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I am with you on the emotional side, except my emotions, just like my ADHD brain chemistry, are asymptomatic. I usually don't stress about things so I was super stressed (relatively speaking) during the application process. I remember being super stressed when I opened each letter of rejection, but when I finally got an acceptance I sort of shut down and got super calm. Everyone was super excited for me and I pretended to be too but I wasn't. I am super excited and happy and all that, I just seem to have reacted by being calm. My mother was always super overtly excited about things so I think I adapted behaviors to reign her in that I still have I am 100% with you on the lack of motivation for the last of my undergrad coursework. I have never missed class so much as I have since my first acceptance came in. The only class that I've decided to put more effort into is my Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences II, because I talked to the grad student who teaches it and he pointed out that he designed the class as a primer for grad school statistics. If I actually learn the things he is teaching instead of memorizing enough to get the grade I want, I'll have a leg up next year. I had some undergrad research I was going to work on but I've decided to put that on hold. I'll poke it with a stick to see if it can be used for my empirical thesis but I really need to see if it will work. If it works out it could be significant, but it was born out of a brainstorm for a single undergrad course, not sure if it will pan out. About my atypical response, interestingly, I was poking through my DNA results at 23andMe and found that I have G;G in the warrior/worrier gene Rs4680. Which means I'm a warrior! I also have a C in the other warrior proxy gene Rs909525. I know how questionable these gene things are for self-diagnosing, but I wanted to show my dad that ADHD is a real thing, though he also doesn't believe anything posted in a research journal. It'd be interesting if anyone else here posted their warrior gene results if they have them. I wonder if the calm thing holds out or not. P.S. Even though the season is over. The guidelines that grad schools follow have suggestions for multiple offers. You are supposed to rank your offers, and whenever an offer of lesser rank comes in you are supposed to decline it and only hold one offer at a time. If you really can't decided between two that's one thing, but future people, try and decide the rank of programs so you don't have to hold multiple offers in limbo.

Isn't that fun and confusing. Maybe they read that letter where the girl rejected her Duke rejection and decided to reject your withdrawal from consideration. I haven't withdrawn myself from any applications, but I did get rejected twice from USF, once on February 11th and on again on March 11th. It was sort of upsetting because I thought, for an instant, that they had changed their minds. Ah well, all's well that ends well.

You are 100% correct that some programs look poorly on a PhD applicant with a Masters. I've never heard the short-term project argument but I know that some programs will take no transfer credit and you have to start again. This is not all programs, and I mentioned it to Cray specifically as an option if he/she could bolster their application during the gap OR go for the MA and re-apply. This also applies to the program Cray was offered an MA for, as I believe most of the MA offers on PhD applicants are given with the understanding that the applicant can/might re-apply after proving themselves in the Masters program. I don't know what program offered him an MA, but all the PhD programs that offered me Masters did so under those conditions. The only fact is that all programs are different, and most have a policy or two I think is weird and/or stupid despite making sense. The retraining thing is silly, though true, because you can just tell the applicant they have to redo everything. When I was considering the MA and reapplication (to outside programs) option I was doing so fully aware that I'd have to redo everything. In this situation the point is to prove quantitative skills that didn't show through in the GRE. Given your point, the best advice would be to try and talk to someone at all the programs you want to apply to see if getting an MA will help or hinder your re-application. IO Graduate, thanks for the tip about Akron.

