veggiez

I'm 20 and I won't turn 21 until after school starts. It makes some of these interview weekends uncomfortable because I can't legally drink yet...

I'm 20 and I won't turn 21 until after school starts. It makes some of these interview weekends uncomfortable because I can't legally drink yet...

I've been trolling these forums for the past... week? (Wow. Exactly a week today. It feels a lot longer than that, when you're here everyday). 
 
I started my grad school process in fall of 2012. Finished all my applications in December and then sent them off on their merry way. I was living my life, working and really, doing JUST FINE. Content with the idea of waiting until, March? For most, if not all my decisions. 
 
...And then... I had an interview. And the flood gates opened and I've been anxious and obsessive since. AH!
 
 
Glad to know I'm not alone  . Thanks for sharing, everyone! 

RubyBright, i have nothing to say..just this to show.

 
ps: to heck with it, this is TOTALLY my new avatar.

I am sorry I thought I clearly said "not so much" not "not at all"

Why wouldn't a research-based program care about quant scores? Research is mostly analysis and data. Being good at math seems a lot more useful than memorizing vocabulary :-)

My dad keeps saying "well if you don't get in anywhere, you can come home and go to school here." I have explained to him a million times that the location has nothing to do with why I don't get in. Any school in my home state would be just as difficult. He seems to think that if I live at home, they will just decide not to fund me and so if it isn't a funding issue, it's no longer competitive.
Also my mom on the phone the other day, "Well I don't know why Stanford wouldn't accept you. What do they want that you don't have?" 
Oh I don't know, how about 10,000 publications and conference presentations, on top of constant research experience since I was a freshman?

Same for me.  I'm the "genius" of the family (I use that term very loosely), and of course everybody assumes I will get in anywhere.  It's hard to really express my concerns or frustrations about the programs because I always get the same thing back: "You have good grades.  You'll get in!"  I'm like, "...Sure, yeah."  In my head, though, I'm screaming, "It's not about GPA!  It's about essays, LORs, experience, and money, money, money!"

Got my first acceptance today! This thread had me finally calmed down about it all too. But alas, one down.

I am no longer losing my mind! I got accepted to my TOP choice program today!!!!!!    I am sooo thrilled!

I have an acceptance!  Aaaaaa!  It's official - I am going to grad school... somewhere!  

Got my first acceptance Friday for Stanford's DAPS program!! I'm ecstatic!!

Finally an acceptance!!!!!! Gahhhhhhhh! thank you thank you thank you <3

i got this one from some family fd who is a middle aged man with a lesbian stepdaughter about my age (27)
 
"Why should a girl get so much education? In the end she is destined to be a mother anyway. Just marry rich."
 
if i was not supposed to act mature and polite in front of the "elderly", i swear i would have blown
 
I said firmly, "i never thought marrying rich should be the goal of a woman of my intelligence."
 
my mom who said next to me just said nothing. im glad she always lets me do what i want.
 
 
The culture where I came from is probably the most westernized in asia, but still, some people think women failing to marry off by age 30 must be flawed somehow.
Im glad i did my BA in the States, so i know being an single woman with education is not a sin

"Hey, shouldn't you be hearing back from some of these schools soon?"
 

1. I already posted one specific tough one above, but in general, the toughest to me were things like "tell me about yourself" or "what should I know."  I also found it difficult to answer one professor who asked if I was more interested in her work or her colleague's work, since I had applied to both.  I told her honestly that I was interested in both, but if I had to pick one, I believed that her colleague's work was more closely aligned with my research interests.  I'm pretty sure I shut that door on her as a possible advisor, but it would be worse to lie and then not have a chance with the professor I was more interested in.
 
2. That varied by professor a lot (I have interviewed by phone/skype with 5 profs from 3 schools). Most assumed that I knew the basics of their work and the research area.  One in particular was asking me all about specific articles he had written, and if I had read them - I told him the truth, that I had read the abstracts but not full articles.  He said "you should read them," and I don't know if he meant "you should have read them first" or just what he said.  So be familiar with them just in case.  This same professor asked a lot of specific concepts and theories in psychology (e.g. cognitive dissonance and other more specific things), not to test me, but to know how much he had to explain in talking about what he was researching.  The more you know offhand, the better you look.  Once again, I advocate honesty - if I had pretended to know about a topic that I didn't, I would not have been able to continue the conversation intelligently, because he would have assumed knowledge I didn't have.
 
Also, about the notebook, I started taking notes (simple and short, not verbatim) on my later phone interviews.  I wish I had done that for the first couple, since I can't remember if certain things were covered and don't want to look bad by asking again.

I used to teach for The Princeton Review...I made a killer amount of money and worked only a few hours a week when I wanted, or volunteered to cover classes and worked many hours when I wanted to....for reference, 5 years ago teaching the SAT I was being paid $32/hour BASE with extra when they overloaded a class with students (I taught a class that got merged with another class because of a flub by a summer 'camp' type thing, so I was making an ungodly amount for the 9 hrs a week I taught that class).  Plus online grading of essays (optional extra work) was $1/essay, and grading took like 2-3 min per essay (they are short), so you could make a ton extra if you can handle reading that much bad writing.

I think approaching it from the angle of "I probably already know more than them" isn't really going to be productive in a science which is highly collaborative...   Same problem with those who don't feel the need to discuss science with those who are slightly out of one's research bubble.
 
Being amicable is part of the job, or at least for those who are successful at it.

Thankfully, you're not being accepted based on your grasp of traditional womanhood... If you were, you'd be out of luck, since women didn't used to be very welcome in upper academia!

"The place that accepts me."
"No, really. What's your number one choice?"

Yes.  I had a school send me a snail-mail letter in a heavy envelope, so I thought it was something important.  Turns out it was just a letter saying they were reviewing my application and a magnet.

Since submitting 1 month ago, all I can think about is whether I'll be in or not.

"If I get in here, will I get funding? Well.. maybe I can see what some of the CVs of current Ph.D. candidates in that program look like to compare against. Wow, all of these people went to Caltech or MIT for undergrad, had a 4.0, and had 5 first author publications by the time they got accepted. Shit, I'm not getting in anywhere. Might as well start training to be a plumber."

Then, 20 minutes later,

"I think I'll read this guide on graduate school applications for the 80th time, EVEN THOUGH I ALREADY SUBMITTED ALL OF MINE. Wow, this says that letters of rec are the most important part. Mine all went to top 5 schools and say I was the best student they've ever had. I'm getting in everywhere!"

Rinse and repeat. It's a roller coaster, and it's not going to stop for the next couple of months. Like most of you, family, friends, and girlfriend think I am going insane. I'm not arguing with them either

Me too, although I didn't realize it was gone until I finished my apps and had nothing to work on. (Pretty sure all my friends and family have known for some time, though.)

"Why are you still in school? I am engaged now."
"Why are you still in school? I am married now."
"Why are you still in school? I have a baby now."
"Why are you still in school? I have two babies now."
...
"Why are you still in school?"

Count me as another crazy person checking app statuses every day, even though I know late January is the absolute earliest that any of my programs notify applicants of decisions, lol.  But, there are always those weird stories about people getting early acceptances/rejections... right!?  That's what I'm telling myself to validate my insanity.
 
And, I told one of my LOR writers that I would be applying again next year if I didn't get in anywhere.  He replied, "You will certainly get admitted to multiple programs with full fellowships, and the only decision will be which one to choose."  I am still about 10% convinced that I will get in anywhere.  Why can't he be on the adcomm?!