SunshineLolipops

The whole thing is pretty mortifying. This clip pretty well sums up my feelings at the moment:

Just had an old friend with profoundly bad judgment write an email trying to get me off of the waitlist at my top choice despite me repeatedly telling him in no uncertain terms not to. Who'd he send the email to? My prospective advisor, the DGS, and someone well above the DGS. I know he meant well, but Jesus.... Do I write an apology for someone wasting everyone's time on my behalf?

Aside from finally getting to email departments guilt free, does anyone know what to do if you don't have notifications after 15 April? I'm not expecting that to be the case, but hearing from four departments over the next three days is starting to seem less and less likely.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. That way I get to slightly step away from work related reading while still staying in the period I enjoy most, and I get to reread a favorite from when I was a kid with a new perspective.

I'm curious if a taught masters is covered by this, or if it slides under the radar under the weird Scottish system. Also, Edinburgh seems to offer some of the better funding opportunities for international students.

I agree, any news is good news, I'm just trying not to needle in case I'm still somehow in the running. I'll probably send an email in the morning that will at least show continued interest.

So is there anything to be gained by contacting a program I haven't heard back from yet this late in the game?

@rack_attack124 My emails to professors (before I submitted applications) were always extremely short. In the first sentence I asked if they were taking students, and in a very short paragraph I mentioned why I would want to work with them given their research interests which I had looked into in depth, briefly described my own interests, and provided a link to a couple writing samples in case they were interested. Some just said that they were or were not taking students, but a few turned into relatively lengthy discussions. I haven't been waitlisted before, and last cycle I only got rejections, but I do know that people are still deciding, so there are opportunities out there. If you scroll through the old results, you can occasionally find an acceptance off of the waitlist at the eleventh hour, but for the moment I'm just trying to be happy with the fact that at least my applications were still in the running.

as far as the cost goes, I'm just glad that I reached out to professors to see if they were taking students before I applied. It saved me $160 this cycle and would have probably done the same last cycle. The last two schools that haven't given me any notification at all are the ones that are really killing me though. I get that I've got another 8 days of waitlist purgatory for the places I was waitlisted, but I've got this false hope that I might get news from the others any time now, which has me glued to the application status websites, my email, and grad cafe. I will say that this beats getting completely shut out by mid-March. Good luck everyone!

@rack_attack124 I feel you, I'm on two waitlists, and there are two schools that flat haven't sent me anything. I'm just glad that in nine days I'll either know, or I won't feel awkward about emailing the DGS for a status update.

@bettafish Congratulations on your decision! Chapel Hill is a great town, and it's an impressive program.

I should add that my friend turned down Georgia Tech's offer last cycle.

I also applied to the program at Georgia Tech. A friend of mine turned down an apparently well funded offer from them to pursue a different research focus elsewhere, but he had nothing but good things to say about the program. Most of my colleagues where I teach think that the program would be a good opportunity as well. Good luck!

Still waiting on any word whatsoever from Penn State and Ohio State. Hopefully that "unusual situation" at Ohio State will wrap itself up soon. I'm also debating whether I should contact Penn State if I don't hear back in the next couple days.

I guess work study opportunities vary from uni to uni, because they were certainly available at Glasgow, but I would add in the new higher (WELL over $500) price of visas into your calculations.

I'm utterly biased, but I hope CUNY really knocks your socks off. Hopefully their funding beats the funding at UNC. Good luck with your decision!

I was able to do my study at Glasgow through the GI Bill, so I can't speak to funding opportunities, but I can't say enough about how glad I was to do my masters there. The academic culture is very different, and it gave me a lot of perspective upon returning stateside. You might look into work study programs though. If PhD applications don't pan out, I'll definitely be applying to programmes in the UK again.

Added to the waitlist for Georgia Tech's History and Sociology of Science and Technology program. Even if they don't pan out, two waitlists feels a lot better than getting rejected outright from all of my applications last semester. Good luck to everyone still waiting for news, waitlisted folks, and people deciding on their offers!

Waiting for any notification whatsoever from three programs and on the waitlist for a fourth. I think If I wasn't waitlisted at the top ranked school to which I applied, I wouldn't be filled with this dangerous sense of false hope of being on some kind of mythical "secret waitlist." Also one program I applied to had some kind of hiccup with their admissions this year, has sent out no rejections at all, and doesn't expect to send out any other notifications of any kind until much closer to April 15th. Thankfully this should all be over in a couple weeks, so I can get on with my life.

As someone with no acceptances and only a waitlist, I don't begrudge anyone taking their time to make their decision at all. Once a person has accepted an offer of course, I would hope that they notify the other schools as soon as possible. Having declined job offers in the past, I can say that being honest about your reasons for accepting another offer is important, but don't feel the need to be overly specific.

Appreciate the heads up, by "we" do you mean Ohio State?

My academia.edu and another place where my undergrad thesis is posted got hits on Sunday, so hopefully there's still a chance. My masters dissertation has also been added to the Royal Engineers Museum at Gillingham's archive, and I'm trying to decide if that's news enough to contact programs where I am or might be on the fence. It's not a publication though, so I'm willing to bet any DGS would see it as just an excuse to bother him or her.

For the person asking about OSU on the results board, I'm waiting to hear back anything from Ohio State, Penn State, and Georgia Tech's History and Sociology of Technology and Science programs. I've got my fingers crossed, but I'm not expecting anything but a little closure, hopefully, but not likely, this week.

Might I ask what your field is?

This comment neatly sums up my feelings about half of my applications.