RubyBright

I'm just bored, not miserable. Yet.

false hope

I literally copied and pasted some of the more unusual faculty names from the department website.

I just read all of the results for my applied schools. Literally, to the end of the pages. All of this has told me one thing: it's time to keep waiting.

Shockwave, I think it's a mix of ongoing correspondence between the POI and the student, and some POIs calling students once they've reviewed their application.

magic spell

You're going to need to look up an income tax table. They aren't too hard to find (grad students - researching ALL the things), and you'll be able to look at your total expected income for the year and get an accurate estimate.

true story

I think that my SOPs were almost certainly off the mark, but I'm hoping someone will still give me a chance. Don't panic until you see how the dice fall. Don't panic then, either. You'll know better in the future, if you have to do it again.

Just email the department and politely ask if they can check whether or not all of your materials reached them safely. If they haven't gotten to sorting them yet, they'll let you know then. By emailing them, you give the (likely very busy) admissions office time to look through and get back to you.

burning fire

morning light

next morning

I alternate between moving to Idaho and becoming a potato farmer, and moving to some cute little town and opening a boutique.

Ironically, my parents are the opposite. My mother seems to think that I absolutely must have a PhD (no, a master's simply will not do!), so I had better get to work on it. No going back to school later, here. Chop chop!

I only applied to four schools, and I'm pretty sure I've already been rejected from one (I didn't get an interview invite). If the remaining three are also rejections, I'm planning to get a job in my other field for a year - it pays reasonably well, even if it's boring - volunteer at a local lab, and then reapply the following year. I think. If I don't get in THEN, I may just give up and get an MA in the aforementioned other field. I love psychology, my primary interest, but I don't want to spend several years of my life waiting to get into a PhD program. The other field was my second major, and I could live with it if psychology never pans out. Anyway, not getting in for a year lets me save money so that I don't live entirely on Ramen while in grad school.

national park

Yeah, I came into my major super late (I never even declared until senior year!), and while I'm positive about my choice and my direction, I missed out on building an appropriate resume for the field. I'm hoping my schools like multidisciplinary... I couldn't afford a bunch of programs, either. If you're going nuts already, just remember that in the grand scheme of things, a couple of months to find out about acceptances/rejections is nothing compared to the amount of time you'll be spending in a great graduate program when you get there!

That is a bit silly, considering they would have to go on after the (expensive) master's at the "brand name" school, but there can be at least a little significance in the university name game. Future employers will care about the university name on your terminal degree.

school work

I didn't include mine in my SOP... I just referenced specific types of work they're doing. I hope that's all right! I didn't want to preclude myself from being considered to work with other people.

First, I have to say congratulations to Nohika. Second... am I the only one who has had second thoughts about one of their schools? If I'm only accepted there (and I'm starting to doubt I'll be accepted anywhere!), I'm not actually sure I would attend...

Happy Feet

Nope. One of my programs had an interview, but the others - and others I looked at, but didn't apply to - don't hold interviews. I did browse other programs outside of my interest, and I rarely saw required interviews for anyone but cognitive or school psych... or the big name schools.

I had two to three POIs at each school. I'm interested in several topics in my field, and I really would be happy enough dealing with any of them for the next 5+ years.