RandomDood

Has anyone declined an offer from Stanford? I feel like I'm on a frying pan here! :-)

Just noticed that someone got accepted to UNC-Chapel Hill off the waitlist! Congratulations! Go waitlisters, go!

This was a wonderful, thoughtful, highly motivational post. Thank you :-)

It's funny how someone just posted a Princeton acceptance like...45 days later

Another Stanford waitlister here. I also got two other acceptances, but both are essentially unfunded, so for me it's either my top choice or another round of applications :-(

FYI, they're out now...

I know where I want to go too...just waiting for some of you to decline their offer Cmoooooon! :-)

I just noticed someone posted a Stanford acceptance dated March the 1st. Whoever that was, did you get accepted off the waitlist or did you just mistype and actually got the mail on February the 1st?

First of all, thank you for your insight. This is hands down the most useful thread I've read about PhD admissions. It will really help me a lot if - as it seems likely - I will reapply next year. About your question, now that you make me think about it and that this whole process is over, I feel like international students and students switching fields are heavily affected by the "secrecy" of the process--which, by the way, in my opinion serves to give the impression that decisions are made more or less objectively; although everybody knows they are to a certain extent a “crapshoot”, not knowing how the process actually works helps to shroud the subjectivity involved. On one hand the penalization acts on the “substance” of the application, and your own words implicitly confirm my impression; an international student will probably come from a relatively not well-known university (in US terms), his grades might be less discernible because of different grading systems and standards, and his LORs will more likely be from faculty outside of the North American “academic network”, so to speak. Similarly, an applicant switching fields will have LORs from professors even more removed from the “sociology academic network”, and his curriculum will not contain the key courses you mentioned as an important factor in the decision process. But on a more subtle level both international and switching students will most likely lack all kind of advisory about how admissions work specifically in Sociology departments in the US. I am probably a bit biased because I am trying to justify to myself how disastrous this round of applications was for me (and I am both international and switching from another discipline), but I think I can frankly say that not having a guide throughout this process was extremely detrimental for me; none of my supervisors have ever studied or taught in the US, neither are they sociologists, so I was left completely alone (apart from peer-reviewers, who hadn’t many more clues than myself) in tailoring my personal statement to the American sociological context. More generally, the entire admissions process was literally a shot in the dark. I wish I had found this forum – and this thread – way in advance, but still, no matter how much general advice you get on a forum, having some insider reading specifically your PS and advising you about how you could change it to make it more “memorable” for American sociologists is something that makes an enormous difference in my opinion. Ehm...did this sound like a rant? :-)

It's not too early. Especially if you are declining an offer from Stanford No, seriously, as a waitlisted person I would really like to underline that if you are 100% sure you are not going to attend you should just tell the department asap; just think that by doing so you are probably going to save someone a lot of stress and anxiety.

Soooo...nobody went to the Open Day?

I was just wondering...Harvard accepted 11 for a cohort of 8... So, how many students would Stanford offer admission to, if they are aiming for a cohort of 12? Is 17 a reasonable number? I can't believe I might have to wait until April 15, I really thought I would have had things figured out by the end of February...

I know it's probably a bit early and highly unlikely (to say the least), but is anyone thinking about declining Stanford's offer? Of course, if you feel more comfortable you can PM me rather than answer publicly. I'm on the waitlist, and I have basically no other funded offer, with only one more program to hear back from :-( Thank yall in advance, RD

Not Professor Klinenberg apparently :-(

Mh. True. No, but really, I can't wait until mid march to get an official rejection. My brain would keep hoping.

Two acceptances have been posted a few days ago: http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=sociology+pittsburgh&t=a&o=&pp=25

When will emailing the DSG at NYU become non-inappropriate? In 5 minutes? 10?

Thank you for the info, much appreciated...and congratulations, NYU has a fantastic department, it is (was) probably my top choice :-) If it was an "informal" email maybe there's still hope...or maybe not.

Dood, it's funny because until around 15pm (European time) it feels like we are the only ones on this forum. I hate time zones, I'd rather wake up when the day in the US is over, knowing that whatever decisions have been made I can just spend the rest of my day in peace. Btw, my favorite denial strategy is "If it ain't claimed it ain't true".

NYU acceptance. If someone could please claim it and give us more info about how formal that sounded.

Just bought it and started reading it. Pretty pretty pretty fantastic advice.

Someone please tell me that Brown's offers for international students still haven't been sent. If both Brown and Harvard rejected me I will have 7 rejections, 1 waitlist, 1 unfunded acceptance and only one school left (and it's NYU, so I really don't think the odds of getting in are that high at this point). This whole thing sucks.

Anyone wants to claim the Harvard acceptances?

Ok. I think you sould get permanently banned from the internet just for implanting that thought in everyone's head EDIT: That being said, as others pointed out, I think it would be highly unlikely given the huge number of people who applied and the relatively large cohort.

Do you really think you are going to get away with that statement without telling us what they told you? :-)