museum_geek

Waiting on LORs was the toughest part for me. Putting all the hard work I had done for my apps into the hands of others and trusting them to get those letters in on time was really difficult. Thankfully my letter writers are all awesome and got everything in well before my deadlines!

AWWWW YEAH CONGRATS SMG!!!! Doing a happy dance for ya buddy

To be fair there's no calc on the quant portion of the GRE, so maybe your calc teacher would just assume that you would have done well if there was calculus involved and she was just that much better than all your other math teachers?

Going by what I'm assuming is your entry on the results search, that math GRE isn't too bad for a non-math discipline. I only scored 3 points higher than you and I have three acceptances so far...just goes to show that getting a 1 on the AP Calc exam doesn't mean you're totally hopeless! edit: Yes I'm terrible at math, and yes I decided that taking AP Calc my senior year would be a good idea. I made some bad choices in high school

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

If only posting on the results page was a mandatory exercise for applicants...just think of all the speculation we would be saved from...or subjected to!

NoHo is awesome but the commute can be a pain, especially if you plan on taking the bus. If you are looking for reasonable prices, look at listings in North Amherst and Hadley (the little town wedged between Amherst and NoHo). If you want super super cheap rent, look at Cliffside and other apt complexes in Sunderland - it's a ~20 minute drive from campus and can be a bit sketchy but rents can run as low as 450 a month in some cases. Overall, anything in North Amherst, especially along Pine Street, will give you a good combination of affordability and proximity to campus. Whatever you do AVOID PUFFTON - it's right next to campus but it's the go to off campus housing for rowdy undergrads and can turn into a complete shitshow on weekends. Also, the on campus grad student housing in Sylvan is really depressing so avoid that whole area like the plague.

Congrats Faulty! I did my undergrad at UMass Amherst so feel free to PM me with any questions about campus and the surrounding area. PS: You are going to love Amherst! The area is beautiful and the town has a cute little downtown area with some great little shops. Rao's has the best coffee, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I think you'll really enjoy working within the department as well - it's small and pretty close knit, and all the professors are fantastic, especially on the physical/arch side of things. Lynnette Sievert (my undergrad advisor), Ventura Perez, and Mike Sugarman were my favorite faculty members, so you are in for a great experience if any one of them is your POI!

I think 300 (150 V and 150 Q) isn't too low if it's being considered as the absolute drop dead minimum score threshold you need to pass to be considered. As in, we won't even put your application up for discussion during adcom meetings unless you got 150 Q and 150 V. In any case, numbers are hard as smg said and I think verbal score holds more weight at most programs. At least I hope so, since I scored in the 92nd percentile for verbal and 40th for quant!

300 seems like a reasonable cutoff for GREs, as that would be around 40th percentile for both sections. In fact, one of the programs I applied to explicitly stated that they would not consider anyone with a Verbal score below 155 and a quant score below 150.

ball bearing

heavy heart

Yeah, I got my first accpetance on a Sunday morning so anything is possible. I still feel like getting notified on the weekend is an outlier though,

You know the wait has gotten bad when you start looking forward to the end of the weekend. Every Monday brings new hope!

red wine

I applied to mostly anthro programs so my experience may be different, but UW sent me an acceptance email at 9 AM on a Sunday morning, so I suppose anything is possible.

herbal tea

Joanna Newsom - Peach Plum Pear I've had "The Milk Eyed Mender" on repeat lately - one of my favorite albums!

Echoing what ArchaeoGeek said, I would see this is a good thing (obviously not as good as getting in this cycle, but still encouraging). It's possible your POI is really excited about your project and wants to work with you, but doesn't have the time and resources to take on a bunch of students. In that case, he or she might be encouraging you to apply next cycle as they might be able to take more students at that point.

I nearly died laughing when I saw that. As someone who struggles with math and studied for months just to get in the 40th percentile on quant, this was perfect. There is hope for us non-math people!

Thanks! I think you hit the nail on the head - my friends and family's reactions have all been along the lines of "of course you got in, I don't know why you were even stressing about it!" I love them but no one understands the app season roller coaster ride quite like my GC buds! edit: I've reached my daily quota so I can't upvote you...I will never understand how this upvote system determines the quotas...

I just got accepted to University of Washington! Who knew they would send out an acceptance email on a Sunday morning? Offered a 50% tuition scholarship and invited to an accepted students weekend in March - I am kinda freaking out right now! Congrats to everyone else who got good news this week, I'm sure there's more to come!!! PS: Is it bad that I posted on gradcafe before I even called my parents?

That would be some serious resume building experience! I'll see myself out...

I'm currently working at a low paying, dead end job that's related to my field. It's great experience for my resume and I enjoy the work, but it won't get me anywhere in my field unless I get at least a Master's. So for now the plan is to either get in somewhere this round or keep working at my current job for another year and apply again next cycle.

I submitted my first application in the middle of October, waited 3 months to get an interview, and now another few weeks until a final decision. At this point I feel like we're all so close and yet so far away from hearing anything...the days are really starting to drag at this point