busybee

Thanks, Africanagyal, it is a little. There are others in my cohort who are also still waiting on summer decisions for things. I'm definitely getting used to waiting, since academia keeps me so busy like 90% of the time! Where are you waiting to hear from?

I'm still waiting on Yale Summer FLAS. I've also reached out to ask about dates with no response.

Thanks Rivai, and @mrs12 for your support and kind words. I've already applied to SALAM and I'm working on a couple of FLAS applications, so it has been helping a lot to work on these other essays while I wait to hear from CLS. I've been really lucky in my academic journey so far to have a lot of these things--great advisors, mentors, professors, friends. Honestly, I think it was just an unfortunate week with timing and the weather. My second semester of my Ph.D. was supposed to start on Tuesday, but with snow and ice and no infrastructure to deal with it, my university cancelled the first two days of classes which left me with even more break-time to obsess, instead of distract myself with work like I normally would.

I'm having a really rough time still waiting to hear if I made it through just the first round (two days and counting now). No word with grad school apps was a bad sign, this feels the same. I've called and emailed but only got through to one very tired, annoyed staff member who would not tell me anything. I've never been in this kind of situation before, and it's a lot harder to sit and wait patiently than I thought.

Yes. Still waiting unfortunately!

Still no email for me. I'm pretty bummed. And all they will tell me on the phone is that it may not be today.

Congrats to all those who made it past the first round! I'm still waiting to hear back myself. Crossing my fingers for the morning!

Is anyone else still waiting?

I put in the totally incorrect email address for my primary. gmail.edu rather than .com! Crap!

Where did you see this?

Hi @gradanth. If you want to PM, I can help you out with your statement.

Thanks for the insight, @mrs12! Congrats on winning last year--CLS is amazing and it helped me so much with language and everything else. I hope you're right! My CLS cohort from 2014 had only a couple of graduate students, and many more students who were like me at the time (few awards and opportunities; CLS was actually my first time abroad, ever, and I went to a public university.) My graduate school CLS advisor (a former CLS Persian application reader) told me that diversity and lack of opportunity is prioritized over dedication to language and prior successes. Of course, maybe not as many graduate students apply as undergraduate, which I've heard from other past CLS'ers as well. But to be honest, if someone who's never been abroad before is chosen over me, I'm sincerely happy for them! I do have other opportunities for which I can apply. Many CLS'ers I've met over the years got such a boost up from winning the award (like I did originally). For me, it's about a dire need for more language practice, period, and I can likely get that from other scholarships (FLAS, for example). Anyway, good luck to everyone!

I'm so freaking nervous! CLS feels like the hardest thing to win--they want remarkable diversity, people who haven't won a lot of things before, and people who don't have many opportunities--and I don't think I fit the bill on any of those! Nevertheless, I want it so bad. It was the spark for my whole academic career in 2014. Has anyone else received a CLS before? @nervousgal, I put down finding a personal balance, and wrote an anecdote about getting stranded in India at the airport while simultaneously losing my bag and how I handled it. One thing that will surely help is that I'm going to stay off grad cafe forum and focus on my second semester of grad school. :-) Good luck everyone!

I have paragraphs on word. So when I copy and paste onto the online application, I just separate the paragraphs with a line of space between them. It doesn't go toward your word count or anything.

Hi Peanut. If it is the GRE dragging you down, I would recommend taking it again and focusing your sole attention on the verbal. My undergrad advisor told me that the only thing she cares about in admissions, when it comes to the GRE, is the verbal portion. Of course, she is only one voice, but I had similar quant. and writing scores to you, although a very high verbal score, and I received some Ph.D. offers. At the same time, I doubt my offers had very little to do with my GRE and had much more to do with my SOP, very high GPA, research experience, and letters of rec., etc. These are areas to focus on improving, much more than the GRE. Have you emailed any professors/POIs from your programs and asked them how to improve your application for next round? They can give you some solid, very constructive advice about how to do this. Best of luck!

