bbpo

Also the most pointless thing to spend one's time on, I imagine. Quibbling over a few percentile points is meaningless (90th versus, what, 96th??). The exam is a poor indicator of one's potential for creative scholarly work anyway. How odd that you would get so bent out of shape about it.

Oh, my! I'll bite. Numerous factors affect the outcome of the GRE exam, which, arguably, is the least important component of the application.

Congratulations, birchleaf!

That makes sense, Beatrice. For the record, I am the first in my family to go to college, so it's not as though I have hordes of informed people in my life either, but I can appreciate that you might feel more disconnected from the process than I. My problem with this site is that I think it leads people to assume the worst, when really, until you are rejected you have no idea what is going to happen with your application. It doesn't personally help me to know that someone has been contacted by Cornell, for example. I have not heard from them, so perhaps (probably?) I am rejected, but perhaps I am just not at the very top of their list, and I might hear from them later. "Kiss of death" behavior would include, I imagine, getting drunk at a visit, making a pass at someone, insulting a staff or faculty member?

I agree with recent posters. I started checking this site because I was caught off guard by a phone call/impromptu interview for which I was completely unprepared (and I was later rejected – who knows whether the phone call was the reason). So it is tempting to check these boards to get a sense about what is coming down the pipeline, but it causes me more anguish than relief. All this hand-wringing and page-refreshing won’t reveal whether *I* am rejected, waitlisted, etc. I agree that more transparency about the process would be nice. I suspect schools probably do not want to commit themselves to a particular workflow. Maybe they want to have a phone chat with some but not others; maybe they used to accept people based on the application, but decided they would feel safer interviewing first. Several schools have adjusted their processes in recent years; friends of mine were accepted outright to programs that now want to meet me first. I think if they want to give themselves the flexibility it can only be a good thing; after all, they can reject me any time for any reason; if they want the freedom to suddenly accept me without an interview, who am I to complain? And on the topic of rescinding acceptances: I suspect it is rare, but it can happen. Perhaps a more common scenario is that they offer a very poor funding package to someone they no longer wish to recruit.

I think they offer it to everyone. I received the same notice today and I already have an MA in Classics. That's not to say it isn't worth throwing your hat in the ring if it doesn't cost anything extra, just in case! Sorry about the rejection, by the way! I had a phone call with someone there a couple weeks ago so I was clinging to hope. This definitely put a damper on my afternoon.