Piwi

It seems Stanford has sent out rejections - me and two other people (so far) have posted rejections to the results page.

I just wanted to let everyone know: I've heard through the grapevine that Columbia hasn't even started looking at applications ... So if anyone is waiting to hear from them, it looks like its gonna be a while.

I did this in New Zealand on three separate organic farms (one was actually an organic vineyard producing vegan wine!). It was an amazing experience, and I highly recommend it!

I'm trying to stop procrastinating on every single homework assignment... I always find myself on this site (or NYTimes) instead of getting work done! Hopefully this will improve once I know where I'm going in the Fall.

I'm not sure how applicable this is in the humanities, but the office/desk situation has greatly varied between the schools I looked at. At one school every PhD student has their own desk and computer in an office shared with about three other students, starting from the very first year. At another school, for the first year and a half PhD students are not given a desk/office and nor is there a study lounge (there is a break room, but not one conducive to studying). After passing the qualifying exams the PhD student is assigned an office where 6 students share 4 desks. Again, I'm not sure how applicable it is for you, but it's something to think about.

I'm in a very very similar situation: Originally planned to both apply to schools, now my SO wants to enter workforce. SO is in engineering. The only glitch is that right now my top choice program (that I think I can get into) is pretty rural, and I'm not sure my SO could get a job there. SO is actually applying for a couple jobs on the same coast, but around a 3 hr plane ride away

Out of curiosity, what made you regret it so quickly? When I got my first interview I immediately posted it; however, when I got an invitation for an interview at a top biostat program, I was much more hesitant. My SO asked why I hadn't posted it, and I couldn't come up with a good reason, so I did. After that initial hesitance, I didn't feel bad about it. (And even after my status was changed to something unrelated, several people were still commenting on the status asking about the top biostat program. So at this point I had stopped announcing it, but it was still being broadcast). I understand that people will have different feelings on this, and have different experiences/styles of facebooking, but I was curious why you regretted so quickly.

Thanks for starting this ssong2 - I've been meaning to and hadn't gotten around to it yet. I'm a little superstitious right now, so I don't really want to list my schools. However, once I have been accepted (or rejected) I would be happy to post. I will say that I applied to 7 statistics programs, 1 biostatistics program, and 1 other program that is quantitative (as far as I know, only one school offers this program, so for now I'm going to withold the name of this school/program). So far I've interviewed at the biostat program and one of the stat programs. I am currently in an MA Statistics program (at a decent school).

Back in mid-January I had this dream where I was accepted to Harvard's Biostat program. I don't remember much, just that I opened an email and it said I was accepted. Naturally I screamed, jumped up and down, and hugged my friends! It was such a happy dream that when I woke up the next morning, I thought "Wouldn't that be something if I got an email from them?" I quickly checked my email, but nothing was there That day I was traveling to another school for an interview, so tried not to think about it. After dinner with graduate students at this other school, I checked my email to find that Harvard had invited me for an interview the following weekend!! It's not quite the acceptance that I had dreamed about, but that could still be around the corner A few weeks later I had a dream where I was accepted into another school. I got so excited, remembering what happened the last time I'd had an acceptance dream, that I woke myself up! I was very excited, but told myself that no program was going to email me in the middle of the night. I went back to sleep and had another dream. In this dream I still remembered my previous acceptance dream. (In the dream) I woke up and checked my email - nothing was there. All day (in the dream) I checked my email, always expecting that invitation email. (In the dream) It never came and I decided that my first fortune telling dream had been a coincidence. Well, (in real life) I woke up the next morning much less excited, and sure enough, there was no email that day from this other school. At this point I'm not sure if my dreams are psychic or not. But if they are, then I hope I have lots of happy dreams in the next couple weeks!

According to the results pages, I should be hearing back from most of my programs in the next few weeks. I interviewed at two departments so far, and both said we would hear back in mid-February. Somehow in my head this turned into "As soon as February comes, I will know!!" So this morning I woke up and very excitedly checked my email ... Needless to say, there have been no responses yet. Good luck to everyone!

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this topic in general. I know that as a young female (undergrad) student studying math, I was often frustrated that all of the professors in our math dept were little old white men. I am very fond of all of them, but it would have been nice to talk to a female mathematician for guidance on potential graduate school issues specific to women. I am now applying to statistics programs, and all of my LORs, as well as my advisor for my masters program, have commented that being an American-born white female will help my chances. (Apparently statistics depts are often heavily Asian and white-male.) I do not know yet if this will prove true, but it is what I was told. And as others have said, if I do get in, I believe that it will be because I have the academic ability (and that my race/gender will (if anything) be icing on the cake).

I am also expecting to hear some (hopefully good) news this week and next week. Both of the schools I interviewed at said to expect a response by mid-February, but I'm hoping they made up their minds more quickly

So far I have been posting status updates when I've gotten interviews. I expect that I will post status updates if/when I receive acceptances (at least for my top choices). I can understand why it might sound like bragging, but most of my facebook friends are close friends and/or family members who would hear about it anyway. As others on this forum have mentioned, I've read status updates about babies and weddings. I would like to get married and have babies someday, but that doesn't mean I'm jealous of these friends; I'm happy for them. This is what is going on in my life right now, and if they can't accept that and be happy for me then that is their problem. (I will also note, that I do not know anyone else on facebook applying for PhD programs in ANY field)

I started off outwardly pessimistic. Most of the schools I applied to are ranked fairly high, and I have no idea what my chances are (explanation below). I was driving friends crazy towards the end of December and beginning of January, convinced I was going to be rejected from every school I applied to. Thankfully, in early January I received interview invitations from two (well regarded) universities. This has stopped me from freaking out so much, but now I'm worried I've become too confident. However, I'm trying to prepare myself for the rejection I expect to receive from the top dept in my area of study. [When I was compiling the list of schools to apply to I sought the advice of my recommenders, asking where they felt I had a good shot to get in. Every single one of them responded "Well, I'm not really sure what your chances are. It depends on who is on the admissions committee and how much weight they put on your past research in another field." This was not too useful, but I mostly applied to schools that are reasonably high in the NRC or USNews Rankings (as long as they had professors doing research I'm interested in and are located somewhere I could see myself living). ]

I can tell you that Harvard's program interviewed 20 (domestic) students. I'm not sure about other programs, but like Koizumi said, I'm sure it depends on the program.

People understand what statistics is about (more or less), but they don't understand why anyone in their right mind would choose to study it... Other Person: "So what're you doing next year?" Me: "I'm applying to graduate programs in statistics!" Other Person: "... statistics?.... but why?!" Me: "Well, I enjoy it and think it's useful." Other Person: "You know you can prove anything using statistics - whether it's right or wrong." Me: "..." (This is actually more like conversations my mother has with people in my hometown when they ask about me)

No, I did not apply to the statistics program at Harvard. At the time I don't think I was aware I could apply to both programs.

I think if you haven't heard anything yet, then there's no reason to lose hope - no news is good news, right? Like I said, there could be multiple interview weekends. I know that within their Biostat dept there are groups concentrating on different types of research, so who they select may be somewhat dependent on what area of research the person wants to pursue. Try to stay positive; I know I'm trying not to worry about the programs I haven't heard from. A little about me: I'm currently in a Statistics MA program. My GREs were V580/Q800/AW5.5.

Hi, I'm the one who posted on the results page. The email said that fifteen students were being invited to this particular interview weekend. It was unclear whether there are multiple such weekends or not. I hope this helps.