St Andrews Lynx

I'm going with good. Given that interviews are a time-investment on the part of the school, they won't interview unless they are strongly considering taking you on. Good also that they're giving you an opportunity to prove to them that you're worthy of being accepted onto the program. Good luck with it!

nipwe, If your only motivation for going to a school is its "prestige" then I think you'll have a hard time getting in to these places. You can't flatter your way onto a PhD program. The Admissions Committee KNOW their university is in the World Top 100 Rankings, they KNOW that people want to get onto their programs just because of that fact. Admissions Committees are looking for hard-working scholars who will make significant contributions to the school's research program/Department & research group life, who will go on to do Great Things and generally prove to be a good investment. They almost certainly AREN'T looking for somebody hitching a free ride and intending to coast through their PhD for the sake of "prestige" just to go back to their home country to better land themselves a job. Be very careful about reputation snobbery.

Given the relatively small pool of applicants who are also on the GC forum, it's hard to tell if 3-5 acceptance postings from University X signify a flood of decisions or a small advanced mail-out. As long as people aren't posting rejections then I figure I'm still in with a chance... Good luck with UPenn - hope we're not left waiting too long!

I'd say it would be a close call. You're also lucky to have 4 potential LoR (I know it was a challenge for me to find a suitable 3rd!) Perhaps pick the professors with the best standing in their field(s) if you're stuck. A full professor's LoR might carry slightly more weight than an associate professor's if the Admissions Committee don't know either individual closely. Or take the professor who has more connections (through conferences, invited talks, collaborations) and is therefore whom somebody on an AdCom is most likely to know personally. Tailoring is incredibly useful and probably necessary for all institutions. Academia is a village, after all. Tell your referees which institutions you're applying to, asking if they have good connections to any faculty there. Make sure those with the closest connections are the ones writing LoRs for those places. Use and abuse their network and influence to your advantage. If you feel that Prof B doesn't know you that well personally, then perhaps meet with them in person to talk about your grad school plans and motivation for postgrad study. And-or send them your most recent CV and a copy of your Statement for guidance when writing the LoR. Good luck!

Has anyone heard anything from UPenn yet? Or does anybody have information about when they're sending out their decisions? Last year I know they held out a long time before notifying rejected applicants...

Nice card and maybe a gift voucher for wine (since gift cards are cheaper to mail than bottles!).

You could also ask if the PIs have set hours they expect their students to be in the lab for contact purposes, that's an indirect way to discuss it. Alternatively: "What expectations do you have of your students?" or "What are the typical hours students in your group work?".

I post to GradCafe quite quickly. In my field we don't have interviews or Recruitment Weekends - an offer is an offer. I gave myself a bit of time to let the first admission offer sink in for me before I told anyone (since this is my second application cycle, getting 1 offer is quite a big deal!) and posted it all over GC/Facebook/Twitter, etc. As I'm being neurotic about checking the Results listings and using that to decide the likelihood of my being accepted or rejected from Program X I think it's fair to assume that other people are doing the same thing and that I should post results within a day of receiving them. At least on an anonymous listings board I can't be accused of bragging or wallowing...

I visited a couple of schools very informally over the summer (just for half days, really). I can't really compare to any formal visitation weekends, but I imagine you'd feel less rushed off your feet and have more chance to talk with students & explore on your own. I would also find it easier to pick up the vibe of the place when I wasn't surrounded by a large group of applicants. The Professors might be otherwise engaged, but if they're not then at least you aren't the 20th prospective student they've spoken with that day... Oh, and congratulations on getting admitted!

Yes please, would love to.

Thank you for the insider information - that's useful to know. Just goes to show how arbitrary decision dates can be. I figure that as long as people aren't posting Acceptances on the Results List it means I'm still in with a chance.

engstudent728, I hear you. I went through the painful process last year of waiting to hear back from schools after knowing I'd sent in an imperfect application and not done X,Y & Z that could have boosted my chances. I did get rejected from everywhere I applied to...but my world didn't end when that happened. Last year I felt as if contacting faculty and POIs by email would be some sort of...intrusion. It really isn't. If you do get rejected then perhaps you could contact a professor at one of your preferred schools and explain that you weren't accepted into the program this year, but are looking to try again next year and can they give you any pointers about strengthening your application? Include basic stats and your CV. This approach (a) shows motivation about improving yourself ( gets you on the radar of a POI or two © gives you a bit more perspective on your application strength (they might turn around and say your GPA was fine/could be offset by more research experience). Coming from the British university system (and already having graduated) I couldn't turn back time and improve my undergraduate grades. What I could do was increase my research experience and make more contacts with faculty...which more than compensated for my other application weaknesses. Good luck!

