michaelgi

As faculty, here is how prospective students contacted me:
started emails with Dr or Professor, not Miss/Mrs/first name. Formality throughout. Full signature so I know who you are helps. I’m writing because I’m interested in University X doctoral program in History.  Explain interests and research experience in 3-5 sentences. Then one sentence explaining why you’d like to work with me. now here comes the tricky part. In general, al. This would suffice to put you in the POI’s orbit, even if they don’t respond. However, it’s better to have some question along the lines of “I wonder if you are accepting any advisees” but not like that. You could say something like, “ I wonder if you find this research compelling and you think it might be a good fit for your program”. Then, you are inviting the other person to respond.  Now, typically, assistant professors don’t take graduate students, unless they are close to tenure. I will always advise everyone to write to senior POIs, they might suggest contacting the junior one you are interested in working with.  if a POI suggests talking over the phone, do so. Sometimes it’s easier for profs to squeeze a 15-min phone call between classes than writing an email.  It is not a bad idea to attach your CV. 

UC San Diego (UCSD) Computer Science, Masters (F19) Accepted via E-mail on 1 Mar 2019 A 1 Mar 2019 report spam Life has taken on a whole new meaning. To all you people out there, always have hope. Hope is the most important thing there is and always keep moving forward. “Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!  
Rocky FTW

I'm a current student at USC, and we do usually have a few people move from waitlist to accepted. Depends on the year, but I think the last few years have had at least one or two? It depends how many from the initial round choose to say yes. Just remember that you may be waiting right up to April 15th; I actually got in on the waitlist for Michigan on decision day my year! 

Bugger! It's fine, it's what I expected really but you can never be too optimistic...

A million times this, I feel your pain!

I think out of all the schoold from which I haven't heard, only two have not made any acceptances yet (or at least that haven posted on the results page), those are UMich and UPenn, so I've sort of come to terms with the fact that those are the only two for which I still have a chance. At this point, I just want to know, whatever the answer may be, so I can start making solid moving plans and get on with my life.  Not knowing is killing me, even if I already have choices.

I think it's pretty crappy of schools not to let everyone (accept, waitlist, reject) know at the same time, or at least within a couple of days, I commend Northwestern and Chicago for doing that.  Even the universities that do two waves can come up with some way of letting people know what's going on. It's just common courtesy, IMO.

Got first acceptance, into Indiana.