packrat

There seem to be a lot of these paradoxes this year. I remember reading earlier in this thread about someone who was admitted to Stanford but rejected from Northwestern, and another who was admitted to Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley and rejected from a Big 10 school (not Michigan). Life is like a box of chocolates. Apparently so is PhD admissions.

Regardless of the intentions, a basic rule of thum(per) we should all follow:

I can't speak for Georgetown, but I will be up-front for the others: Your quant score is absolutely too low to be seriously considered by any Ivy or Stanford/MIT. Even if you were theory, I'd say you'd need a 156+ to be taken seriously in admissions. If you are any other field, probably 160+ (though others have been admitted with slightly lower). This site alone is littered with people who have great recs, work experience, and scores and still got rejected from those places. So having good work experience does not necessarily make you unique. This isn't really a bad thing for you, however. In fact, I'd say it's probably a good thing: you have something tangible that you can improve upon. I think if you can bring your score up to 156+, you'll be viewed in a different light by the committee. And I think that's probably doable if you brush up on your math skills. GRE is one of the easier areas to improve (more so than letters of rec, for example, which rely on relationships built over years). So study up and you'll be fine!

I think we are (A) hungover from the Stanford/Columbia rejections, and (B ) have given up all hope of trying to predict MIT's html-infused admissions notifications.

To be honest, I think that's bad form. If you want to decline and then reapply, that's more than fair. But academia is a small world, and you don't want to be known as the guy who had an affair with a few other schools because your first wife wasn't pretty enough.

Sometimes I wish the folks on here were the ones writing the rejection emails...

Can we confirm whether any Stanford IR admits have been notified? Saw someone received an email, but no idea what subfield they are... Also, heard from a friend who just inquired that supposedly all Stanford applicants will be told of their status today. She emailed the grad administrator but the woman wouldn't give her any info beyond that (ie said she couldn't reveal whether or not my friend been admitted). As for MIT, I applied IR and have not heard anything. Seems like only CP people so far but I'm not sure how they typically notify. They seem amongst the most opaque to that end.

My hunch is that Stanford isn't done yet (seems weird to me that no theory or IR folks have posted, unless they just aren't reporting. Also in past years about 12 people have reported a green light, and right now we're only at 6...). I think they typically have the subfield POC make calls and so perhaps the adcom rep for those fields just hasn't done so yet. But this may be entirely wishful thinking on my part. If anyone has more info, please share!

Is there an official grad dept (or grad administrator) email for Columbia? The only one I saw was for GSAS and I'm guessing we could get a quicker response with the former...

Third! I think they normally notify by subfield POC (unless everyone so far, incl methods/comp have been notified by Davenport)...

Academics can be that way I wasn't aware MIT did calls, so that's interesting...

congrats to the MIT admit!

Got a call from Stanford!!! They were trying to sell me basketball tickets. No joke. All I can say right now is, the man on the other end of the phone has seen happier customers....

Still waiting on several results but want to cover my bases just in case before people start to drop off these boards and move on to grad school. For those who reapplied, what do you think were the most important factors for getting in the second time around? What areas did you try to improve? Did you address the fact that you'd applied previously in your application, and if so, how? Did you ask committees for ways to improve your application? Any general insights or advice on how to strengthen an app the second time around would I'm sure be helpful to anyone who follows. Thank you!

Wow. Leave it to Stanford to write a nearly 50-pg report on the statistics of GRE scores! Very interesting though, thanks for sharing.

Can anyone confirm what schools are reporting this week, to their knowledge? I've heard Columbia, Yale and Stanford mentioned most frequently...anyone have any updates on those? Seems we are still a week or two away from MIT, Harvard, and others...

There seems to be a lot of talk on these boards about how much sway POIs have, and as far as I can tell, the general consensus is "not much" unless they (A) sit on the admissions committee, or ( are a big name professor in the department. This has made me wonder who, exactly, sits on these committees -- are they primarily comprised of junior faculty and a grad student or two, or do most top-tier programs also include a few more seasoned professors on the committee? It won't make a difference for any of us who are applying this year, but might be helpful for future applicants to get some sense of who is reading their application.

One of my friends said last year she was admitted to Yale in March. Weird that all the results on here indicate a Feb release. I didn't think she was waitlisted there... Let's hope. Would be nice if one of the Stanford students who lurks on here could verify if they know...

Sorry, I was speaking generally, not just for Stanford! I think Stanford does POI calls, or whatever prof was representing each subfield on the admissions committee calls those accepted to that subfield maybe (I thought I read something of this sort several days back).

Sort of makes me wonder what it's like to be a professor's spouse on V-Day. "Sorry honey, can't go out, gotta call these 40 admits..."

I have a sneaking suspicion the Stanford bloodbath awaits w/in the next 24 hours.

Anyone have any experience with this? I assume the wait-lists aren't too deep per subfield (maybe 1-3 persons?), but it would be helpful to get some sense of how common it is to get off the WL at top-5 schools...

My suggestion: If you don't like it, don't read it/post in it. No one is forcing you to, and those who are waitlisted and find it helpful will peruse it for you instead

I think that would be really helpful. Please also request that posters include the subfield (my sense is that this matters for WL candidates)

Much as I many of us would love this, someone on here a week or two ago (who is a current grad student there) mentioned that the adcom is meeting again tomorrow. So my guess is for Friday or early next week. But if I'm wrong, wouldn't be the first time...