The above comes from https://sites.google.com/site/cdspphome/cogdop-rules-on-acceptance-of-offers-of-admission-and-financial-aid Also, I/O is small, I have been told by professors that things you do during the application season follow you. It was more about people who are disrespectful when interviewing at school. She gave me examples of snooty students who acted better than the current grad students. They didn't get in, in part because of the sway of the grad students they offended. The fact that she remembers these people over a decade later is important. I wouldn't decline an MA offer for a job offer unless you can't handle the money situation during the 2 years it takes to finish the MA. I can't imagine a job you can get, with what I assume is a Psych BA/BS, that would be comparable to what you will get after you finish the MA even considering 2 years of promotions. For the true opinion piece if you don't plan to follow through I wouldn't take the spot of someone who will. In your case, the question depends on what you'd do if you stayed in. Getting into 0 PhD programs means you can take a gap year to strengthen your application if you think you can, or finish the MA and reapply. If you do well in the MA getting into a PhD should be much easier. BTW, does your unfunded MA offer have a funded PhD you could apply for in a year or two? I was initially in your boat and I was going to decline the unfunded MS from IIT and take a gap year. However that was only after I realized that their PhD was also unfunded which doesn't interest me. The APA grad guide led me to believe they were just funded at 10 hours but I guess they use some sort of merit based funding which seems to equate to a crap shoot each semester. I'm sure I can do well, but that creates a zero sum game of competition I'd rather avoid. I ended up going with an MA at another PhD program I applied to. I don't know specifics but they are good at finding work somewhere on campus and either way the goal is to reapply for their PhD upon completion so I consider the money situation to be the only difference between the acceptance I have and the one I'm hoping for (shortlisted still). As a last note. If they really have no waiting list then you won't be hurting much. Also I suspect pulling out of an offer from an unfunded program ruffles far fewer feathers than if it were funded. All in all it's a hard decision to make. Be true to yourself while trying not to be selfish and you should come upon a good choice. P.S. I typed way too much.

I got my rejection from Portland March 19th via e-mail.

Maybe I'm wrong but I felt such vagueness was essentially useless. I appreciate the intent and perhaps some people will find it useful. I suppose when initially deciding on schools you need a reason to exclude some schools just to make the list manageable, so his/her post could help someone. PM didn't occur to me, I guess PM is more private but I wouldn't say something in PM I wouldn't say in the open thread. If you guys want to say something you don't want to get out, dont! Nowhere on the Internet is safe.

I appreciate the sentiment. I have never heard of the program but I don't know that anyone will listen unless they are already on the fence. I don't mean to say I don't trust you, it's just that saying a program is bad with no explanation is hard to listen to. I understand if perhaps revealing your experiences would identify your, but you should be clear about how it's horribly run. Since your account sounds less personal, do you mind elaborating on what is wrong with that program? Are there cultural problems, bad interpersonal politics, or is the administration just unorganized. I didn't get any of these accounts this time around but I heard a few people mention that they did, though they didn't say which schools so it was similarly unhelpful

But did you know you were on the waitlist? I haven't heard a word from Akron about my application in either direction. Someone on the previous page said they were indeed notified of their wait list status. The fact I have heard nothing makes me assume I am rejected and they just didn't have the courtesy to let me know, but I could be on the deep wait list, though the poster I mentioned said they have a super small short list only. KW58D, what is an ADCOM? The most common confusing decision I have seen is high end applicants getting rejected from their self-proclaimed safeties. I imagine a bit of that is realistic fit mismatch, but also that programs know there are some applicants who will get better offers and it might be a waste of time to give them an offer. I learned in my Org Psych lab last week that rejecting someone for being too qualified is perfectly legal and accepted despite the silliness of such a thing. Though the case I mention was someone rejected from the police academy for doing to well on the cognitive ability measure which differs from grad school applications but a similar principal applies.

Yup, like I said, this time of year you have to check your spam folder. I wonder how many people have missed acceptances completely over the years due to SPAM folders.

Rankings are a funny business but it seems interesting that you'd be accepted to BGSU and waitlisted at GMU and UCF. Do you think it's a fit issue? Though there is no standard I thought BGSU was the hardest to get into, or am I way off base on that?

