Natasha1

I just got an acceptance letter from Berkeley for the Earth and Planetary Sciences Ph.D. program. The letter says that detailed financial support information "will be sent separately," but the letter is official. During a recent visit to Caltech, I was told that I should expect an acceptance letter in the next couple weeks from the ESE program. (I'm in Atmospheric Chem, which is housed in different departments depending on the university.) Furthermore, a professor at Harvard emailed me this morning to say that I was accepted, provided information about the stipend and an additional fellowship I was awarded, mentioned research and class start dates, and offered to schedule my visit. That's not a notice on official letterhead from the dean's office, but it's official enough for my taste.

At two universities (Berkeley and Caltech) the PIs I'm most hoping to work with are making arrangements to fly me out at the beginning of February so that I can see the department and campus in person. They contacted me out of the blue at the beginning of the week and initiated the offer. While Berkeley and Caltech didn't approach me officially, both mentioned that the department(s) to which I'm applying liked my application. My field is Atmospheric Chemistry, which is usually offered through Engineering or Earth Science rather than the Chemistry department. I haven't heard back from my other three schools (MIT, Harvard, and Cornell), but the program deadline for Cornell is February 1st, so I'm not reading much into that one.