pl0x

The short answer is: you're fine. The long answer is, you're fine if you choose your programs intelligently and have a strong research question you want to develop in grad school. Apply widely (this is sage advice for anyone, not just appropriate to your situation) and run your SOP by as many professors and students as you can.

Something I wish I had done was consider ranking more heavily. I applied schools only by fit and ended up with acceptances from one top-10 program and several top-30 programs. The institutional resources of the top-10 program vastly exceed the other programs, and the difference in terms of placement is huge as well. I really wish I had applied only to one "safety" school and picked some other schools ranked in the top-15 and top-20 that have good placement and more real world cachet. Especially privates with strong funding support for grads -- Yale, Columbia, Duke for instance. A lot of these programs are trying to move up as well, so the landscape might dramatically change in terms of hiring, funding, placement, etc. And you never know -- your research interests may change dramatically from even the time you apply to the time you are accepted (which happened to me). PS. echo on the "High GREs mean squat." I had a 1500 combined and a 6.0AW and wasn't nearly as successful as the majority of people I have met at open houses, etc. And the highest ranked school I was admitted to told me no one on the adcomm cared about them except as a kind of curiosity (Hey, these scores are really high!).

There was a visit day in February, I believe on the weekend of the 13th. My feeling is that all accepted applicants were notified by then. You may want to check your spam folder-- my email was in there and I know it landed in there for a number of other applicants as well. You can also try giving Rati Kashyap a call if your spam box gets periodically empty. Then again, I did receive an actual letter a few weeks ago with my notification of acceptance and some medical forms to fill out. To be honest, I have a lot of issues with the way CUNY handled admissions this year. You can PM me for details.

I'll jump in, but with slightly different opinions on a few of the points here. I'll organize it by the components of the application. 1) GRE scores - sweat the minimums. I don't mean the bare minimums for acceptance by the Graduate Division, but no one really cares about GRE scores unless they're low (if they're high, it's a novelty thing). 2) GPA - Have a strict 3.5 or above (like, not even 3.48). It makes a big difference at schools that guarantee funding, because the Grad Division often has numerical cutoffs for fellowships. 3) SOP - Ask a good, compelling research question. This is probably the most important thing in your whole application, provided you have the baseline numerical qualifications. Every faculty I've talked to has wanted to know my interests, and trust me, you can get as specific and arcane as you want to -- it's a good thing. No one cares about anything else. Just find a kickass dissertation topic and write well about it. 4) LORs - most people aren't famous. Get letters that are really enthusiastic and specific. 5) School list - for the love of God, apply to 10-14 schools including a good handful of private universities. There are so many reasons for this -- the most obvious being that the more schools you apply to, the more likely you'll get in. But also, once you DO get in (and you will), funding will still be an obstacle for you. If you didn't get enough at your dream school, you can leverage your other packages to get more. If that doesn't work out, you can really think hard about whether going into debt/paying more is an acceptable investment for you -- and have options to fall back on. And with funding for so many public universities running out, you're going to feel the pinch in terms of worse funding packages, less acceptances, higher yields -- you do want to have the private school option insulating you a bit.

Have you heard about funding? It seems this year has been incredibly tight... I really don't know if I can go with what they've offered me. I can't make the visit days to plead my case either. If I do wind up at UCLA, I'll probably have to take out pretty substantial loans. Unfortunate...

Anyone considering attending? The visit days are in a week.

I don't mean to impugn her words, but 89%?!?! I had no idea Iowa was graduating so many students to the TT!

I'm the same... but my birthday's in December. I'm a little worried about that coming up during the visit weekends, especially at the events with alcohol.

I was going to post something but this pretty much sums up everything I had to say -- especially about the tough decisions we have ahead. OP, my 2 cents -- if you have dependents, don't go anywhere without funding. Regarding the snark: yes, this is a time of extreme anxiety and, for a few, extreme disappointment. I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a twinge for every person celebrating their acceptance to a program I was rejected from. I empathize with those who have not heard from their programs. It sucks. But we shouldn't forget that this is also a time of extreme happiness -- and it should be! I am proud of my accomplishments and ecstatic that they have been recognized. And because of that, I have no problem extending my sincere congratulations to all of us on this mountaintop -- we've sacrificed a good deal to be here. Good luck to everyone still waiting!

UC Irvine with full funding + stipend! I now have a very difficult choice if UCLA doesn't offer me funding, but I'm not complaining! Good luck to everyone still waiting.

Ahh... not the most pleasant news to receive in the morning. I really thought Princeton was a good fit, but the professors I wanted to work with were all superstars and applying to a program of that selectivity is always tough. Good luck to all those on the waiting list! And again, congrats to those who were accepted... what an amazing program.

Same here. Let's keep our fingers crossed together... Congrats to all the accepted applicants!

Forgive my curiosity but did you apply to any programs other than Stanford? In any case, I'm sympathetic to your feelings -- waiting for that first acceptance is torture. Good luck to you.

Congrats EdPolicy! Do you mind me asking what the phone call/email was like?

And my GPA was a good deal lower than the average GPA.