zadigblue

I desperately hope that Bernard1992 is a troll. Their information is so inaccurate it boggles my mind.

I'm 23 and just finishing up my BA now. It feels like my undergrad has dragged on forever (worked for two years between academic semesters - took me six years from start to finish) so I'm eager to hop right into my masters.

As far as I know the DAAD does not publish official statistics as far as past acceptance rates or profiles of successful applicants. If you look at DAAD threads on this forum from previous years, you can get a rough idea of the kind of applicants that were accepted/rejected. Some past applicants have discussed statistics that they've heard informally from the DAAD, but none of that is official: From reading through past threads myself, it looks like there's no "standard" profile of a successful applicant. Obviously academic performance is an important factor, but I get the impression that beyond a certain threshold their decision comes down to qualitative factors like how convincing your motivation is to study in Germany (vs another country), your research topic / subject area, how well you speak German, etc.

I had a dream two nights ago that I opened my spam inbox and found all these emails from one of the schools I was admitted to (but haven't accepted or declined the offer yet) asking me why I hadn't responded and getting more and more aggressive with each email until it culminated in an ultimatum that I needed to respond within 24 hours or lose my admission status... dated two days prior. I woke up with my heart racing. And now I'm obsessively checking my spam filters.

Literally right after I posted that last comment I got an email from DAAD New York in response to my question about whether my "application rejected" status on the portal (which is now displaying as "application submitted") was official: (Re. the reference to the head office in Bonn - I applied through DAAD in North America.) So. Thoughts?

Geez, what's the point of having a portal where you can check your application status if it's so unreliable?! Sorry to hear about your rejections in the arts program. Hopefully those of us who applied for the study scholarship also hear something official soon rather than obsessing over this portal...

I'm lucky enough that all my programs are in a timezone where their 9pm-5pm is my 12am-8am, so I got to wake up to my admits rather than driving myself crazy checking my email all day. And I'm still waiting on one last program and potential funding, so waking up is rather "exciting" these days...

Pretty much exactly how I feel about hearing rejection status through a portal as well...

Do university administrations and departments usually close down for spring break, though? At my (Canadian) university, the administration continues to work through the break... in fact, they say it's one of the most productive weeks of the semester since it's so quiet on campus. I RA'd for a research centre in third year where spring break was just business as usual.

Mine too! Bizarre; maybe they accidentally released preliminary results too early. Although of course the eternal optimist in me is still holding out a sliver of hope...

Just a word of caution about the hover text - it sounds very likely that the "selection made" folks might be getting the scholarship anyway, but my status on the portal says "Application rejected" and hovering over it brings up "Application rejected - Row 1 column Application status - Selected". I'm guessing that second part about "Application status - Selected" might just refer to the fact that your application status has been selected (i.e. to be accepted or rejected), or it might be a glitch, so be cautious about reading too much into that!

Yes, I just checked now... it says rejected. I thought we weren't supposed to hear until late March at the earliest?

LOL, this is literally how I feel at the start of every week now!

Yes, I've also applied to the DAAD for their graduate study scholarship to finance my living costs. Hoping to hear back from that one at the end of March or beginning of April (sooner rather than later would be nice!). I got a 25% tuition waiver with a tentative (expecting it to go up after this semester) graduating average above 90% from a middle-tier public uni and 2 years professional experience as a government policy analyst. One year studying abroad and four languages (two fluent, two intermediate). They want me to accept and pay the deposit by May 1, but I haven't done so yet because I'm not sure I can afford to go. I have significant debt from undergrad and no help from relatives so even with the 25% waiver the price tag is really steep... I will have to see whether I get DAAD and then decide from there.

I did too. Unfortunately, not as much as I needed to be able to attend. Oh well...

Yep. Really looking forward to being able to actually make plans for the summer...

This is definitely my position - I have no idea about the timing of the funding decisions and keep monitoring my program's thread to see if any of the other acceptees have received a funding offer yet. And on top of that I'm also waiting on the results of an external stipend (hopefully hearing back on that within the month, OMG). It has the bizarre effect of making me look forward to weekdays (might hear back about funding!) and get slightly depressed when the weekend comes (two more days without news!).

If their SOP was written like that, no wonder they didn't get in. Sounds like a drunken rampage through a thesaurus.

I heard back after about two weeks, but it seems to go in batches (which makes sense; they probably have a committee that meets regularly to make these decisions). Sounds like no one has heard about funding yet, though.

I also applied to an Erasmus Mundus joint Masters program, Economic Policies in the Era of Globalization. Had a Skype interview with them about a week and a half ago, but it didn't go too well (misunderstanding about the wording of one of the questions, but the whole interview was only 10 minutes long so I didn't have time to recover from it). No word yet on my status, but they said I'd be notified "by the beginning of March" so I expect to hear back any day. Information does seem harder to come by for these programs, for sure - certainly by North American standards. I'm still hoping to get in, but have no idea what my odds are after a mediocre interview. :/

I have some acceptances already but this application season will come down to funding offers for me, since I have student loans from UG and bills to pay in the meantime. In the short term, I would probably look for research or admin positions at my alma mater to make ends meet... I've also been trying to cultivate at least a bit of a longer-term backup plan for myself by applying to government jobs. I have decent contacts in my federal and provincial governments (worked for both during my UG) so I could probably find something for a year or two, but grad school is still my end game.

I'm 23, but spent six years working on my BA due to a late change in my major and taking lots of co-op work terms. Sometimes I kick myself when I think that I could have been graduating with my Masters right now, but I graduated with a lot of relevant work experience (huge asset for MPP applications), so I have no real regrets.

I had the same experience! I'm also on the west coast (UVic) and applied only to European programs, so I always wake up in the morning hopeful to see something in my inbox (since their 9-5 is our midnight to 8am!). But I actually did have the experience of being buzzed awake by an email at 3am that turned out to be an acceptance letter, which totally made up for it. Fingers crossed for you!

I've just been accepted as well, but the email said nothing about funding decisions. Good to know that I'm not alone in that! Hopefully xfusedgrad is right about funding decisions being communicated in mid-February. In any case, I'm still waiting on a decision from the DAAD, but I'm not really expecting to hear from them until mid-March at the very earliest. Good luck everybody!

Anyone else faced this problem or have any input? I'm finishing my undergrad this spring and hoping to leap directly into a Master of Public Policy in the fall, but am job-hunting on the side as a backup. Since it's a professional degree, more work experience could only help my application, but as I already put off my final semester to work for two years as a policy analyst, going right into grad school is my preference. However, I'm not sure how to deal with this in the hiring process. The public service in particular starts their post-secondary recruitment very early in the year to allow time for public service exams, security clearances, etc. so I could end up interviewing before I get my grad school admission results back. What's the etiquette here? Should I be disclosing my grad school plans at the interview stage? If I actually did get a job offer before hearing back from my grad schools, is there any non-awkward/not-inappropriate way to say that I'm waiting to hear back about my admission status first? Has anyone else navigated this kind of situation before?