omegamarkxii

Being on the missing Malaysian plane :|

Getting accepted but with no funding!  That is almost worse than a reject, getting in but having to turn it down for a better financial offer.

Facebook is a place where people only report their highlights, but not their downfalls. For example -  I'm waiting until I decide where to attend before announcing my plans (on Facebook) for graduate school. People won't know that I scored 3 points less on my GREs the second time I took them, despite studying close to 70 hours - they also don't have to know that my MS degree will take ~3 years since I need to take make-up courses - and even if I only get accepted to one school, they won't know about the other 5 schools that rejected me. They will only hear that I've been accepted to a great school and that I'm excited to attend.
 
I don't filter to intentionally make myself look better - I would rather share good news than bad news, especially with acquaintances. I share bad news with family and close friends, people who I can confide for sound advice and who can lift my spirits.
 
So when you scan your Facebook feed, just know that for every victory, there were many more failures.

This is seriously torture. Everyday I wake up and think, ok, maybe today? I try to keep busy doing other things, but I am constantly reminded that I still don't know where I'll be spending the next few years.

Getting rejected by your bottom choice program. 

Waking up and realizing you're Justin Beiber?

Just watched Cosmos. Talking about how massive the universe was made me feel a lot better about grad admissions lol. 

It's like Jaws...
 
 
 
 
Duh dun.... Duh dun.... Duh dun Duh dun....    Duh dun..

I GOT INTO USC OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!! I was crying of pain because of my wisdom teeth surgery :-(((((((((((((((((( and then BOOM AN EMAIL

I want SO bad to be able to POST HEERE!! WHEN??!

This thread is giving me so much life.

University Of California, Berkeley Physics, PhD (F14) - Rejected -
Told by email to check the website. Whatever, the place is full of Communists anyway




Lol

Just relax.  It's not a big deal.  Many people have said numerous times that a lot of these schools do things in waves.  The "absolute no's" and the "must-have" students get their stuff sent out first.  They then wait for the "must-haves" to make a decision, and any open spaces are then filled with the second tier-candidates, and if needed, third-wave selections.  I found out last year that definitive rejections either came immediately, or a lot later than acceptances (like 1.5-2 months later!).
 
So if you don't hear anything quite yet, it's possible that they are still deliberating, figuring out funding options, waiting on yes/no's from the rockstar candidates.  So just relax, and take your mind off of it for a few weeks.  It sucks, but we all have to wait.

Never before has my email been so exciting.
 
I feel like I have an insight into what it feels like to be a gambler -- every chime on my phone, with the slight delay to my inbox (I work online all day), sets my nerves on edge and leaves me breath held, heart in throat, clutching whatever I have in hand, thinking IS THIS IT?!
 
I had the misfortune last week of a site I'm a moderator on adopting a new format for the forums and then spamming all mods with dozens of emails that you had to opt out of, and this happened just 20 minutes after I saw a friend announce on facebook that they had been accepted to a program I've also applied to. That just about wrecked me. Every other second I get a heart-stopping false alarm. Needless to say, I had to go opt out of that ASAmf'nP. 

My mom called me today to relay a message of encouragement from a friend of hers, who has a PhD and works in the university system. This friend said she was *delighted* that it was taking a thousand years for the various programs to get back to me.
 
According to her, the longer you wait for news, the higher up the list you have gotten. She warned that it takes a long time for them to sort through the very best applicants and get the offers ironed out, and that no news is definitely good news when it comes to grad school applications.
 
I'm still praying for an acceptance any minute now, but I do find that her outlook is an encouraging one. It makes the waiting a little less dreadful.

I should've applied to 50 schools 

Congratulations!!!

One thing I love about this site is the good news! It's awesome to cheer for people

My wait is over! Got an email from POI, recommended for admission.     
 
Funding details to follow. Haha.

Got an acceptance from Cornell. Still think this some kind of mixup...just cannot believe this.

I was fine waiting for the first two months, but now I just sit around daydreaming about imaginary acceptance/rejection letters. The problem is that I get legitimately HAPPY or SAD depending on what I'm daydreaming about, but then I sort of wake up and realize it's all in my head. It's really exhausting.
 
Very funny that I'm not the only one to start compulsively checking junk mail. Seriously, has anybody actually heard of someone missing a letter because of a junk mail filter? 
 
This website is a lifesaver.

As the time ticks on, it seems like this forum is getting darker and darker...
 
I'm trying to stay optimistic and remember the person I was when I intially applied for applications. I thought I had a shot then and nothing has changed.

I AM NOT COPING 

My email tab is open all day long and I keep refreshing the Results page... I think I need to go on a GradCafe hiatus. I love you all, but I need sanity.

Right now, Im not coping. At all.
 
For the past few weeks I have been barely functioning, filling my time with loads of socialising and workouts, not really getting anything done at work. I thought THAT was bad and then this evening happened and all I can do is circle from Facebook to Grad Café to Facebook and round again. Im stuck on this loop and I feel like a hamster.
 
There are acceptances being posted for one of my programmes and Ive heard nothing. I even have an acceptance, but now I just want more. And Im convinced Ive been rejected from my other two schools. Convinced! I have lost all sense of proportion. I cant do my job any more. I cant even talk to my flatmates. Help.

I don't have data for all programs on average, but I can tell you what I did to try to figure this out for my own field (computer science):
 
I made an Excel spreadsheet with a row for each week, and counted up, for each of the schools I applied to, the number of acceptances/rejections to both MS and PhD programs in that week. I then divided each number by the total number of acceptances/rejections for that school -- so for each week I could see what percentage of a school's responses were sent out.
 
I found that there are two waves: one that ends around the end of February, and one that starts and ends from the middle of March until the middle of April. This second wave tends to be mostly acceptances to MS programs, "consolation" acceptances (giving a nonfunded MS acceptance to someone who applied to a PhD program), or just a flurry of rejections as afterthought.
 
Comparing the results and filtering out MS programs and then rejection responses, I feel relatively confident that if I haven't heard anything (interview or acceptance) from a school to which I applied to a CS PhD program by the end of February, I most likely will not be accepted there.