DGChaos

I think I may have botched all three of my interviews on Skype so far. Normally, people get to know if they were accepted in about a week or so. It has been over two weeks and I haven't heard anything.

Oh. It didn't occur to me to send a thank you after the interview since I had smiled and waved and all that (while signing off Skype). Would it be weird if I sent a thank you an entire week later or something?

Hey sqxz. When are you expecting WUSTL and CMU to get back to you? And congrats on making it to Urbana's Biophysics Program! I got rejected from that one.

Guys, how do you know if your interviews went well in general? Are there some of you who were rejected after the interview? Did you see it coming? I have not heard back from the schools that interviewed me at all.

Hello. I am currently an electrical engineering undergraduate and I'm trying to switch over to the life sciences as well--mainly systems biology. I have never had formal biology courses, and most of my learning has been on websites like coursera.org. I have applied and do not know how things are going to go from here on. If I don't make I this year, I'm going to work at a lab and get about a year's research experience before applying a second time.

I haven't been accepted, but three of them interviewed me. And even in one of the interviews, when asked about writers who inspired me, I actually said Edwa--Jerry Coyne. It's been burned into my brain! All I can do is hope. I'm waiting to see what the fourth uni does. No news from there yet.

...when you spend ages cleaning your room for a Skype interview only to realize you have your pants hanging in full view of the camera--fifteen minutes into the conversation--and you try to hide it by sitting at an angle.

..when you have to send the following mail to four universities after you submit the online application. Two let me submit a new SoP, one attached it to my application, and one never got back. I hope this doesn't hurt my chances...

Exactly. Happened over Skype.

Crappy movie.

Same here. Finished my interviews and no news. I was informed that I will be notified the end of February or early March. Oh well..

I'm really sorry. I know it can be terribly hard, but you have to start focusing your energies on things that are in your control. Figuring how you are going to address the admissions directors advice is something you could be looking into. If you have other applications waiting, it's best to try to push them away for now. Easier said than done--I am having a really hard time trying not to think about the admissions too. But I know it's necessary. I have already applied and it's beyond my control. I was talking to a friend a short while ago. Most of it consisted of (jealous?) rants about undeserving folks who make it into top masters programs in the US from over here. These guys have done nothing (no publications/major projects) other than score well in school tests. And I'm talking about ONLY school tests, not even the GRE, TOEFL or whatever (even these have little value in assessing research potential). They just demonstrated they could succeed in classroom exercises and not require financial support. Even though what I said in the last paragraph seems unrelated, it made me realize it is best to remain as impassive as possible. I can't allow the admissions decisions, decisions that have not yet arrived, results other folks are getting, or the general (sickening) outlook of people here that pursuing research is pointless influence me so much. If all the universities reject me, what can I do? I'll have try again next year, and I will have a stronger profile then. I'm just going to do my best to forget, and stop worrying. I really hope you do get into a program. I guess best thing is to try to stay neutral and not hope for too much or too little.

Rejection does hurt a lot. And rejections are implicit even in two of the programs that interviewed me. My interview offers did ease the pain a little initially, but I'm still uncertain because my interviews weren't particularly good (the connection kept dying, there was a lot of disturbance), and I haven't heard back from them at all. Things are especially dicey since I'm an international student. There's just too much competition even at this stage.