The Pseudo grad student

I'm soo glad to hear this, I was starting to wonder because on the results page all I was seeing were PhD admits/rejections. Thanks for explaining this! Although at the same time, I'm just as irritated now that I must wait even longer for a response from anyone...

I'm actually quite surprised that Davis, CA isn't mentioned here. Actually now that I think about it, it's more a town than a city... Not known to many people but Davis is the bike capital of the US, yes over Oregon, where there are more bikes than students at the university. It's the most bike friendly town with huge bike lanes and since the weather is great year round riding is the best way of getting anywhere including campus. The campus is huge so a bike is very convenient to have over the bus + walking. One of the arguments I have against Berkeley is that it isn't so bike friendly. My sister biked to school everyday because she lived so far away but then she had to bike to school but then once she got there she would have to get off her bike and leave it on campus somewhere! One of the worst things too is the bike theft in Berkeley which is really bad, worst than Davis. The BART system really has 3 stops in Berkeley so it's not that easy to get around but if you wanted to go out of town the BART and Amtrak are great! Just my two cents...

I'm so with the OP on this topic. I think I have the worst kind of emails too because most of them are from my potential schools. I almost get an email everyday from one of my schools regarding my application which is getting annoying and uneventful to say the least but at least they know I exist so that's a plus. But today, I received this extremely irritating email that scared the crap out of me: Dear ----, I am pleased to inform you that your admissions file has been recently forwarded to the Department of Mechanical & Materials Engin for committee review. Who the heck starts an email off like that "pleased to inform you" and then ends with telling you it's been sent to the committee! What the heck, seriously! Trying to give me a heart attack for no reason. I'll just take all these stirring emails as since you like to spam me with so much irrelevant matters, that means I'm in. Yes I'll think that.

Okay maybe I'm being a little oversensitive here but since I do go to UC Davis, I have to defend it's honor. Wine making or the major viticulture is a lot harder than it seems. Surprisingly a lot of Chem PhD decide to go and work in the wine business since it is very specialized and delicate. We also get funds from a wealthy benefactor (namely Robert Mondavi) so it's important in supporting the school as well as people who enjoy drinking wine. So I wouldn't be so quick to judge the major. In reply to the OP, that is a most subjective question so I choose not to answer. Everything has a purpose in society so judgment really can't be made.

I totally know what you mean. I just want to get it over with so that I can move on do other things with my life like self improvement or something. It's like we're all in limbo.

@mudlark: You added a whole other can of worms for me to think about! JK, I know what you mean tho, to just leave it alone because they're no control over it. Thanks for trying to calm down my sanity while also adding to it @Hermes: I really wish that to be true for all of us!

So I know this is all wishful thinking on my part but it gives me solace during my waiting period. Say if School A does not have a deadline until say May 1st but most schools have deadline earlier in the year so you decide to send it off extra early, does that get you ahead of the game of other applicants who apply later or not? In my case, most of my applications are being reviewed later than usual because of complications with my transcripts but does this give me an edge in any way or disadvantage? I know that obviously, more spots would be open if I applied earlier (giving a greater probability of admission) but in doing so I'm competing with other very well qualified applicants so it's most likely that I'd get rejected. If my application and all it's materials is reviewed later with people the adcomms are on the fence about, maybe that gives me sort of a "more far competition" but also less space to get in (lower probability?). I know that because of my late review, funding will most likely not be available in my case but that's just one of the consequences I can overlook. I'm not sure which case if better if any Any thoughts? I might totally be over thinking this.

Honestly I don't think the stature of an undergraduate school matters at all. What I've found was most important across the board were GRE scores and GPA from whatever school they attended. (Information via UIUC Graduate students) However in the case of comparing two different students with the same exact stats, GRE and GPA, coming from Berkeley vs. a state school, they would be paritally to the Berkeley student because the cirriculum is set to be harder as compared to the state school student. This advice was given to be by an adcomm themselves so hope this helps!

