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It's really frustrating but true. And keep in mind that even if the first results were posted in early/mid Feb, it is more likely you won't here anything until early March. That's a lot of nail-biting ahead

Doesn't it also depend on the field in which you are applying? For instance if you do a quick tour through the list of PhD candidates in Engineering and related fields of several schools, you will see that roughly 75% are international. Maybe there are more research opportunties and thus RAs available for the people in Eng?

It would be interesting to later have a thread "who is the first person you told" and compare the initial intentions with the actual thing. As for me, I have not told anyone I was applying (except the LoRs of course). So if it is bad I won't have to tell anyone (except LoRs), and if it is good I will still keep it quiet for a while because of my job for I do need to earn as much as possible before the hypothetical PhD.

Well, while it does happen that you get a positive feedback to later be rejected, it remains very good news to be contacted. So congrats on that! It shows that your application is strong and even if you do not get into that particular school, it is encouraging for the rest of your apps.

I would also recommend you retake the test. A friend of mine who applied to Mech Eng Masters was rejected because of a 660Q he got (he was sick when he took the test) and thought it did not matter that much. The truth is most applicants are competitive and you will get discarded if one of your application's parts is too much out of their target window. Good luck for your apps!

I'm curious, you mean that out of 150 people who pay the application fees for a program, only 30 actually send a complete application?

Same for me. More than the wait, what would bother me is to ask the LoR to write letters again

11. I thought it was a big number, now I wish I had applied to more...

Same here, I will read the letter about 10 times before I do anything. Then wait an hour that they do not send an "oops, we just mis-sent a few emails, disregard what it says"

I believe the deadline is for the application submission and they offer some flexibility for the supporting material to arrive. After all, it could well be that you sent your documents 2 months in advance and it got lost in the mail; not really your fault. For instance, I emailed yesterday one of my schools admission officer to check my application was complete and got the following answer: Thank you forsubmitting an application to our program. After the applicationdeadline, we will finish sorting the application materials that weresent by mail and online. You will receive a status e-mail shortly afterthe deadline, which will let you know if your materials submitted arecomplete. Please feel free to contact us after receiving this e-mail ifyou notice any issues. Thank you. I got similar reactions from other schools, so you should not be too worried of late recommendations, transcripts or GRE.

I will be 25 if everything goes smoothly and I get an acceptance, with an MSc and a year of work experience. I think it's about right but there is definitely no age to embark on a PhD, unless you are here to block me out in which case you should refrain.

I am going to create an account to see this! It is utterly unbelievable (and funny for those who have not had to go through this). I hope you did well in grade 2; gosh, multiplication gave me a hard time. I second the IE bit. Some of the Embark parts simply do not work on Chrome.

It feels like the start of the NBA playoffs, you know something is going to happen every day and even if your team is not playing you will be looking at the other teams' fates. Except I do not need to win a majority of games to win the title, I just need the one acceptance. Just one. Sigh.

They actually do not meet. They draw a circle on the ground, climb on top of their building and throw the applications in the air. All applications within the circle qualify for the next round. Then they repeat the game until the desired number of candidates has been reached. In more traditional schools they make paper planes with the applications and the ones which fly further are selected. That's why I tried to do as much as possible online, so that my aircraft is lighter and thus flies better. This is why some people with lots of published papers get rejected if they send the papers along with their app: it just makes the plane crash.

True, this is an exciting month. But we should also savour these last moments when everything is still possible. We may still get a perfect score with only fully funded acceptances, we may still get into our dream school, move to exciting places... In a month this might have vanished and we might be facing a depressing pile of rejections. Good luck to all of you!

I think it is: 1) a way to make easy money and pay the people processing the applications 2) a way to block too long shots applications. If Stanford's app was free, they would get hundreds of additional applications from people who would apply just to "try" in case they get lucky. Instead it costs $100 so you think twice about submitting your app. That is why I think the fee is sort of proportional to the rank of the institution: Stanford/Harvard=big fees, South Harmon Institute of Technology=small fees.

I am glad to see I am not the only one annoyed by the fishing for compliments. Anyway, I think the GPA and GRE are only there as a pre-selective hurdle, but as long as you do not have a below 3.0 GPA and 1100 GRE, you should be fine for the first step. I think what really makes the difference are the LoRs. The SoP enables you to give a clearer image of yourself especially for international students; and it will be more important for litterary applicants than for scientific applicants, I think. Also, the reputation of the unis you attended plays a part as well (it's not the same if you come from Cornell or from some obscure uni in the middle of Tadjikistan). But I stick with the LoRs, if you have good recommendations from respected faculty, you will go a long way. Just my 2 cents

I honestly do not think it would be too much of a damage if your LoR came in say even 10 days late. I believe unis expect late arrival of material (in particular transcripts and GRE tests) and set a deadline which allows them to first classify the applications along some criteria (national/international, potentially interesting/not interesting etc...) before looking again in more detail a couple of weeks after the deadline. My thinking especially applies to December deadlines because we all know everybody is out eating and drinking starting the 15th until after the new year's hangover has cleared away. My 2 cents (of course the earlier the application is compete, the better)

Congrats! You sure applied early, I have not even started my SOP. Would you mind sharing your profile?

Hi, Glad to meet people applying to OR as well. Bharadwaj, you have a strong application, except maybe for that verbal GRE. Where are you applying to? As for me, background: BS from a french engineering school GPA: N/A MSc in Financial Mathematics from Imperial College London (with Distinction) GRE: Q 790 V 550 AW ?? (not received the results yet) TOEFL: 114/120 2 strong recommendations from good faculty, one less personal. No publications but a Master's thesis for which I received a high grade Applying to: Berkeley Carnegie Mellon Columbia Cornell Georgia Tech Michigan Northwestern Stanford UCLA Please share your thoughts about Schools and application strength (or lack thereof)