I don't see how it could do any harm - you're on the inside now, as it were. From what I've heard, on visiting weekends for some Chemistry programs they schedule you to meet with faculty you expressed an interest in on your SoP. I reckon you could just send a short email saying that you've been accepted to the program, are interested in working for them, and look forward to meeting them at Visiting Weekend/start-of-term (attach CV for reference).

$ 32K Thanks for the intel & well wishes, useful for me (as an international) to know what to expect.

Received my first offer of admission from Rutgers University (Organic Chemistry). Relieved I've got SOMETHING to look forward to in Fall 2013. What's the average amount of funding people have been offered? Rutgers have offered me $3.2K for the first year (TA, scholarship, tuition fees & health benefits)...that seems to be on the good side...?

That all looks positive. I see the "top 10% of undergraduates" and "provide a recommendation in strong support" (which you can't really improve upon). There are no ambiguous statements I can see that would suggest he has doubts about you, either.

Worst application for me was Temple University, by worst I mean the most stressful. Instead of submitting a reference via the online system I had to hunt down a PDF Reference Report Form, email that to my referees and get them to email it to Temple's Science Graduate Admissions Office. More run-around for me. It was only after I'd emailed them the Form that I realised my signature was needed on it, so I had to hastily print/sign/upload/re-send the Form before my referees submitted the wrong one. At which point I found out that Referee A *did* submit the unsigned one, but assured me that he'd put in a squiggle where my signature should be. I got angry because I thought that if the administrators assumed he'd forged my signature it would be worse for my application than if my signature had just been forgotten (and he got defensively irate in response)...but thankfully he'd emailed Temple the blank copy of the reference by mistake, so was able to re-email a 100% correct Report Form only a few days later. To make it worse the report form only gave a mailing address, while the PI I was in contact with said 'Just submit it by email to person X', which led to Referee B sending me anxious emails because he thought he'd emailed the wrong person and Referee C snail-mailing it when I thought they email (leading me to panic because I thought their reference should be on the system and it wasn't). ...I needed a strong drink and a lie-down after my Temple application was all complete.

I'm drinking lots of camomile tea whilst I'm waiting, and making sure to take a lot of hot baths. Just the usual de-stressants.

Everything gets messed up when you're in a completely different time zone from the schools you're applying to. I don't think I'll be up at 3am constantly refreshing my inbox, fortunately. PS. I wondered if some schools would send out auto-replies at 00.01AM about application decisions, fortunately it seems as if most stick with office hours...

Some of my applications wanted to know, others didn't ask. I know for certain that one school looks at BOTH your applications when you re-apply and judges you based on the 2. But I think in that instance they're looking for signs that you've done constructive things in the intervening year to improve your chances of admission (e.g, better GRE scores, completed another research project). So it isn't necessarily a bad judgement they're making...

On one hand I feel more confident about my application. New (& better) referee in the mix, more experience, better awareness of the field, more links with the schools I'm interested in. So as it stands I'm confident of doing better than last year. ...On the other hand I think I was very naive about the whole graduate admissions process in 2012. I didn't know how strong my application was compared to everybody else's, I didn't know just how competitive the programs I applied to really were. I didn't even know when I could expect to hear back from my chosen schools (the nasty surprise is a whole other story!). At this point in time I know exactly when the decisions are likely to come out and what the admissions rates are. I think the extra knowledge has raised my stress levels.

Most of the wisdom I'm able to provide has already been covered in this thread. But I think it deserves re-iterating. 1. The reason that I don't believe "safety schools" exist is because (a) there will still be a large number of highly-qualified applicants submitting applications to these places as their safety schools too. You'll still be competing against the same talented people who applied to the R1s at the safety schools. And also because ( the most competitive schools at the top of the league tables are the ones with the most money for taking in new students. 2. First time around I had initially considered visiting the grad schools I was interested in...and decided against it. I cannot understate the importance of visiting the schools you want to apply to and talking to the faculty you want to work for. This was especially true for me because I'm an international applicant - unknown and expensive. I took myself on a summer holiday in the USA and tacked on several grad school visits during that time. Most people were impressed by the degree of initiative I'd demonstrated by doing this. Through the Thank You emails and follow-up questions I did my best to keep my name imprinted in the faculty's minds. 3. The best way to get a meeting with a Big Name Professor is to contact the schools' Graduate Office and ask to schedule a visit. If you tell them who you'd like to speak to then they'll do the run-around to set you up with several professors...and sometimes throw in a free lunch with current grad students! 4. If things screw up and you end up not getting in to your first choice...or not getting in anywhere...IT ISN'T THE END OF THE WORLD. I know from experience that rejection stings...but it also catalysed a great improvement in my application for the next year, as well as an overall improvement in myself as a scientist. A rejection might be the best thing that happens to your PhD application.