Quigley

Yeah, after many sleepless nights last year I decided to force myself to relax a bit this year.
 
 
 
 
I'll have a cocktail for everyone on this forum (by the end of this vacation I'll probably have to go to rehab) 
 
But seriously: I was so stressed out last year and ended up being rejected everywhere. That's life! Checking GradCafe 100X per day didn't get my into grad school. Being rejected sucks but I ended up in a really cool research position... you always have to see the positive side of a negative experience. This year, I also made a list with things I am looking forward to if I get rejected again (getting a new big apartment, getting a dog...).
 
I really recommend that you guys don't worry too much. Most of us will get their decisions in two to three weeks - no need to check your mailbox every ten minutes. There is nothing you can do at this point.
 
I wish everyone good luck with their applications!! May you all get into the program of your dreams!

Ooooooh. Jealous!  Have one for me while you're there.

See... this is why in a week from now I am going to Thailand for 16 days: no cell phone, no internet - no stress. Just palm trees, beach and cocktails. There will still be enough time to panic when I come home and there is no acceptance letter in my mailbox!

Anybody else torturing themselves by searching for apartments and researching neighborhoods near schools they haven't been accepted to yet?

"Show me the place" by Leonard Cohen

Irish coffee

Anybody else torturing themselves by searching for apartments and researching neighborhoods near schools they haven't been accepted to yet?

i usually wear worn out jeans with crotch holes darned shut by my girlfriend with some nature-y t-shirt. sometimes I wear a button down shirt. no one seems to care - especially given how my supervisor dresses...but i am an ecology grad student...hehe.

Anybody else torturing themselves by searching for apartments and researching neighborhoods near schools they haven't been accepted to yet?

Anybody else torturing themselves by searching for apartments and researching neighborhoods near schools they haven't been accepted to yet?

No kidding.  I worked on mine on and off for a couple of months and they seemed so great to me in when I submitted them in November.  Works of pure genius.  Now reading them 2 months later, I'm banging my head on the wall and wondering what on earth I was thinking.  Sigh.  
 
If only we could all get 1 acceptance soon so we can stop doing this to ourselves.

by Nero

I think if I refresh my gmail one more time, its just going to stop working out of protest.

ONE DOWN! (Illinois)
 
I answered the phone without much interest since it woke me up. I was wide awake after she told me where she was calling from.

My husband and I keep joking that the process needs to have something akin to the Domino's Pizza Tracker.

I have decided this really should be like instant credit approval. Receive an answer in just seconds!!! Apply today!!!

I agree 100% with Shelley Burian. The members of my cohort are very nice. We support each other by having study/reading/discussion/writing groups and socializing outside of class. At the same time, I'm aware that my friends in my subfield are likely competitors for department fellowships and future jobs. A big part of grad school is figuring out how you want to position yourself in the field. In education, this can take many forms: specializations in subject areas, theoretical perspectives/frameworks, methodology, secondary vs. elementary vs. higher ed, etc.
 
I completely understand your position as I've experienced twinges of jealousy sometimes as well. But, as others have suggested, you must begin carving a space for yourself in the field by developing your "academic identity." Your research interests and values should drive you, not competition with your peers or feelings of inadequacy. At the same time, it's good to have a network--you may need their assistance one day, or you could be in a position to assist others. Education is a small world!

Dream school? Strong American, good methods, and above all, one that can help me get a tt job after I'm done. I don't care if I have to live in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere and eat shit for 7 years, I can take it.
 
and @chaetzli: Princeton's campus is, indeed, absolutely gorgeous.

Dream school:  Rochester weather, don't care about the rest.

Stanford's program and faculty, UCLA's weather, Princeton's campus, located on the isthmus in Madison.

Quigley,
 
As one of the posters that made the distinction between what MA and PhD essays need to communicate, I should stress my agreement with those who argue that there is no archetype format that works for everyone. If you reworked your statement and sought criticism, and turned in an SoP that you and your advisors felt was strong, then it probably matched your application well. Because we all have different experiences, our Statements of Purpose all have different work to do in fleshing out who we are. The average statement for a PhD should be different than the average MA essays, but that doesn't offer binding guidance to individuals.
 
"That said, as somebody who was rejected from every PhD program I applied to the first time, it is good to be aware that it can happen."
 
Due to what I can only assume is commendable humility, an important piece of information is missing here: Adaptations got results like a boss on the second go-round.
 
No one on this board is out of time to improve themselves if they fall short of their hopes during this process. No one here is out of opportunities to distinguish themselves. These applications are one moment in the development of one facet of your life. You just never know how the world is going to surprise you, and as we all sit around compulsively checking our emails and accidentally garnishing our double whiskeys with freshly chewed fingernails it is important to remember that the challenges and hopes that animate us two, five, twenty years from now will often not resemble in the slightest the things that are so crucial today.
 
For the types of people that haunt boards like this one, climbing for a brass ring is more important than grabbing it. Big successes and big failures offer dramatic but fleeting moments of reckoning. As long as we have some of each, I suspect they will each have relatively little impact on how we judge our own lives later on.

Weeks are busy in general. I am taking 2 methods classes, one seminar in my field, one statistical computing class, and a field colloquium. The work for that occupies about 10 class hours and probably about 15-20 reading, researching, problem set, and writing hours. I taught last semester, and between teaching, attending lecture, grading, and class prep I probably spent at max 8 hours during a usual week. When there was an exam, double for the week before and the week after. Since I am a first year, my own projects are more in the up-in-the-clouds stage, so mostly that is thinking time that comes at random. And then comes family time, which I am still working out how to make enough time for. I am getting married this summer, so I have that on my plate. My fiance is a first year in chemistry, we are working on balancing his lab time, my reading time, and then our time. Mostly our time involved the gym, cooking dinner every night, and watching whatever sporting event is on.
 
In short, grad school can be kinda hellish. Your time is mostly not your own in that you have a lot of masters, but your time is your own in that you have to figure out how to please all of them yourself. That being said, it's actually pretty nice. We are getting paid to think and explore new ideas. We get to teach (even though it can be a pain), but we are not the ones at the top of the totem pole. We are in a unique position, but one that I think is actually pretty nice. 

I'm curious about what your typical day/week looks like as a PhD student balancing classes, TA or RA duties, research projects, homework, family/relationship, etc? 

Wisconsin or Washington?