ihatechoosingusernames

The University Of Pennsylvania Statistics, PhD (F16) Rejected via Website on 7 Mar 2016  U 7 Mar 2016 This is where Trump is graduated from. I got a better admission.
 
 

Yeah, the fact that there are no guarantees of acceptance in future years (even if you are more competitive) is a huge deal. If I hadn't just received an offer from the school I wanted to go to, I would have gone to a school I wasn't terribly impressed with. My thought was that I'm a tough person who could make the best of anything for five years with good funding. If I needed more opportunities to publish, I could take that into my own hands. If I needed more travel or conference or whatever funding I could apply for grants. The only thing I felt I couldn't overcome was a total personality clash between myself and my POI. And while the personality of the person I interviewed with didn't fill me with warm fuzzies, I was able to overlook some quirks in order to for sure have a grad school slot.
Especially if you're trying to pass up this opportunity and apply to someone specific next time, just know they may not be accepting students. 

You do you. Don't know what you're asking for advice if you're not going to listen. 

Great point @Central Perk! The idea that there are no guarantees of acceptance, even if your application has improved substantially, would make me really, really nervous!! In fact, there have been a couple users on here who have claimed that they were less successful this time around compared to their first application cycle, even though virtually every aspect of their application improved!

I've made my final decision! Signing the paperwork this weekend, then sending it in on Monday! 

I don't know about you all, but I'm dying to know already haha! Now that the wait for program acceptances is over for me, this is my new waiting game ?

I already had a university fellowship when I applied, and it was cited in my reviews as meritorious and likely helped me get the NSF.  Awards beget awards and so on.

That's definitely a fair point. I'm at a point with two of my top choice universities where I'm waitlisted pending funding opportunities (as in one school is waiting to hear back about an internally funded fellowship), and I wish I knew whether or not I have the NSF fellowship. It would be lovely to be able to go to my first or second choice rather than my third, but I also realized I'm lucky to even have an acceptance at all. We're getting closer, though! This month just needs to fly by  

Well. There's this one. Just know that you're not the only one in bummer town. The population is growing this month...
University Of Texas At Austin (New Writers Project) Creative Writing Poetry, MFA (F16) Rejected via E-mail on 2 Mar 2016 A 2 Mar 2016 1a/0w/1r rnLove this program! Bummer town, population=me

Geographic location doesn't matter much at all in the academic market.
The academic market is a national one. When you go on the job market for professor positions in math, the departments are generally not going to care whether you're applying from Madison or Seattle. A very limited potential exception could be small Midwestern colleges that are concerned about retention - they may be worried that people unused to cold Midwestern winters in rural areas won't stay at their tiny colleges for very long. However, they'll probably be almost as concerned about someone coming from Madison as they would someone coming from Seattle, so *shrug* no big deal there.
Industry is a different story. Geographic location absolutely can matter in industry. I work at Microsoft, and we have a large proportion of people here who went to UW. I also witnessed this in graduate school myself in New York - I realized at the end of five years that I had so many connections all over the city. The fact of the matter is, being physically located somewhere can turn into opportunities - for part-time jobs, for internships, for consulting relationships, for volunteering and shadowing, or simple connections and networking. One of my new colleagues got this job by geographic networking: she did her PhD at UW; she knew the person in the job before her, and that person recommended her for the position.
That said, I went to Columbia, which is on the opposite coast, and spent my entire life before August on the East Coast. Large companies hire from all over the country. My Seattle friends are rarely actually from Seattle, and most of them moved here from all kinds of places to work for one of the large companies here (often quite recently; most of my friends moved to Seattle within the last 2 years).
I don't know a whole lot about Madison's industry and culture. I've heard really good things. (Madison's not the middle of nowhere.) But I will say that Seattle is an excellent place to be, employment-wise, if you have quant chops and an advanced degree. Everybody here is hiring! Everyone has gobs of data and just wants a math or stats major to throw at it. Heck, they'll throw a physics major at it if they can get one. I will also say that Seattle is a city with a lot of immigrants and internationals. The tech world is an industry that's really open to going through the visa process to get people hired here. Both for issues of representation and issues of employment, you may find it easier here (but again, I don't know that much about Madison).

Chicken breasts are where to go for an efficient source of protein. Are you really defending $100/month as a reasonable food budget? What do you do if you're a 220 lb bodybuilder eating 200+ grams of protein per day? I'm not talking about the food labels that base everything on a diet eating 50g/day, which is absurdly low.
Yesterday I went to the store and spent about $25 on food that'll last me about 4 meals plus a few snacks. $400 is a reasonable food budget, not $100. Sure, it can be totally doable to go under $400, but I sure hope you guys don't actually have a straight face on when you say eating on $100 is no big deal.

I've been waitlisted at MNSU. It's my top choice, so I'm crossing my fingers hoping a spot opens up. 

Ew! OMG! Someone getting involved in the political process?!? How bizarre! Could you you imagine someone trying to piece together politics AND psychology?! Not in my Ivory Tower! I mean, what are we? A group of people who might want to use relevant research to eventually craft sound public policy for the betterment of society? As IF! 
And seriously? Having diverse interests outside of academia?!? They're doomed. Not only are they doomed, but they're crazy! Totally uncommitted jerks! I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't even THINK about letting people know my personal preferences on anything until my masters thesis is defended and I've passed my comps. 
Remind me what school you're at again? I'd like to know where not to go. 

