on graduate school websites do not reveal such. So I’m paying it forward, one file to all the other files out there.

English are the only professors you cannot contact? I am curious where you got that info? I was planning to contact a few English profs from potential schools and never heard this "mysterious" rule, so thank you for head up