bambi_86

The thing about these emails is that they never come when you're checking the hardest. I just glanced at my phone quickly last night before going to bed thinking I had gotten some random ad email and it was my POI congratulating me on my admission.

:-) I know. I would have hated myself too before last night. I was so happy I could barely sleep. Just wanted to share to show that there is hope even in despair! I literally thought they had thrown out my application since it had gone so long after the interview.

...And last night at 11PM, almost a whole week later than the committee said they would have their answer, my POI emailed and told me I have been accepted with five years of full funding. I guess my message is: good things can happen even when all you want to do is throw your fist through the wall out of frustration with the waiting game.

Wooow...that's rough.

They told me 1-2 weeks at one place, it's now been 2 weeks and 2 days. I know it's not a lot of time but it's still driving me crazy. Debating whether or not to call the department.

Right. Virtually every time I log in, it takes me a couple of seconds to confirm that nothing has changed.

During my interview (which I thought went pretty well) they told me they'd let me know in "one to two weeks". It has now been two weeks AND ONE DAY and I'm freaking out about it. TRying to figure out if this means anything at all and what it might mean. I've had friends and my girlfriend restrain me from calling the department about three times per day.

Oh you know, the standard 15-20 times per day. That is, aside from checking my phone incessantly for missed calls from a department and for new emails. Let's not forget the application portals that I know that virtually none of the schools I've applied to will even use for notifying applicants.

Really, this was exactly what I needed to hear right now. Back to fighting spirit mode! :-)

Thanks a lot to the both of you -- really helps to hear about other people's experiences and knowledge on the matter. C m you're absolutely right that what I'm applying to study is a very small speciality in the broader Asian studies field, I know a lot of academics think it's too small to even warrant the full research attention of a scholar (which I don't agree with but that's a different story). I know there are no guarantees and that no word from any person can entirely make or break an application, just like you point out Taeyers. I guess it was just a crappy coincidence that I heard back from two of my top programs in one day. Hoping that I've had my share of bad news for this week. Best of luck to all of you, hope you get better news than I did today!

So, I'm posting this only a few hours after having received my second (!) rejection notice of the day. Needless to say it hasn't been a great day so far. What bothers me so much about these two rejections isn't specifically that I got rejected -- I always knew that applying was a gamble -- but that they were from schools where I had really good contact with my POI. For one of them, I had a recommendation letter from my POI:s foremost publishing colleague, an absolute top scholar in my (very narrow) field, and my POI had both encouraged me to apply and told me that he got in touch with the committee to lobby for me. I had a similar situation a few weeks ago, when I got rejected from a school where me and my POI:s interests matched extremely well. I have a vast number of publications and conference presentations within my field, and I'm currently in a renowned MA program (although professional) in this field. My grades are good (3.81/4), my GPA pretty good with a terrible quant score unfortunately. I guess I'm not surprised since all my POI:s have also told me that admissions is a tough game in their field, and two of the three POI:s at schools I've had rejections from explicitly said they weren't on the committees for this year. But still, I can't help to be bummed and a little surprised. I guess what I'm trying to assess is how much lobbying from one person can really help, and how much influence individual POI:s have on the process. I've probably been hoping for too much based on only individual people's words and encouragement, and I'm trying to wrap my head around what went wrong... Still waiting for six more programs, of which I think I might have a realistic shot at two or so (even those may be tough). I did get admitted to Cambridge, but as I'm sure you all know, UK programs are not at all as rigorous as US ones and I haven't heard good things about my department.