palindrome

How do you handle this? Thank-you emails? Nothing? How many days after the interview do I have to get in touch?

I think a lot of the shock at the stinginess of the offer on here is caused by the different funding expectations that science/math/engineering students have compared to humanities students. Offers in science can come to $30K/year. In English departments? Not so much. So just be aware that you can't compare this to offers from different departments. Good luck.

Thanks for commiserating, caput mundi. My biggest concern is that they'll reschedule this interview weekend for another weekend that I have an interview--I had an interview lined up for the next 4 weekends, and one of them already involved rescheduling. I have practically no wiggle room until mid-March. I just hope it all works out, somehow.

So I have been looking forward to attending an open house at a certain school in Sunny California, my top choice, for about a month. All of a sudden this blizzard comes along, and before nary a snowflake has fallen, my flight is canceled. No make-up flights are available until Saturday, by which time the open house will be done. What now? Will this hurt my admissions chances? The only contact I've had with these folks is when a professor cold-called me to invite me to the open house; needless to say I was a nervous, inarticulate mess. Has this happened to anyone else?

I was actually going to do this to my top choice, but they actually pre-empted me by calling me and inviting me to Open House weekend. When I mentioned on the phone that I was thinking of stopping by anyway in a couple of weeks, the professor on the phone did not at all seem enthusiastic. If anything, I think this hurt me.

*Start the process early (this was easier said than done for me!) *Email professors early. A last-minute email convinced me to apply to one of my top choices, but I would've been able to save myself some time and stress if I had contacted professors early! There are some programs where I didn't email the professors because it was too late, and I'll always wonder "what if?" There is no way of knowing whether anyone at a program is currently interested in your research subject until you contact them. Hell, I was recently surprised to learn that several faculty members at one of the institutions I applied to were interested in my research project. I had never even thought of contacting those people because they didn't list it among their research interests! *Be comprehensive in searching for programs that would be a good fit. There were tons of programs I didn't apply to because I had no idea they existed or because I thought there was no chance I'd get in. I got interviews at at least 3 of the 4 schools I actually ended up applying to, so I probably could have thrown in another program or two for good measure. *Statistics are (almost) useless (i.e., Your Mileage May Vary). The statistics may serve to divide programs and applicants into tiers of selectivity, but at the end of the day every case is different, and if you have a good rapport with a professor and share the same interests, you're likely to get in; otherwise, you're not.

I am going to disagree slightly with some of the other posters. UC San Diego had no word limit (I wrote 1400 words, and I got a callback). Chicago's psych program specifically stated that the committee found that the best essays were around 1200 words. There is no hard-and-fast rule. As long as your essay is engaging and there is no extraneous verbiage, it can be 1000+ words (so long as it's under the word limit)

Cool stuff! It's crazy that the Nestorians once rivaled the Roman Church in extent and influence (Nestorian churches in China! Priests in Genghis Khan's court!). The spread of Syriac Christianity is a really great example of how globalization is not a modern phenomenon, and of how West and East have come to terms with each other throughout history. Good luck!

I'm applying to Cognitive Science programs, with primary interests in psychology & linguistics and a quantitative/computational bent (I was a math & econ major in college). Good luck!

I applied to two separate but related programs at one school (not CMU). I was told the programs didn't even share notifications of invitations to interview or admissions decisions with each other.

Thanks. Just an update: the next day I emailed the secretary and received an email with the invitation. I also emailed the professor a thank-you note. He replied pretty tersely but politely. I never heard from the other professors he said would contact me. Did I mess up? I guess I'll find out when I go to this interview weekend...

I applied to 4 schools, all of them within 3 hours of the midnight deadline. None of them got my transcripts or GRE's before the deadline. I have heard back with invitations for interviews from 3 of those 4 schools so far. So I would say they understand that people need time to get their recommendations, transcripts and scores in. Most schools don't start sifting through their apps until a little after the deadline (usually after New Year's).

So I was just getting ready to go out the door this morning when I received a call from a strange number. I lost my phone a few months back and there are lots of people whose numbers I don't have, so I thought nothing of it and picked up. A professor started identifying himself, said that they hadn't made any decisions yet but my application was very strong and that they'd like to invite me to interview in February. I was incredibly nervous and caught off guard (I really didn't expect to hear from this program except for a rejection notice!) and I talked for 50 minutes, babbling kind of inarticulately and not very insightfully. The professor had told me during the conversation that some other people (the grad coordinator and three or four other professors) would contact me later today...but I have not received anything yet. I know that maybe they haven't gotten around to it, but is it possible to mess up so much during an invitation to interview that they change their minds?

<br /><br /><br /> Same here. I am definitely very glad to get in, and can't wait to meet the faculty. Good luck to you with your apps!

<br /><br /><br /> Maybe that's not what I mean--I am honored to be invited to a program, and I am quite impressed by the faculty there. I was just concerned that this acceptance meant I wasn't in at other schools with similar timelines. I think having some options is good when you're making a decision that will define your life for the next 5 years!