University of Florida where the weather is warm all the time and the research is just as hot! My second choice would be UIUC, I did a Summer REU there and loved it but sadly enough did not apply for the school this year as I know how competitive it is and I know that I'll be rejected

This sort of relates to research but not really at the same time. Whether or not the school is close to a national lab. Grad students at my undergrad college found it frustrating having to travel to New Mexico all the time to get experiments done. If something goes wrong with the machine they are hoping on using for that week they'd have to fly in again when it's up and running but I guess that's what happens with all labs so you can't help it. This is really low on my priority list but it's a nice plus when your school doesn't have the best lab equipment. When all is said and done with the school, who knows, maybe you'll even be able to find a job there as well

I could see how that may happen but the fact that you stated it your SOP covers some gaps makes it seem like a much better idea to upload it onto the website. Just like someone else said, it won't hurt and the worst case is that they don't read it. I feel that the SOP gives some voice into your application instead of looking at the application as purely numbers so I'm all for the humanity connection in the application process. Besides, I feel like attaching an SOP even though it's optional sounds like you took the initiative to actually do one so I say definitely attach it. Good luck

So I recently found out that in practically all my schools that I need to RESEND my transcript again because my degree was not "conferred". The only way I found this out was because every school listed my transcripts missing even though I knew each and everyone of them had received it via the post office. So apparently an "incomplete" transcript means nothing at all. Most of the schools said that my transcript is unacceptable until then and yet my degree won't be conferred until the end of February which means having to spend another 100+ dollars on getting and sending in transcripts to the 8 schools I applied to. I realize that really all this was initiated because I didn't graduate until December 2009 because of some idiot at the engineering department couldn't figure out my GE's. Because all these grad schools have deadlines marked for my transcripts, I have no other choice but to send them off "incomplete" and spend twice as much to do it all again is so frustrating. Not only that but because I needed to clarify my situation by calling ever school it's delayed processing my applications making me wait for decisions that much longer. It made me start to question if this entire process was all worth it. Does anyone else have this problem? Thoughts? Help? Do people applying during their senior have to go through this annoyance as well?

@Hydrangea: I never truly thought about the environmental and economic implications of the letters. It definitely makes sense when I look at it from that point. But the ceremony of it all, that's a very nice way to put it! I also forgot about how unreliable the mail is to begin with as I've been having troubles with sending a few of my documents as well but I guess that that instant gratification of knowing is definitely an advantage. Thanks for your thoughts!

... but I like my rejections/acceptances in letter form. To this day, UC Berkeley has yet to send me a rejection letter for my undergrad so I have no idea whether or not I got in even though I did receive a rejection from Berkeley when checking my status online. I don't know why but I like that old traditional system of receiving a letter through the mail. To me, it makes it official and maybe it shows that the school took a little time to write a letter to me even though it might have taken 5 seconds to change the name and sent out the generic letter but seeing the letterhead and seal in the background sort of gives me closure. I'm obviously not a fan of the "checking status online" thing but I don't know what to think about email acceptances/rejections. Any thoughts or am I just totally crazy here? Maybe it's an excuse to say, "I didn't get rejected."

Well after hours upon hours crying about not getting into any grad schools I resolved my Plan B to keep my part-time job and beg... BEG them to take me on as full time while volunteering at the microfab at my school. If I'm desperate enough, and that means really REALLY desperate, I'd move back in with my parents. Plan C, if that doesn't work because I'm soo desperate to be in school, I'll apply to be in a certificate program at Stanford and pay a butt load of fees just to attend school. But before all that logic sets in, I think once I receive all my rejections letters I'll go absolutely crazy, stay at home watch episodes of Burn Notice continuously, and eat juk food every meal of the day to make me feel better. Also, becoming a porn start doesn't seem all that bad now, it'll help in paying off the student loans and the rent I have to pay for every month...

Just what I'd expect from a geeky CS major. JK, I'm an engineer so I totally get it, I love geeks I have a less, well more stupid way of predicting the future of what grad schools to get into. As an extremely bored high school senior I played out the outcome of what undergraduate schools I got into by playing continuous card games and kept a tally of whether or not I'd get in to a certain school. And surprisingly it was accurate, because I got in automatically to UC Davis just as the cards had predicted. It was uncanny actually, I'm thinking of doing that all over again... Anyone have a deck of cards I can borrow?