Congratulations!!! This is interesting, and doesn't surprise me at all. I really feel like I won the lottery with this fellowship. I'm sure more than half of the people who apply are of "high quality." And reading some of the comments on this forum, it seems like some applications really just hit bad luck with over-worked and tired reviewers. One of my cohort-mates had five E's and one P, and got HM--but I feel like she deserved it more than me, with so much more research experience and publications! The last reviewer just seemed to miss her bold-faced "broader impacts" section and gave her a P.

Congrats Plantguypete!! Who cares about sleep!! Go celebrate!!!

I'm shaking. I freaking got it. Applied as an undergraduate. VG/VG, VG/VG, E/E.

UIC is my undergraduate alma mater. It is an amazing, warm, and generous department! If you have any questions, feel free to send me a PM.

I applied to CUNY last year and was in a similar position. CUNY was originally my top choice; I had a skype interview with my POI, and then flew out to NYC (on my own dime) to attend the colloquium where I met a couple of faculty members, not on the admissions committee, with whom I had informal chats. Afterwards, I emailed my POI and told her that I loved the university and that it was my top choice. Unfortunately, I didn't hear anything for more than a month, even from my POI. By the time I received an email telling me my position on their wait-list, and asking me if I would come with a tuition-only fellowship, I had received a phenomenal, fully-funded offer elsewhere at a much higher ranked department with a much better fit. Others who had been in the same position as me before told me that CUNY often makes last-minute, April 14th or 15th offers, and that if I really wanted to get in, I should wait until then. However, I was pretty disillusioned, and knew I didn't want to spend potentially up to 10 years (I know a few people who attended CUNY for anthropology who took ten years to finish, including a then-current grad student with whom I skyped) in a department with such poor communication. It was clear that the other offer was from a department that really wanted me: I interviewed with multiple professors there who were incredibly excited by my proposal and ideas; faculty responded to my emails, and one even offered to read my statement of purpose. They also have a quicker completion rate of 6 years, and an incredible job placement percentage. So when I finally received the wait-list email from CUNY, I had already made my decision. I wrote them an email back and requested they remove me from the wait-list; I was tired of being dragged through the mud. I'm sure others have had better experiences with CUNY, and I know that every single candidate is different etc.--but from what you described it seems that you too may be in a muddy position. Good luck with your visit and in making your decision! This is only my experience, so take it with a grain of salt.

@enfp: As an American who works in, lives in, and loves MENA countries and cultures as well as Islam, I am absolutely devastated by this, along with what feels like the majority of my country. Even though I am abroad, I too am calling lawmakers and trying desperately to do anything and everything I can.

@stripedand @terraaurea It is very possible to get into Ph.D. programs straight from undergrad! I did, as well as quite a few others in my cohort. It's true that some programs are definitely more keen on taking students with masters degrees, but my program is in the top ten of the NRC ratings and I got in right out of undergrad. It is very possible! Just hang in there, don't count your chickens before they are hatched! I'm rooting for you!

Hi @BeeKayCee. First off: congratulations on making it past the first round! That's a huge accomplishment in and of itself. As for interviews: I'm an ETA in Bahrain this year. Neither me nor any of my fellow ETAs had interviews. We have also spent time with the Moroccan and Jordanian ETAs, and I personally have not heard anything from them about having been interviewed--although I never asked any one this question directly. Hope this helps a bit!

Hi everyone. I am a successful applicant from last year's cycle, and I know firsthand about the liminality, anxiety, and pain of waiting on graduate school decisions. Although people told me on this forum that the decisions were not personal, that many people who have plenty of merit are not accepted and that much of it is due to departmental politics of the year, etc., I still struggled to separate my sense of self and my self worth from admissions decisions. I just want to extend a hand: if anyone wants to ask any questions or express any fears or anxieties that they perhaps wouldn't want to share publicly, please feel free to send me a PM and I'll be happy to listen. A problem shared is a problem halved.

Emory also funds their PhD students quite nicely. Private schools are at least pretty reliable on that account.