Honestly, just the little things that make you think, "Wow, this guy's a jerk." Some examples I saw the past few interview days where I was helping to interview prospectives...
Continually apologizing for attending a poorly ranked undergrad ("I could have gone to Yale but my parents wanted me to stay closer to home, I really regret that, my state school was pretty terrible, etc.") Makes you sound like you only care about the prestige of the school... Being a suck-up. No one likes a blatant suck-up. Do it tastefully. But shoving your way past three other people just to ask me a totally obvious question, (e.g. "I've been wanting to talk to you all morning since you come from my same home state! So, do you like it here?" Uh, duh I like it here or else I would have left? And being from Texas in no way implies we are anything alike.) This also extends to blatant show-offs.  Treating other candidates disrespectfully when you think the interviewers/profs aren't watching. That's why we have student volunteers and admin assistants hovering around to help out.... they report back to us.... Any sort of bizarre hobby, like.... attending anime conventions every weekend or being part of a burlesque troupe or cold-calling for Bernie Sanders. Not saying any of these things are inherent bad, but you don't want to be singled out as "weird" or uncommitted (unless, of course, you're doing Culture Studies, Dance Studies, or Political Science, respectfully, in which case maybe a brief mention would be fine). You can let that crazy out once you've been in the program for a while, but not on interview day.

Ew! OMG! Someone getting involved in the political process?!? How bizarre! Could you you imagine someone trying to piece together politics AND psychology?! Not in my Ivory Tower! I mean, what are we? A group of people who might want to use relevant research to eventually craft sound public policy for the betterment of society? As IF! 
And seriously? Having diverse interests outside of academia?!? They're doomed. Not only are they doomed, but they're crazy! Totally uncommitted jerks! I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't even THINK about letting people know my personal preferences on anything until my masters thesis is defended and I've passed my comps. 
Remind me what school you're at again? I'd like to know where not to go. 

Ew! OMG! Someone getting involved in the political process?!? How bizarre! Could you you imagine someone trying to piece together politics AND psychology?! Not in my Ivory Tower! I mean, what are we? A group of people who might want to use relevant research to eventually craft sound public policy for the betterment of society? As IF! 
And seriously? Having diverse interests outside of academia?!? They're doomed. Not only are they doomed, but they're crazy! Totally uncommitted jerks! I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't even THINK about letting people know my personal preferences on anything until my masters thesis is defended and I've passed my comps. 
Remind me what school you're at again? I'd like to know where not to go. 

Ew! OMG! Someone getting involved in the political process?!? How bizarre! Could you you imagine someone trying to piece together politics AND psychology?! Not in my Ivory Tower! I mean, what are we? A group of people who might want to use relevant research to eventually craft sound public policy for the betterment of society? As IF! 
And seriously? Having diverse interests outside of academia?!? They're doomed. Not only are they doomed, but they're crazy! Totally uncommitted jerks! I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't even THINK about letting people know my personal preferences on anything until my masters thesis is defended and I've passed my comps. 
Remind me what school you're at again? I'd like to know where not to go. 

Ew! OMG! Someone getting involved in the political process?!? How bizarre! Could you you imagine someone trying to piece together politics AND psychology?! Not in my Ivory Tower! I mean, what are we? A group of people who might want to use relevant research to eventually craft sound public policy for the betterment of society? As IF! 
And seriously? Having diverse interests outside of academia?!? They're doomed. Not only are they doomed, but they're crazy! Totally uncommitted jerks! I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't even THINK about letting people know my personal preferences on anything until my masters thesis is defended and I've passed my comps. 
Remind me what school you're at again? I'd like to know where not to go. 

That's a really awesome thing to say @communityhopeful, I didn't think about it like that, but you are completely right!
I found this part of your comment really offensive due the fact that I get super excited when I meet someone from my state on the east coast, (let's just say there aren't very many New Mexicans living in New Jersey) and I am in no way trying to suck up to someone or just make "small talk" with them. So I would imagine that someone living in Texas may be excited to meet someone from Texas living in Boston as well. Also, just because you left Texas and moved to Boston does not mean that you like it there. Many people move to new states/cities due to jobs, school, etc. every single day, but that doesn't mean that they like it there. Lastly, just because someone said they were from the same state as you doesn't mean they are implying that they are like you.
I sincerely hope that this candidate was not spoken poorly of or labeled a "suck up" for mentioning that he/she was from the same state as you. If they really shoved past three other applicants, I could understand how that may be too forthcoming and seem desperate, but during interview days, applicants are extremely nervous and under so much pressure that it is really unfair to judge them on something like this, especially since they are most likely looking up to you and trying to impress you because you are a current student.

Just gonna leave this here...

I know we still have at least a month before the results are announced, but I'm feeling really impatient! I wish the results were announced in December so that we could know when we were applying for graduate programs. 

Because previous searches have not resulted in the best candidates being female?

I think it depends. I think the rankings are good starting points, at the very least. It's good to know how often professors are publishing and publishing (and especially how often they publish with student co-authors). I also see that a lot of faculty members tend to come from the same top universities, so if you were looking for an academic career you might want to take that under consideration. For non-academic careers, I think name recognition is important (as is a good program alumni base), but if your school can help set you up with a dream research opportunity or internship, that's great. Fit is super, super important and I don't think you can pass up a place where you felt at "home," especially since it's a huge commitment. I'm of the firm belief that you'll flourish if you go to a school you're passionate about, with research you love, under an advisor you enjoy.
I mean, how much of a difference are we talking regarding rankings? 

I would say that while some offers have been extended, some of us are still waiting to hear back about financial aid/stipend stuff too. No one holds multiple offers purposefully or maliciously, but it does take some time to make a fully informed decision and go and visit schools  I also hate to say it, but even if someone turns down an offer, it doesn't mean the school for sure will pull people off the wait list. 
And as for your second question, I was invited to visit/"interview" at A&M earlier this month.

It was great to meet you!:)