Dark-Helmed

I've also been into the wine. (Incidentally, I take my coffee black. Are we the same person?) If you're looking for new and interesting reds to drink, see if you can get your hands on a ruché. I think they're not considered prestigious, but the one I had tasted like roses. Was very cool. Even better, slightly looked down on also means decently cheap! Edited to add: "tasted like roses" doesn't mean "sweet and gross," but rather "distinctive floral aromas."

Congratulations!

Seconded! Also, <3 your new avatar. Not only are there few situations that Elle Woods doesn't improve, but I keep hearing her chirp "what? like it's hard?" in reference to getting into grad school. Cue Captain Picard facepalm.

I think it has to do with admin workload. Since we all apply online these days, they have our information in electronic files. From there, they can make "not-accept" the default setting for the files and only go and manually change the state for the ~30 or so applicants that are being accepted and waitlisted. Then they can automate the not-accepted notification for everyone else in the default state. But it would be so nice! (Incidentally, during previous traumatic application cycles, I decided to think of it "not accepted" instead of "rejected." Much more psychologically kind, and probably more accurate to the process as well.)

Jumping in from lurking to add: I suspect that unless something specifically problematic happens (such as rumors that a school was flouting the April 15th deadline), adcom members are not inclined to sink tons of time into gradcafe stalking. Most of us have relatively more free time, and considerably more emotional investment in this admissions round, than they do. This is not to say that the board is free of faculty members (that is demonstrably not true!) or that there are not very good reasons to keep a figleaf of pseudo-anonymity... but I wouldn't be too paranoid about the potential that your application can be matched to your gradcafe account.

Congratulations!!! Very happy for you!

yeaaah....

What anxiousphd said. Since it sounds like GW is trying to figure out the financial situation before they can offer you money, they might not know that until the end of the day tomorrow. Then, add in some time for them to be able to act on the information, and you're looking at late in the day on the 15th or the 16th.

Congratulationsish, child of 2. Hershey's kisses can be pretty tasty, and, well, if we want to run with the metaphor: you often feel better after eating a few kisses than the huge cake. Fewer sunk costs in terms of your daily calorie allotment too.

Oh. That's much harder. Do you have a sense of who the departmental anti-children hardliners are so that you can start tilting your interactions towards members of the department who might be more receptive to letting their experience with you outweigh their perceptions? Is there a support group for graduate student parents at your school? Probably some of the mothers there will have some good school-specific advice and resources. There isn't all that much you can do: you'll probably want to keep the news under wraps for as long as possible and hope/expect that your established track record of excellence and continued professionalism will suffice. And, finally, congratulations!

Congratulations to you both!

From what I've heard, post-quals might actually not be the worst time career-wise to have a baby. You might want to check out the discussion on this topic at The Chronicle's forum (https://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,81697.0.html)

Yah, don't really have any advice other than that. Sorry- it's frustrating.

Sorry to hear about your rejection, Ruby. Enjoy your ice cream, go take a boxing class at the local gym, and, in a few hours, remind yourself that you still have two acceptances!

I'm starting to wish I'd begun taking periodic mental tests as soon as I'd submitted my applications. It would be really interesting to have records on the toll that the past four months has taken and how quickly I recover after April 15th (come good news or bad). A very small part of me is hoping that I don't hear back until I find some benchmarks to assess.

Also on a waitlist and haven't heard back. Although I'm losing my mind and powers of concentration, I do understand why people might be taking long time to decide: humans tend to get paralyzed when faced with important decisions that requires parsing complex information. I do wish that these decisions were a bit more forthcoming- especially the ones I'm interested in, of course! In the meanwhile, I feel like I should go participate in some sort of study about the neurological consequences of stress for prolonged periods of uncertain duration. If you put me in an MRI machine right now, the machine would probably just spit back a picture of a mushroom cloud.

Congratulations!

Ha: way to chose the nuclear option

Have you had a chance to look at the placement records from each program? If you don't know where you want to end up afterwards, it might be profitable to see which of the programs produces graduates who have the most flexible employment paths.

I'm envious, Ruby. As we get closer to April 15th, I'm getting more stressed for exactly the same reason- more likely that I'll hear the final decision (and that it won't be good). Bailed on practice tonight to watch {escapist action movie} and drink wine. Definitely good for my mental health!

Hello to everyone still waiting, As we get closer and closer to April 15th, the pressure and anxiety seems to be increasing for many of us. I thought I'd start a thread where we can share our strategies for managing stress and trying to carve out some measure of focus. Personally, I've been trying to stick religiously to my gym schedule. During the workday, I've mostly shifted my background music from rock over to romantic ballet music and have been trying to add in a few more sets of yoga podcasts into the week. I'm also going to start reengaging with the Pomodoro Technique to try and break up the constant temptation to check email -> phone -> grad cafe. But it is a hard balancing act, and one that I've been increasingly failing at this week. How are the rest of you staying sane?

Congratulations, Sansao! Enjoy the release of emotional pressure...

Sorry to hear that HEPhd. Good luck figuring out the next steps: maybe not a fun experience, but you'll emerge stronger.

Yep. I keep thinking that if i was smart, I would have made an email account just for applications and configured my smartphone to assign a unique light to incoming messages from it. That way I could know, for example, that I am waiting for the gold light and seriously cut down on the signal: noise problem.

Ahh, so exciting! Congratulations! I hope it pans out