lifesgood

I don't know about that campus, but the city if fantastic. Apartments tend to be small and expensive. Geneva is, after all, an international center that is geographically limited due to its close proximity to the French border. I was admitted to UNIGE for this fall, and looked into apartments. I found rooms that cost about what an apartment over here might cost (depending on where) in the neighborhood of $500 a month...but they're bedrooms (some with private baths) instead of apartments. The city is clean, but too big to be what I call quiet. There are websites to help you find lodging, particularly if you know some French. Bonne chance!

You had two interviews. That seems to indicate that you must have a strong application. Perhaps it's just a question of finding the right programs that will value your strengths. As dark as it appears and as bad as you feel right now, when you've calmed down a bit and can evaluate the situation more objectively, you may decide to look for other programs and try again next year. For your own sake try not to compare yourself to others, within or outside of your family. You matter and are important to people just the way you are! Good luck with this insanity.

I can't remember where I read an answer to your question, but it was somewhere on this site. The person who posted it said he thought schools/departments sent decisions in waves. The first admits went to students who were absolutely outstanding in every way. Likewise, the first rejections went to applicants who obviously could not be considered. Then, depending on how many of the outstanding admits accepted their offers, the schools worked through their second tier applicants to select the ones they wanted to invite to fill the remaining slots. Schools worked through their applicants in this way until all their spots were filled. So the gyst of the post was that if you have not heard anything, it might not be a horrible thing. You could be considered in the second wave of admits since you have not been immediately rejected. Hope you are happy with the admits you get! Good luck!

St. Thomas Aquinas is the patron saint of students, but it can't hurt to ask more than one saint to help out!

Go on the interview and make it a positive experience. Things can turn out very differently from how we expect them to, and that 90%-sure school might waitlist you or even decide not to accept you. If you don't go to the second appointment with a positive attitude, you may miss out on a good thing. You might want to keep all your options open until you know (100% certain, in writing, etc) that you are accepted at your top school and can attend. Good luck to you!

In my dream, all the applications that I'd submitted were Incomplete, it was past their deadlines, and the adcoms would not be even look at them. In the dream I kept hitting refresh, checking emails from schools, and looking at the status of the apps just in case it was wrong. Nope.....they were ALL incomplete. I woke up suddenly and had a hard time falling back to sleep. In the morning, I checked online to see if they were submitted and complete....just to be sure.

Great advice! Your POI could invite you to visit with him/her at another date; maybe that person can't attend the scheduled event. Do their program webpages indicate that applicants who are not invited to an interview could still be accepted? Good luck to you!!!

This is the first time I've ever applied for graduate school, and I'm applying to plant and soil-related Masters programs. Does anyone know if these programs generally interview (via phone, Skype, or on-campus recruitment events) Masters candidates or do they tend to put more emphasis on their PhD candidates? From the Results Search details here, most of the posters have been PhD students. The websites at the schools where I applied do not specify whether they conduct interviews for all applicants or primarily PhDs. Just trying to rationalize the silence of the ad coms. Anyone have insights or thoughts please? Thanks!

That is a VERY good email! Congratulations and good luck on your recruiting event!

Good luck with that monster, fieryfox99.

Love it! Thanks for lightening the mood while we wait it out.

Does anyone know if colleges update admission decisions (online log in and check your status) on weekends or just during the work week? No sense looking at them on weekends if they're done during the week.......*sigh* Thanks for your insight and good luck to everybody!

I called the forgetful prof and he was very apologetic. That very day, he submitted three LORs for me, and he did some more the next day. An assistant in the department at one of my schools assured me that the application was not too late to be considered. Of course, that doesn't mean I will get accepted, but it's a relief anyway. Good luck to all of us!

You are an application ninja! Thanks for the laughs and interesting information.

Congratulations on your acceptance!

