mayanway

Congrats, shadowclaw!

I'm rooting for all of you who are still waiting! The late notifications are super frustrating. I was lucky to receive two offers in early February, but one program was pressuring me to accept/decline ASAP and the last 2 schools I was considering weren't even making decisions until March. I ended up accepting their offer last week, as they were unwilling to wait any longer for my answer and I was about 90% sure I'd go there even if I got fully funded offers from my last 2 schools. I'm happy to know where I'm going and super excited about the research I'll be doing, but it would have been nice to know all my options before committing.

I was in a similar situation this week. I wrote a quick note explaining that I appreciated the offer, but had a few applications out and would like to wait until I knew all of my options before committing. PI and administrator who sent the offer email were both fine with this - realistically, they know you probably didn't just apply to their school, and most universities have a mutual agreement that they cannot require you to accept/decline an admissions/funding offer before April 15.

Thanks! Ha, too many OSU's - my acceptance was at Oregon State, veterinary department

So I got an acceptance and fellowship offer from OSU (yay!), and think there's a pretty good chance that's where I'll end up. However, I haven't heard back from all of my schools, and they want me to accept or decline the offer in 2 weeks. Time to send out emails asking when I can expect to hear back, I guess...

I applied to the epidemiology program at Davis and haven't heard anything yet. Based on the results page, it appears they do all notifications pretty late.

Finally some news! Acceptance at UW-Madison Comparative Biomedical Sciences program - technically not EEB but my research will still fall within that sphere. Still have to be accepted into a lab prior to admission as my original POI doesn't have funding this year.

No. I've gotten a couple of "your application is complete" emails, but no status updates. 2 of my programs had December 1 deadlines and will be interviewing in February, and it's starting to seem unlikely that I'll get an interview invite. The rest of mine had later deadlines and I don't expect to hear anything until February.

alejandromolina - I applied there too (assuming you mean Michigan State and not another MSU) and haven't heard anything either. Given their early deadline, I'm hoping it's soon. Also, I almost added another school when a colleague forwarded me a link to a position that looked great, only to find that it's only open to UK citizens : /

Solanus - my experience was more like the first scenario you brought up. That said, I think there's some variation between schools/departments, so read the instructions on the department website carefully. Most of my programs either explicitly require a professor that is willing to take you into their lab to be considered for admission, or state that having one greatly increases your chances. I applied to 6 schools and contacted POIs at all of them. 2 invited me to talk to them by phone/skype (and I ended up helping with fieldwork for one of them based on our phone conversation, but that's another story), 1 I had met and talked with at a conference, and the other 3 just sent emails back saying they are taking students this year and encouraged me to apply. I contacted a LOT of people to get those 6 schools (many had full labs or no funding), and like you was typically only interested in the work of 1-2 at each school.

EEB/Zoology applicant here. I submitted all applications in November, but most of my programs notify pretty late. This waiting game is getting old already!

Shadowclaw - which department did you apply to at Oregon State? Zoology (now integrative biology) does not do interviews according to the PI I'm applying with there. I can totally commiserate about the wait, too! I submitted all of my applications in November, but most of my programs haven't even started reviewing applications yet and typically Feb-March notifications according to results search. Not sure if this is common to EEB/zoology or just the schools I applied to. Here's hoping some good news will be arriving soon for the other late deadline folks.

Congrats to those who have interview invites already! Color me jealous - most of my programs haven't even started reviewing applications yet. As far as I can tell, only 3 of mine do interviews/prospective student weekends, the other 4 just send out acceptance/rejection emails in the spring.

Well, it's worthwhile to spend the time editing and getting a nice, tailored SOP, right? Don't be like me and paste the essay intended for the wrong department in the statement of purpose box, then realize it after submitting.

Shadowclaw - out of curiosity, are you finding these announcements on the ecolog listserv? I subscribed for a while, but for me it was too much volume compared to my (relatively narrow) set of interests. I've submitted all my applications except one, which I'm on the fence about. POI there does cool wildlife research in East Africa and encouraged me to apply, but said that she wasn't 100% certain she'll be taking new grad students this year since she's planning to retire in 4-6 years. Plus they're the only school that requires a separate statement of purpose and personal statement...