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Rejected from the Chapel Hill waitlist yesterday, and the CUNY waitlist today. Feels like that blood moon last night was all for me. But sincerest congratulations to everyone recieving good news today!

As someone who has been sitting on two wait lists for over a month now, I have to say, it's great to see news on the board of wait lists converting to acceptances. Congratulations to all those whose agony has ended! It gives the rest of us hope.

Same here. I applied to the PhD program last year and was offered the MA, but turned it down in hopes of trying for the PhD again with a stronger application the second time around. Apparently I'm moving in the wrong direction.

A few pages back, some wise poster cautioned against re-reading your SOP. I (stupidly) took the challenge, and re-read the statement I submitted to one of my top-choice programs. At first, I was totally reassured. I had said what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it. Then catastrophe: I realized that I used the wrong name for one of my POIs. The name I used IS someone whose work I'm tangentially interested in, and I was looking through some of his recent projects while I was writing my SOP; but he's in a different area than the one I described being interested in, and not someone I would expect to work closely with at the program. I certainly did not intend to mention him in my SOP. So I'm taking the time between panic attacks to solicit the advice of the forum: is there anything to be done? I'm currently on the waitlist at this school, and I'm attending the open house. Should I try to find a way to talk to the professor I intended to name in my SOP, mention the mistake, and express my interest in his work? Or is any kind of corrective just going to draw more attention to the error? The agony of being on the waitlist has now rocketed into the stratosphere.

This year is my second round of phd applications, and I have used Interfolio both years for the schools that will accept it, and have asked my recommenders to upload directly for schools that don't (in my experience, most schools DO accept it, and I didn't want to overburden my letter-writers). Aside from a couple of unfunded MA offers, last year was a wash. This year, I've had one rejection (UT Austin, which does not accept Interfolio, so those letters were submitted directly), and am currently on two waitlists: Chapel Hill (does not accept Interfolio) and CUNY (does accept Interfolio by mail). I have no idea to what extent my recommenders personalized my letters for the schools that don't accept Interfolio, but I do know that the generic Interfolio email was at least good enough to get me on the CUNY waitlist. Who know what all that ultimately means, but take from it what you will.

I haven't received official rejections from most of my schools, but based on the decision postings here, I'm sure they're forthcoming. I've moved from depression to acceptance, and now want to start thinking positively about moving forward. So to anyone here who has previously applied, been rejected, then tried again, and was accepted: any words of encouragement for us rejects? What did you do the second time around (or third) that improved your application and made the difference? I've been out of school for eight years, and took a couple of post-bac classes to get back into the swing of academia, improve my grades, and get recent recommenders. It wasn't enough this time, but should I keep at it? Take more classes, improve my writing sample, hone my statement? Any practical advice, or just positive thinking advice, would be very welcome.