BlueSwedeShoes

Got the official invitation yesterday. In that invitation it's mentioned as a "interview day" with one-to-one meetings with faculty. And that offers of admission will be sent out one to two weeks after that. I guess I'll have to do phone interviews instead. It would have been nice to be able to go though

Yes, one trip to all schools that I'm accepted to would be the best option for me. It's a bit hard to plan though when the acceptances/rejections will drop in one by one over the next two-three months or so...but it's good advice, thank you

I got an invitation to an informal open house to one of the 5 places I'm seriously considering. It's the first one to get back to me too (yay!). Problem is, I'm in Europe. Traveling over would cost a lot of money but I could afford it. It takes a lot of time (almost a week all things considered) but I'm planning my own time this semester so I could arrange that. So, it's pricey and time consuming, I could do it...but is it worth it? Surely it wouldn't reflect negatively on me if I, all things considered, can't make it? Or would it? The other option is to do a conversation over the phone, but I personally think I would do better in the face-to-face meetings that would be on the open house. I'm not a big fan of talking over the phone and my phone voice (and comprehension, after all I'm a stoopid forienger speeking bad english) is not the best So I would greatly appreciate some input from you guys/gals on whether the trip is worth it or not. Cost/Time on one end, the positive effects of actually going there and meeting with people on the other (and see the campus/area myself). Also, my irrational fear just went from "they'll throw away my app without even looking at it!" to "they'll reject me for sure if I don't go there in person!"...

6 hours ahead here. Worst case would be someone calling me a 9-10ish in the evening (3-4 pm yonder in the states) when I'm tired from a days work and getting ready for bed...

My name is sort of unique, only two, possibly three, other people I've ever heard of that has the same name. Though one of those people is an artist who had a couple of one-hit wonders (big in Europe at least) so he dominates the google search. ...unless you add my city. In which case they get LinkedIn, academicpress, some random publication listings and my university publication database. And some hits on that artist.

I did not pay for my undergraduate degree. Or my masters. Then again, I'm in socialist nightmare Sweden where higher education is free, just like our health care. Oh, and here it's customary to be employed as a PhD student. You do a certain amount of teaching in addition to your research and get a live-able salary. And just like with all other education there's no fees anywhere. I see it sort of the same way in the USA. As a PhD student you're teaching classes. The research you're doing is (hopefully) relevant to society, you publish papers which gives the university good PR, boosts (some) academic rankings and in general helps improve your their reputation as a productive and attractive university. I guess you could ask why professors should get paid. They just teach, and do research. Like a PhD student. Why can't they just follow their dream and do it for free?! Cheap bastards. That said, I wouldn't discourage anyone who really, really wants to attend a certain university and who has the means to support him/herself during that unfunded from going. It's their choice. It's something you should think twice about though. Being funded is a fair deal if you ask me.

That's because that phrase is the big catch-all for "Cognitive Science". Indeed, some cognitive scientists do robots/AI, some do cognitive anthropology, or user design, or in my case, human factors (I'm still in a cogsci masters program though). Also, like your name/post combo

I got the same problem with "the representation and manipulation of knowledge in natural and artificial agents"...not the best icebreaker.

caputmundi, I don't think you were offensive at all. As you said, it's a subjective matter Also, I think it largely depends on how this would be posted on FB...for example, "Waylance I GOT ACCEPTED TO FCKING IVYLEAGEU SUCK ON THAT L0SERS!!!!1!" "Waylance Just got accepted to my sixth top school, everyone else must really suck if they can't get accepted anywhere!" "Waylance I'm like the most awesome person ever, totally got accepted to another school b/c my GRE is 1600 (yeah I maxed it b/c I have like 210 IQ) and my GPA is like super higher than everyone else wich is awesome (did I mention that my GRE is like 1600)" "Waylance hey prof B fck youre class cause i'm going to fking yale and u suck" "Waylance My fifth acceptance letter arrived today per mail. Another professor, from a very respected school I might add, begging to work with me. It was quite pathetic. I tossed the letter as they only offered funding if I became a TA. I will not accept anything that detracts from my research. And to have to interact with lowly undergraduates, the thought sickens me. The schools must realize that this process is all about me and nobody else, and I will only accept an offer that fully agrees with this." ...are all pretty offensive, to me at least. I might even go as far as say that they are conceited and somewhat bragging. But if someone wrote something along the lines of "just got an acceptance (finally!), might be going to <city> come fall!" I would probably just congratulate"like" it.

