newms

lady gaga

cellophane tape

youth ministry

I think it's ok to contact the department (rather than the professor) to ask if all decision have been made - but I would still wait at least a couple more weeks first. It's still February and in some cases, decisions are made in March.

walking cane

Congrats on your acceptances! Here are my suggestions: 1) If you haven't made a final decision yet on where you're going then there is nothing wrong with going ahead with the interviews at the other schools. At the very least it would be a good opportunity to meet profs that you could be working with in the future, even if you go elsewhere. Who knows? Maybe your interview at the lower ranked school would give you something to think about as you make your choice. 2) That's a tough decision - is it possible to get a refund on your plane ticket? Or at least get it changed so that you could use it another time? For me, going to the admit weekend of your top choice would take precedence over an interview at a school that you're unlikely to attend. So in this case, I would try to reschedule the interview and adjust the plane ticket accordingly, or simply withdraw my application from the school I was unlikely to attend. All the best!

medical procedure

Those are excellent questions. I'm preparing for an admit weekend too as well, so I'm thinking about questions like this and I think you've come up with a very nice list. In addition to the excellent questions above, I'm thinking about also asking, 1) How's life in the city where the school is located? 2) Does the department tend to be collaborative or competitive? 3) How much departmental politics are involved and do grad students tend to be shielded from it? 4) Is it possible to switch advisors, once an advisor has been chosen? 5) I'd ask my POI if has plans to take a sabbatical or leave any time soon. The first 2 or 3 would probably be best directed at grad students, while the rest would probably be best directed to the POI. Good luck and congrats!

I agree with LJK. You could also ask the grad coordinator/grad director if they are using a ranked wait-list and where you lie on it. You could also ask how many people they typically admit off the wait-list. If they have this information available, it would give you a better idea of your chances of ultimately getting in. Best of luck!

I would really hesitate to do this. In fact I would suggest that you don't do it, unless you had a real reason to do so - like new information, such as getting a paper accepted. Once you've confirmed that they've received all parts of your application, then the best thing to do is to just wait. It's hard, but otherwise you do run the risk of annoying the POI or coming across as begging. Perhaps if you had been in previous contact with the POI, you could let them know that you had sent in your application, but other than that, I wouldn't contact them after application. If you do find out that you're on a wait-list of some sort, then it would be perfectly acceptable at that time to let them know that you're still very interested in their program.

stressful situation

back door

come hither

I feel a little of this too - before my first admit I was all ready and champing at the bit, now that I've been admitted and I'm looking at exactly the steps that I need to do between now and the Fall and then the next 5 years after that, it is daunting. Moving to a place I've never been before, where the only people I'd know are the prof and grad students that I would have talked to between now and then, wondering if I'll have the same desire to get a Phd 3 or 4 years from now that I do now. There are a lot of questions in my head and I think I'm even having some of the imposter syndrome before I get to grad school. Even with all the uncertainty though, I am certain that this is what I want to do and I am certain that I can be successful at it. I guess with any major life change like this would be for me, there is going to be a bit of cold feet - in the end though, my desire to get a PhD and complete grad school is a lot stronger than any cold feet.

card tricks

wedding dress

forensic anthropology

casual Friday

A short email is fine. One way of being subtle about reminding them is to give them a quick status of where you are in your application - i.e. have you submitted, finished SoPs or how you did on the GRE, while reminding them that the deadline is approaching. A quick phone call is fine too. You could also ask if they need you to resend the website link for them to submit the letter. Sometimes they miss it, or it goes to their junk folder.

applied physics

theoretical physics

Unfortunately, those replies seem pretty generic and don't necessarily mean that you would get an acceptance. There are lots of applicants with strong backgrounds that apply, in many cases, more strong applicants than places available. If the prof said something specific about your particular application - that they liked any publications you had, or maybe they had a relationship with a letter writer of yours who had recommended you - then that would be mean that they had a specific interest in you and that could lead to acceptance. It's good that you had profs that said they would look out for your application, but you also need to keep in mind that sometimes, even if a prof decides s/he wants an applicant, there may not be enough funding for them to admit you, or the adcomm might not even recommend admission. So while it's good that profs say that they will look out for your application, that alone doesn't mean very much unfortunately.

Yeah, I got 3 fully funded offers last week. I can't believe my luck.

Thanks. Sending it your way...all the best!

I think fit might be the biggest issue, and remember that even though profs might like your app, there might have been others that fit what they're doing better. I would suggest that you also re-do the GRE if you think you can score higher- even though your scores are good enough, getting into grad school is really competitive and so you should try to improve your profile even if it's on something like the GRE. What I did last year when I didn't get in, was to do a complete evaluation of about 60 schools - looking at things like what's their admission rates, and how well my interests fit that school, among other things. I came up with a final list of schools that I thought I'd be a pretty good fit at as well as that didn't have a ridiculously low admission rate. I would also suggest you really re-consider your statement of purpose. Did it focus on your research interests and show how well they match with the schools you applied to? Did it portray you as an applicant that the adcomm or your POIs would really want at their school? I think this was probably the most important thing I did from last year to improve my applications for this year.