In theory, yes. I have had doctor-diagnosed ADHD since second grade. In high school and college I received accommodations. Both the SAT and ACT gave me time and 1/2, and I figured that with my doctor's help I would get extended time for the GRE. I started in July to get the documentation to the GRE's services for students with disabilities people, and they are totally inept. One would tell me something, then when my doctor sent that, another employee said that wasn't what they wanted. I canceled a test date in October. Finally, my doctor gave up and refused to send anything else to them. Desperate, I switched doctors, but there was not time for them to run their own tests and get their documentation to GRE in time for their "doctor" to evaluate it and approve the accommodations for a December test date. In short, GRE services for students with disabilities are a farce. They are inflexible, unreasonable, and one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. Someone, somewhere needs to establish a second graduate school test to give these idiots competition to force them to straighten up. Good luck to you!

Can you call the admissions offices to ask them? You can call a landline on Skype without using your camera. Don't feel bad asking your referees to send more LORs...as you said, they're done electronically and the people probably saved them, so it's no big deal. As I learned from personal experience, keep communicating to your referees on a regular basis until they submit their LORs and definitely send them a thank you card and (if possible) gift for their help. One of our neighbors just earned his Masters (maybe in History...I can't remember) at King's College in London, and he and his parents went to London yesterday for his graduation. Good luck to you on your applications!

Thank you SO much! I found out from one school that my (finally) completed application is NOT too late for consideration, so there could still be some glimmer of hope, and I'll take the excellent advice you have given me about applying elsewhere. Thanks!

I'm a senior in college, applying for Masters programs and have no idea what to do. Can you help please? I asked profs to write LORs last October. Two of the three have sent in their LORs, but the last prof forgot, after frequent reminders from app systems and emails from me. I called yesterday, and he was kind enough to submit his LOR to three of my schools, and I'm hoping he will do the rest of them this week. I have a question please: since some of the schools have begun selecting candidates (one of them told me they had screened the bulk of applications, but since mine was not complete they had not looked at it) should I send more applications to other schools with programs that interest me, knowing that my chances at the first-round schools are probably gone OR put the whole thing off and go through it again next year if nothing comes from this disaster? Does anybody have suggestions please?

From your lips to God's ear! Like you and the original poster, I did not do nearly as well on the GRE as I had hoped to, and one of my three recommenders (who promised he'd write the letters) has still not submitted any. >< If I don't get accepted anywhere, I'll try to get a job in a plant-related business, volunteer at a local plant laboratory, and prepare for another GRE experience next year.

My sister is in her third year as a math PhD student, and she did take the subject test, back before they revised them. She had a perfect score on the math in the regular GRE (she said that was expected for math majors who apply for math PhDs), but I don't remember what she made on the subject test....just know she had to take it. Sorry I can't give you more details. Good luck to you!!!

I will apply to the University of Geneva (Switzerland) because the courses in their Masters program in plant biology can be taken entirely in English. Perhaps some of the schools you're interested in offer similar programs, so you don't need to be fluent in the native language. Check them out and good luck!

A guy I know just graduated with his master's from KCL. He loved it! I haven't talked to him in a while, but he loved the school and even his puny apartment that he shared with friends. His bedroom only big enough for the pull-down Murphey bed. He got his degree in History (?) and said going there was the best thing he's done.

Congratulations on your amazing success so far! Like Bamafan, I think you should interview for all of them if you can. I have not had any visits the schools requested, but I did visit two places after I asked about dropping by. Both schools were very helpful and scheduled visits with profs whom I had emailed earlier. One lady talked to me for about 2 hours! I left both campuses feeling better than I had before I went, and much more comfortable walking into an interview. You're lucky that your schools invited you to interview. And you never know: one of the schools you might cut could end up being the one you like most and accept you. Good luck to you through it all!

I initiated visits at two of the schools I've applied to, and both the visits went well. At one of them, a professor talked to me for nearly two hours. I met the head of their department and another professor as well. At the other school, I met with two profs and they both asked if I had applied and wanted me to send them my CV and transcripts. The drive was about 17 hours to get to the farther one, but I stayed with relatives nearby, so there was no hotel cost. Thinking back on it, I am very glad that I drove up there. Of course, I wasn't glad during the excrutiating trip, but with luck it will be worth it. I had emailed the profs ahead of time and scheduled visits with them about a week before I went. I also sent thank-yous to all the people who took time out of their busy schedules to sit down with me. Good luck to you, whatever you decide to do. I hope if you go, that the visit is positive and results in an acceptance!