Admissions now take into consideration not only your GPA and GRE, but also your FarmVille scores! I don't think I'll post which school I get accepted to or rejected from. But at the end of the semester, if I'm accepted, I'll probably do an update about it. I have lots of friends in the states who keep asking me if I'm moving back or not, so I don't think it's conceited to let everyone know that I'm moving. Plus, I have no friends applying to the same programs anyway (or grad school at all).

Look, the purpose of this thread is to post nothing but the positive things. If you don't like it, don't read the thread. I think it's good for people to take a moment and think about their strengths. Keeping the mood up, we all need that PS. iWILLgetin; It sure does look like a strong app to me!

Ok, I'll contribute! "Que Sera, Sera" - Doris Day (Good oldie) "Everything's Alright" - Jesus Christ Superstar (I guess Judas part would be your inner "nag" that's telling you that you just wasted a lot of money on grad school applications...) "There's Life Outside Your Apartment" - Avenue Q "I'm Calm" - A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum "Take a Chance on Me" - ABBA "Professional Pirate" - Muppets Treasue Island "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" - Green Day "Are We the Waiting" - Green Day "I'm All Alone" - Spamalot "I'm Gonna Be" - The Proclaimers (Bonus point of you sing this on your visiting day to your potential advisor!) "Totally Fucked" - Spring Awakening "I'm a Believer" - The Monkees (Just to get something happy in here!) "The Impossible Dream" - Man of La Mancha "This is Your Life" - Dropkick Murphys "Is Anybody There" - 1776 (for everyone that's dealing with silence!) "Cheer Up!" - Reel Big Fish "Don't Stop Me Now" - Queen "I'm Going Slightly Mad" - Queen "Where Do I Go?" - Hair "I'd Kill to Fall Asleep" - New Found Glory "It's Five O'clock Somewhere" - Jimmy Buffet "Everything is Alright" - Motion City Soundtrack "Don't Stop Believin'" - Journey "Everything's Still Fine" - Volbeat "Destination Unknown" - Top Gun ...that ended up longer than I thought. And just about as roller-coast-y as my mood.

Aw, I came here hoping to find the ultimate waiting-to-hear-back-from-Grad-school playlist.

Scenario A: : I study cognitive science! : Cogn...whatyousay? : Well, it's an interdisciplinary field, so I study a mix of psychology, computer science, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience and anthropology! : So...you'll be a programmer/psychologist/any one other very specific profession? Scenario B: : I study cognitive science! : So you study how people exercise? (Ok, might need to explain this one. Cognitive science in Swedish is "kognitionsvetenskap". Clueless people often mistakes this for "konditionsvetenskap", i.e. some bastardized form of "exercise science") Then again, I don't think anyone really understands cognitive science...it usually takes students about two-three years before they start to realize what they are actually studying (and I'm dead serious about that time frame).

Why do you guys get the "Happy Holidays", or "Application Complete" or "Irrelevant Email With Obscure Content"? To spin off the "4 Yorkshiremen", you're lucky to get irrelevant emails! I used to dream of irrelevant emails! All I get is "Application incomplete" or "We cannot accept the official transcripts you sent us" or, more commonly, silence!

One school claims they never got my transcripts. This, of course, I didn't know until last week...it was a December 15 deadline school. And calling to check things, yeah no. They don't take calls directly but instead you're asked to leave a message with phone number and information and they'll call you back. Since they never have, I'm assuming that they don't call international cell phone numbers (I know other schools that have this policy).

I have had one professor contact me so far. He was positive and wondered how my application were coming along and said that they hoped to make a decision fairly soon. However, when I replied and, honestly, told him that my transcripts had not been received by the school (but that I was working on it and hoped to have it solved quickly...I only found this out yesterday damnit!) he sent me a second email within 15 minutes saying that I should not worry too much and that they weren't making the decision for two weeks yet. And now I'm freaking out and fretting about whether this means I will not be accepted or what...

