phdcandidate022014

Bye bye MIT Materials. Rejection via e-mail just now.

Calling them would spoil the fun! That's like finding a wrapped Christmas present on December 20th and slightly tearing the paper (or holding the present up to the light if it is white-colored wrapping) to get a glimpse of what's inside. I'm enjoying the waiting. I didn't apply to multiple schools for undergrad or my MS, so this is new territory for me. Plus, I blanche at the idea of being one of the couple hundred that call an admissions office. I know the result will arrive when it arrives and no sooner.

So...is today the day for MIT? Or will it be tomorrow? I know there were a few people that reported acceptance last week. Whether or not that was everyone or just a "first wave" is unknown. History suggests the latter. A close interpretation of the sentence "The decision on your application is presently being reviewed and we expect [emphasis added] you will learn of the Department’s decision no later than the first week in February" leaves the door cracked that we (I) may not hear a decision by the end of the first week of February. If the decision will come at the time the chair said it would come, there is still room for interpretation, namely three different interpretations: 1. We will hear the decision before 11:59 p.m. tonight, the 7th day of February. 2. We will hear back before 11:59 p.m. tomorrow night, if we assume they consider Saturday to be the last day of each week. That would be us inserting a parenthetical of "full" between "first" and "week" in the message above. 3. I'm having too much fun parsing the language of that e-mail from the department chair.

Well, according to a poster that contacted a different MIT Department (EECS), the snow in the northeast has precluded some people from getting to work, so some departments may be working with skeleton crews. Wondering how this will impact the decision timeline specified in the DMSE chair's letter. Anyone on here willing to give them a call to find out what's going on and whether we should still expect to hear a result before the end of the week?

At the risk of sounding very arrogant, I applied with very high confidence that I would receive an acceptance. I still feel that way and, in light of that and the fact that the committee said everyone would be notified by the end of the first week in February, I am assuming that all acceptances have not yet been sent out. If all acceptances have already been furnished, there would be no need to delay the rejections.

I have no insider information, but per the letter from the department head, all decisions will be sent out by the end of the first week of February. Examining data from years past on GC suggests not all decisions are done at once, but rather spread out a bit.

I took a two-pronged approach. Ultimately, I've observed that it could hurt or it could help or it could do neither. Here are some thoughts, and I will note that I applied to some STEM and non-STEM programs, 10 in total. 1. Some departments or faculty webpages are very explicit in saying "do not contact advisers in advance". I did not contact those faculty or departments where this was the case. There is a reason that these departments or faculty make the request to not contact them public and I wanted to honor that. 2. In the case where no written policy was stated (or if the faculty/department encouraged contacting people ahead of time), I did that. But my approach was not to simply get them to notice me. My gut says you can probably learn about 1/3 of what you need to know about a department/faculty member just by looking at their basic information online. You can learn a bit more if you draw inferences from things like their manuscripts, etc. (e.g., a faculty webpage may show publications but be out of date, but a simple look in google scholar or sciencedirect can give you a clearer picture of productivity). So if I did contact faculty, it was for a specific purpose and only to get answers to questions that were not already answered. Also, if I contacted someone, I would only do it once and would only re-contact if they replied to me. My initial correspondence was kept short and to the point. If they requested more information from me (they would often ask for a CV and some other information if they wanted to get to know me more) I would provide it to them, but I would not provide it to them unless requested. Here is an excellent website that gives you perspective of a professor at a top school. Many of his sentiments are true for professors at most schools: https://sites.google.com/site/chuckeesley/before-emailing-me Since it is still early in the decision process, it's hard for me to say whether or not my approach was effective. I will say that the faculty I contacted and corresponded with early on was a very good experience and I was left with very positive feelings and believe that correspondence will help them remember me when evaluations begin. Furthermore, a couple of the correspondences ended up enlightening me to the fact that the school/faculty was not a good personality or research fit, even though my "desktop" analysis indicated otherwise. To sum it up with stats: Total programs applied to: 10 (MIT, Berkeley, Yale, Stanford, U Chicago, UIUC, etc.) Total programs where I contacted at least one faculty before the application season: 5 Acceptances from schools I contacted before the application season: 1 Interviews from school I contacted before the application season: 1 (offer of admission is forthcoming) Total programs where no decision has been made: 8

Thanks! I really like to write, which has been helpful. Focus area is sustainable pavements and infrastructure. Has anyone posted any consolidated assessment of admission stats for the named schools? It seems that there is usually a dearth of info for engineering schools. Specifically number of applicants, number admitted, number attending per class.

My assessment of past years' data on Gradcafe suggests that many of the Civil/Environmental departments do not start notifying until around late February. Of course that has to be taken with a grain of salt, and every year may be different, but that is what I am expecting. UG: 3.5 (top 10 civil/environmental at the time I was there) Master: 3.5 (top 10 civil/environmental at the time I was there) 10+ peer-reviewed pubs, 10+ presentations GRE: 169Q/166V/5.5AW Very strong LOR Waiting: Stanford, UC-Berkeley, Yale, U Florida, CMU, MIT, Cornell, UIUC, UT-Austin Accepted: Chicago (Molecular) Rejected:

It has been an up-and-down week, especially after the MIT false acceptance e-mail went out last week. I'm very surprised that I did not get the acceptance in this 'first wave' that came through. Given that most recent e-mail said that all decisions would be made by the end of the first week of February, I am hoping that the notification lag is more due to a POI-specific issue and not a rejection. I know they make decisions based on committee and not necessarily faculty you identify, so it was a little dismaying to see some people report acceptances around the 29th/30th. Luckily, an examination of data from previous years shows that it is typical for acceptances to be spread out over several days (or weeks) and not all at once. Still hope! Anyone have any idea of the typical number of applications the department receives for each cycle?