Meglet

While we play the waiting game...
 
I just want to say I am so sorry I wasn't on here last year!  You are all such fun and encouraging folks and I am enjoying getting to know you!  I could have used some folks to commiserate with last year (all rejections...well one acceptance but no funding).  If I had been on here last year I would already know some of you and Daisy123 we would have known each other BEFORE interviews!!  Ahh well.  I'm on here now.  You're all cool.  Carry on.

This is the second day in a row I've woken up to an acceptance email...it's a nice change of pace from my typical routine of anxiously checking the results search and refreshing my inbox.  I think I can get used to this

Accepted at UConn! Medical subfield. Over the moon! 
 
As a 'repeat offender' (nicely coined, Faulty) this means the world to me. Funding, etc. Nice emails from DGS + potential advisor. 
 
Hope this means lots of good news to come for everyone! 

Actually, I partially disagree with this.  From some of the things we've seen on the results board and discussed here, I think you are right about official acceptance packages.  But we've seen a lot of schools letting faculty members do unofficial notifications several weeks before official ones, and when left up to individual faculty members, that can mean very spaced out acceptances.  Or possibly even some professors deciding not to do the unofficial notification, and just let the applicant wait for the official one.  But at a certain point, yes, we are probably just languishing on the wait-list.

To add to Kaitri's post - there are big differences between schools (also between Canada and the US).
 
Some departments have control over their funding and admission, they do what they want with it. Others, often true of Canadian schools, might be your "department" but you're technically a student of the Graduate Studies School (or something to that effect). So the department reccomends your admission, but the administrators, deans, etc are the ones who finalize it. In other schools, often the US, you are a student of your department and they are using their funding to support you, they have more control.
 
In the case of some schools, they can and will admit their top students very early and somehwat 'secretly' because they are competing against other top programs to get that student. They will then do a wave of admissions offers, and rejections and hold back a group who they will make offers to if any of the others who are offered decline that offer.
 
If rejections have gone out for a school and you haven't heard, you can ask the department secretary or graduate officer or whoever you have been in touch with (aside from your POI) what your status is. But it probably means you're in the second round, which in some schools is an official waitlist and in others it isn't.
 
But I coudn't agree more with the comments above about the process being torture - having seen admissions from inside a committee, it's a totally absurd process, completely unfair, and is absolutely no reflection on your value as a candidate at all. It's full of insider nonsense, who knows who, who went to school with who and so on.  Maybe back when each incoming cohort was 25 students or more, it might have been a little more of a reflection of your value as a student - but now, when incoming classes are 8, or 5, or sometimes 2 students? It's meaningless if you're admitted or not - it's practically luck. In other words, seriously do not take it as a reflection on you as a candidate if you aren't admitted. If you reached out and a POI said they were interested, that is meaningful and it means if you want to you should continue the process, apply again, find the school and the moment when luck will be on your side.

Yeah, I'm applying to Duke.  I wrote to one of the professors and she said that I should write my SoP to appeal broadly, since it's a group decision.  That feels a little challenging, since they so clearly favor very specific proposals.

Don't go there. Just don't. It'll consume your life.

Thanks for enabling me!  Yes cheese is also good.  I'm New Mexican - all our food is drowning in melted cheese (and green chile).  But wait, you're not in for the weird dreams about bathing people in mayo?!

I am in for World of Warcraft, wine, and chocolate! May I add cheese to the picture? I mean, what is wine without cheese? 
 
Note: there is no such thing as "too much wine and chocolate". And cheese for that matter. 

We have so many of the same schools on our lists   That's exactly how I feel as well... hard to interpret silence (and yet so easy to overanalyze)...

I'm ashamed to admit I'm watching netflix instead of doing homework as well.  I can no longer claim to be on the edge of crazy however.  I'm swimming in the warm waters of the Crazypants Sea. 

I don't think they're reaches at all. The project you pitch and how you pitch it is way more important than your grades or the school you go to. However, this isn't to say that grad school admissions are a complete meritocracy, it's always a little bit of a crapshoot ultimately. Apply wherever you want to, and good luck

Hello everyone!
 
I was just sent a link to GradCafe the other day and finally decided to check it out...You all have no idea what it's like waiting when you don't have anyone to commiserate with about grad school apps!  I am surprised any of my friends are even speaking to me anymore, considering the amount of whining I've been doing over the past couple-three months!    

Sounds like Chicago has contacted everyone they want for interviews, so that's a rejection for me now (it was a bit of a pie-in-the-sky school anyway, so I am not terribly disappointed).  I am quite worried about NYU though...I'd been chatting to a professor there before I submitted my application, and she mentioned the average intake was 8-10 new students...I see on the board that there have been 5 NYU acceptances so far (possibly 1 fake?) so I am becoming concerned at not having heard anything...  
But congrats to everyone getting their acceptances so early!  It's really encouraging to see so many people getting into the schools and programs they've applied for!     
 

My refresh button has taken out a restraining order against me.

Working full time takes up a lot of my time and energy.  Alcohol generally takes care of the rest.

Unlike the previous posters, I think that contacting the department and asking them to update your CV is appropriate. This is assuming that your conference acceptances are relatively prestigious (e.g. not undergraduate conferences at your own department that you happen to be organizing) and that they are in fact relevant for your current/future work as it relates to this program. Two conference presentations can make a big difference in terms of how experienced/successful you are perceived to be. That said, I'd keep the email very short and professional. This is not the time to "tell them more" about yourself or to gush about the program. Simply point out the change "I have recently had two papers accepted for presentation at conferences X and Y and was wondering if it would be possible to update my CV to the one attached to this email, which reflects this development. Thank you again for considering my application. I look forward to hearing from you soon, -Lorelai"

I know it's wrong but I definitely just reached out to a POI to reiterate my interest. I wanted to clarify why I hadn't visited yet (short version: was very sick last term, just resolved) and to assuage some fears they had expressed to me about students relocating from big cities. Breaking cultural taboos left and right ya'll. 
 
PhD applications be like
 

This 100 million times.  Even "a few people have gotten interviews at X, and I haven't heard anything, so I'm not getting in anywhere."

I am also a semi-professional belly dancer, and I left up my belly dance site, in my real name.  It is actually related to the research I'm proposing, and the fact that I belly dance is mentioned in my SOP and my CV, but I worry sometimes that it will hurt my chances.  But then I think, if they look down on that, it's not the kind of program I want to be in.  And then I think I just want to get in.  I agree - ughhhhhh!

"When will you find out??"


Heard this maybe three times a week until I was accepted. It drove me nuts!

Also my husband's absolute faith, while wonderful, can sometimes wear on me. While i pray to be accepted to a single program, he assumes i'll be causing a bidding war between schools. He even went out and bought me a Nook when i started applying. "Here honey," he said. "You'll need this for textbooks."

i just don't share his optimism.

Plan B: If I don't end up in grad school, I will move to Hollywood and write a script about a zombie admissions committee.

I also love how all the "Plan Bs" are teaching. What if you are already a teacher? What is our plan B!? Lol.

I totally do that.  Except I have the tabbed inbox, which keeps my phone from dinging every time someone wants me to sign another petition or give them money, but means I DO have to click the gmail tab, because it doesn't show notifications if things end up the 'Updates' box, which is probably where a grad school form email would end up.  And then I refresh the whole thing, just in case.

thanks daykid! this was the answer i was expecting, so now i can cling on to hope at least until i receive the rejection emails!