Tim at the international office of UCF. Friendliest point of contact so far, great help and solved many of my problems right away! Thanks Tim

That sounds really interesting Also, if I may ask, why did you shift from physics to psych? And how did you go about it?

Really? Care to elaborate why we, educated people, should not use qualitative studies? Also please do provide some sources (quantitative studies of course! I would ask no less of an educated person such as yourself) for the claim that the most discriminated against class of people on the whole earth is "rich white American males". I would really love to read more about that...

This is an excellent idea! We all need to think more positive thoughts... -4.0 GPA from a year at an American college, est. top 5% in my class in my home country -95th percentile on the Verbal GRE (and it's not even my first language!), well above average Quant for social sciences and an average score on the AW (which, again, is good for a non-native speaker!) -TA for a number of undergraduate and graduate classes. -I have a MSc (or; will have at the end of this semester ) and solid research experience. -Kicked that ridiculous TOEFL test to hell and back! -Three awesome LoR. One is from a relatively large name who happens to know a number of the professors I want to work with personally. That specific recommender also wrote the most glowing thing ever and brought up (valid) positive points about me that even I hadn't thought about! -Two published papers at large, international, conferences. One more paper under review, two more in the works and hopefully one or two more at the end of this semester. -Presented said two papers at the conferences. Even got funded to travel across the Atlantic, and won an award for the registration fee at one. -and I have one poster too! Which I presented as well. -Good reactions from those I contacted about potential research. Even met one (Mr. huge name in the field) in person, and he straight-up offered me a position if certain research grants panned out (he would take what essentially was his salary and use it to fund my PhD instead!). He also helped me sneak in to a conference I was not registered for and gave me free lunch. -Recent events in the US is actually further motivating my research. And we're talking highly covered news here that hardly anyone (least of all in my discipline) could miss. In fact, this could be one of my strongest points, it's that relevant! -My SOP was worked through in minute detail and I had several proofreaders/editors, including two English PhD holders and it was agreed that it is, in fact, good. Which is awesome. Ok, that's enough. I feel embarrassed enough just typing these things out

I would also prefer some sign, anything at all, that they're at least reviewing my application As it is right now the only feedback I've received has been problems, problems, problems: transcripts not received even though I sent them, not accepted despite being official, TOEFL not received despite being ordered, GRE not received despite being ordered, visa application not received even though I need papers from the school first and cannot fill out those forms, inability to log in to check application status because I don't have a social security number needed to retrieve my login information etc etc ad nauseam. Enough to make me paranoid that nobody will even look at my applications because they're somehow incomplete or something...

I figured a good way to start off the interdisciplinary section would be to see who is studying what (or would like to study at least). My degrees are in cognitive science, an interdisciplinary field that includes computer science, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience and anthropology. My focus (i.e. my Masters) is in risk and accident analysis, human factors (aka ergonomics aka systems engineering aka engineering psychology aka applied cognitive and industrial psychology aka a lot of other names) and cognitive systems engineering. I haven't seen anyone else in my field (or even close to it) on these boards yet So I get by by talking psychology with the psychologists (I'm even a member of Psi Chi!), computer science (HCI to be specific) with computer scientists (I've published HCI papers!), neuro with neuroscientists (I'm a member of SfN and have had posters at the annual meeting!), anthro to anthropologists, linguistics with grammar nazislinguists and so on...but if there's any HF/CSE/Ergonomics people out there, come out, come out wherever you are...

Wow, that's really bad. I hope that I managed to get my "Look, we say tomato, you say tomato; in the end it's still ok"-point across... But honestly, that sounds borderline discriminatory and I would probably have kept contacting people higher and higher up the hierarchy. Then again, if they're that particular and hard to work with about something as mundane as a transcript, maybe it's for the best not go to there...

Honestly, I would not be surprised that within one school, within one program, within the same adcom there is also confusion on how to best proceed. And probably disagreement as well.