btsulliv

So I appreciate the valuable insight and can sleep easy tonight. The only follow-up's I have are:
 
1) If we are interviewed by the GEM Employer, can you give us some pointers on how to handle it? How well do we need to know this potential sponsor and what research they are doing?
 
2) During this interview, does funding ($) get thrown around or does that happen down the road? Do they care which schools have accepted us?
 
Again, thanks for coming back as a Fellow and quelling our anxiety. 

I thought to help you out since I know how not knowing what is going on with GEM can drive you nuts. I won a GEM fellowship last year so I know what you are going through. First here is what it means:
 
matched - GEM has not ruled you out yet but they are still looking for an employer to sponsor you
held - GEM has found an employer who wants you. If they contact you and you sign the papers, congratulations! You are a full GEM fellow
released - sorry the employer did not want to sponsor you! Touch luck. Hope your status changes to matched soon or you will be without a GEM fellowship in the end....
 
Good luck with your fellowship applications!!!!

It could be worse...its not like your doing 25 to life at Angola. 

Deadline for my top school was yesterday. It's weird: I submitted the application about a month in advance, and all the pieces seemed to fall right into place. LORs, SOP, GRE, transcripts, writing sample---I felt good about it all because I spent nearly a year putting it all together. And everything was sent and received smoothly, too. No complications whatsoever. Supreme confidence. Ecstasy. 
 
Now here I am, one day out, and all that confidence just vanished. Overnight. At the beginning, it felt as though I was floating on Cloud 9... now I feel as if I'm floating on a wing and a prayer.
 
I keep thinking: "Gee, that all seemed to go by just a little too easily... something's terribly wrong here." 
 
I'm so f'cked.
 
Man oh man. 
 

Sometimes I catch myself berating myself for even applying because "obviously, you are not qualified or intelligent enough to get a PhD"...fearing that my professors and mentors and other advisors have just been saying nice things to avoid hurting me. I realize that is completely irrational, and that my professors would have steered me away from applying to top programs in my field if my anxious self-deprecating thoughts were true, but it is so difficult to anchor one's self in reality when obsessing over applications and chances and the future easily take over (especially during a break).

Someone else said to me, "There is no money in education." Duh! I have spent 13 years in education, I think my bank account and I know that quite well.

Another goodie, "Are you sure you did everything you could on your apps?" I actually considered adding glitter in my FedEx envelope for my transcripts, but hopefully spending almost 6 months preparing for the GRE, 3 months on the statement and obsessing over my apps even AFTER I submitted should be enough. Well, I guess I could have sent a musical card too.

Those scores are probably fine (especially with your high GPA), but if you think you can do better then retaking may be a reasonable option. The first time I took the GRE I got a 170V and 164Q, but I still decided to take it again because (1) quant is more important than verbal in my field (Engineering), (2) I needed to mitigate a poor undergraduate GPA, and (3) I made a serious goof on quant akin to your own the first time I took it. The second time around I was lucky enough to score 167V and 170Q, so for me it was absolutely worth it to take the exam a second time. If you have enough time before your deadlines and an identifiable reason to think you can do better, I think you should cram hard with a math workbook and take it again to improve your chances.

From my understanding, an applicant's academic record is not just about their numerical GPA, but also about the composition of that GPA  (difficulty of coursework, relevant trends in grades, etc). While of course an academic committee would prefer immaculate grades every semester, the next best thing is for the applicant to show a major upswing in motivation and grades before graduation, giving the admissions committee some inkling as to the student's true ability to perform at the highest levels. I am not privy to your complete application profile, but if the elision of final year grades did hurt your chances in your initial run at applying, then their inclusion may just be the difference that makes the difference this time around. I would not take up too much space on the subject in your SOP, but a line or two describing your renewed commitment to academics would be bolstered by the hard evidence of a stellar final year.