Man google needs to get on top of their game this time of year. I know a lot of Nigerian Princes send emails from .edu but still, I don't get out a personal email from a professor ends up in the Spam folder. I trust my spam literally 99.9% of the time, used to be 100%. I'm going to go check it again, just in case

Must have been nice to have that sort of problem. I never heard of CMU until you and others posted it in this thread, though in looking at it now I recognized Dr. O'Brien so maybe I did look at them at some stage and just can't remember the school name. PSU is a great choice, but you mean PDX right? I know there are shared acronyms but Portland calls themselves PDX in everything I saw. I guess you need to go on Netflix and binge-watch Portlandia if you haven't already. Looking at your signature I forgot that I haven't heard from GMU about my MA application either. Though they were good about communicating my rejected PhD app and seeing if I still wanted to roll over my application to MA. Ah well, que sera sera. EDIT: Anyone going to UMSL PM me, I'm not in as a PhD yet but I'm going at least as an MA so we'll be in the same cohort.

This is what I suspected. I haven't heard anything from them and I have even checked my SPAM folder. I never check my SPAM, like NEVER, but I clicked it on accident one day and saw an email from a my NIU POI about an interview, so now I've been living in fear of an acceptance going to SPAM. So far the NIU email was the only one that was spammed by google. Anyhoo, I appreciate your information as it makes me more sure that I was rejected by Akron as I suspected. Even if I wasn't rejected, at this point I would probably only even consider them if the offer was epic. I was interested in Akron because Diefendorff is there, his cross-cultural research is what sparked my current research angle. He sort of disappointed me though because when I emailed him last semester to see if he was taking a student, he neglected to mention he would be on sabbatical this semester. Perhaps he didn't know, but when you consider that Akron didn't bother to send out rejections it's extra evidence that Akron is not meant to be. Plus to be honest, while Diefendorff is taking a student, he is no longer doing cross-cultural research so while he has the experience that could help me, fortunately UMSL has people currently doing cross-cultural research so it ended up being better. The irony, and the reason I mentioned fate, kismet, and The Force earlier is because I applied to UMSL on a lark. That is not to say that it was It was a school I had not heard of, and the only school on my list where no one in my current program knew anything. But I noticed it in previous threads here on gradcafe, so I looked it up, liked what I saw and added it to my list. After being invited to the invite I was put in contact with a student who was very extraordinarily helpful, I can text her and get an answer in minutes. I learned from her who to talk to when I visited and doing that I learned that UMSL really is the best program for me plus it's in a great city for my needs.

KW58D, That is exactly what I mean when I say it's unprofessional. I've considered the very real possibility that Akron could dig deep into their waitlist, come to me, and find that it's too late. In the grand scheme of things I take this as a good omen. For fun I like to pretend to be superstitious with small things, so I tell myself that the chips falling the way they have indicates that I would have been unhappy in Akron. Frankly, part of the reason I took an MA offer at UMSL (still shortlisted for PhD) is because the school AND the city just fit me better than Akron probably would have. I don't mean that Akron is a bad place/program, I wouldn't have applied there if I thought that, but believing that there that fate, kismet, and The Force is the reason for events like this hasn't steered me wrong yet. It's fun entertaining silliness like that while being a logical scientist If I sound more than a little crazy it's because I'm typing this an hour into my sleepy time, so off I go!

Yea, I find it unacceptable to have heard nothing at all from a program this late in the game. Some were slow with their info but as of now I still haven't heard a single thing from Akron. I figure a straight rejection would have come already but they must realize that people are going to give up at this point. I heard from Utah State University about an Interview yesterday, but I had already accepted another offer. Sure I could wait until the 14th to officially take the offer and wait on Akron, but I'm a strong believer in instinct and feeling, not to mention professionalism. Having not heard that I am rejected or waitlisted by now is something I take as an insult so Akron, originally a top choice with my tip top POI, is now a school that I have written off. I suppose it is a passive aggressive form of rejection. I know I'm not a first choice or I would have heard something by now, but unless you really don't want to accept waitlisters I don't get how they can't even send out a generic BCC to all the waitlisters. I know the schools are the advantaged ones, only the very best applicants are in a bargaining position, but just as no safety school wants to think they are a safety even though everyone knows their overall rankings, waitlisters don't want to feel so unimportant that we aren't worth the time spent sending a proper rejection email. I forget where but a grad student at my undergrad, Colorado State University, this week told me about a decent program that never got back to them, ever.