Luck of all kinds:
happening to email the right people during undergrad
happening to get rejected from what would have ended up being dead-end jobs
people willing to collaborate after little more than a cold email
paper getting rejected at a smaller conference that led to revisions and eventually it getting accepted to a bigger conference]
deciding to pursue a position in a lab unrelated to my major... that would lead to an REU position in something I want to continue doing
doing an REU that didn't lead to a paper but got me inspired to start a side project
a side project that I spent a few weeks hacking out in the summer turning into an accepted 1st author paper at a top conference over the course of a year
person x at z school happens to know one of my letter writers
etc etc etc etc etc
Sure, I could say that getting papers accepted was what worked most strongly in my favor, but that's misleading and obscures the bigger picture. In a lot of cases it was a lot of blind luck and winging it. My overall strategy over the last three years of undergrad was little more than to just have something cooking at all times, be it a side project or something in the lab.
I don't think they're sending out every acceptance at once, so all's not lost.
Yes, Yaser is one of my POIs along with Yisong, Pietro... (basically the core ML faculty). Did you attend the interview/visit weekend?
Right, so if you're too high and mighty to just emulate the game, it's not that hard to just replace the save battery. If you can't be bothered to do that, there are actually some decent flashcart options for GB. Who are you calling silly?
By the way, the save files don't have to die with the battery. It's possible to back them up with a combination of a "Mega Memory Card"-like tool and a flashcart.
I've gotten a few offers already--and it's getting to the point where I'm thinking about turning down an interview weekend invitation. The school is a 5 hour flight from where I currently live, so I'd be missing two entire days of class. That's normally not a problem, but I don't feel like adding more missing days where I have to catch up is a good idea especially given that I'll be doing more actual visits later in the quarter. After actually experiencing an interview weekend I'm also not so keen on doing another 8 hours of brain-dump style talking when my desire to attend the school is not very high at the moment. To be blunt, this is also the lowest of my safety schools if we are to go purely by rankings.
I guess the only things stopping me from outright withdrawing my application at this point are the fear that all of the other programs will be a bad fit for me (extremely unlikely) and that I'm not sure how to decline the invitation/withdraw politely.
Just to be clear, I haven't even been admitted to the school yet.
Is it too early to start the sour grapes talk yet? I wasn't fond of the whole Dean's Date system anyway. Who wants to take finals after winter break?
Seriously though I think it's probably a matter of fit/the department becoming oversaturated. I think they're just not able to take many students at a time.
I'm thinking taking 5 months off isn't that bad. One of my friends finished undergrad in about 2.3 years (finished when grad apps were due in year 3 basically) so he flew back home and basically played League of Legends for 9 months. No big deal.