scientific

Hello all! I looked for this on the forum and online before my test and found no real suitable answer, so I wanted to help anyone with the same situation/fear in the future.
I am an American, so I was able to use a driver's license.
I signed up for the GRE using my first and last name (popular American name and "American-ized" simple last name). In total my name has six letters in the first name and four in the last. However, I did not input a middle initial, since I don't use it for anything--not even when I applied to undergrad, or even health insurance! The problem is, on my legal documents, it included my middle name, which is a long, hyphenated foreign name. I'm not sure about other states, but on American passports and (new) California IDs, the middle name is on the same line as the first name/given name section. Everything I searched came up short. 
Now whenever I scoured the ETS site, it said that I had to sign up with a name that was identical to my ID, and I have heard horror stories of people who were not let into the test due to signing up with a somewhat different name, or differently ordered name, etc. Even the most random problems like signing up the first/last name in reverse order (first and last names are such different concepts in many cultures). 
I called ETS three times, and e-mailed them three times with unsatisfactory answers. Two of the phone calls were helpful, but I worried because there seems to be a huge difference between ETS and their hired phone staff. 
Anyway, the day of my test, I brought my driver's license and student ID (can be supplementary and I only used my first and last name NO MIDDLE NAME on it). At first, the receptionist at the front desk seemed hesitant to allow me because of my name/ID difference. However, I explained it was my middle name and was allowed in.
Hopefully this helps someone. I don't assume that all testing centers are the same, but I DO recommend calling instead of emailing; I don't think they even read the emails. 

Hi all.
 
Tired of waiting for graduate committees’ decisions I estimated decision timelines myself based on gradcafe data. For each university and program in albums below you will find three graphs:
Decision timeline as a cumulative sum of decisions (accept, reject, interview, waitlist) as a function of time between Jan 1 and May 1 for the last five years combined. Boxplots of GRE Q and GRE V for people who reported both scores. Histogram of GPAs (from 2.5 to 4.0 with 0.1 step).    
Here is the list of programs I analyzed (some important notes below):
 
Computer science PhD https://imgur.com/a/cXaEs 
Computer Science MS https://imgur.com/a/u3joC 
Electrical Engineering PhD https://imgur.com/a/ra3Eh 
Electrical Engineering MS https://imgur.com/a/KUGrD 
Economics PhD https://imgur.com/a/NzlYm 
Economics MS https://imgur.com/a/JfgSk 
Statistics PhD https://imgur.com/a/mB5UC 
Statistics MS https://imgur.com/a/tXowL 
Mathematics (applied and pure) PhDhttps://imgur.com/a/d0821 
Chemistry PhD https://imgur.com/a/U5x91 
Physics (applied and pure) PhD https://imgur.com/a/35tTy 
Chemical Engineering PhD https://imgur.com/a/Tng2r 
Literature PhD https://imgur.com/a/LDKpT 
Anthropology PhD https://imgur.com/a/d5ub4 
Bioengineering PhD https://imgur.com/a/RpTSD 
Philosophy PhD https://imgur.com/a/ihoGS 
Biology PhD https://imgur.com/a/FWhoD 
 
How to use the graphs?
I used this data to decrease my own misery. Now that I know decision timelines of universities and programs I applied to, I can refresh gradcafe less and concentrate on more useful stuff more. Also, it is interesting to explore differences between different universities/programs. For example, some universities do gradual accepts rejects/accepts and others do it in waves. Some programs start early (chemistry) and some — later (CS). Keep in mind, that there may be errors in my analysis so use this data at your own risk.  
How reliable are timelines?
I personally trust them (but I am biased). In general, it depends on curve shapes and available data. If there are more than 100 observations overall — I would consider that data to be pretty reliable. If there are characteristic ‘steps’ — it is a good sign because may indicate internal deadlines for waves of accepts/rejects. But the number of admissions/rejections records in the data is definitely inflated by question records (i.e. ‘to poster below: what program?”). I filtered some, but definitely not all of them. Also, bear in mind that department policies can change.
How reliable are GRE/GPA?
Somewhat reliable. There is noise, mistakes (i.e. switched Q/V) and self-report bias. For example, salty people with good scores may more likely report rejections and lucky people with low GPAs may less likely report accepts. But for some universities which publish admission statistics (for example, Duke), calculated GRE/GPA medians are pretty close to reported averages (I didn’t calculate means, sorry). Also, we can’t affect GPA/GRE right now, so it is mostly for entertainment.
How did you do it?
Scraped and parsed all gradcafe results. Selected all records from Jan 1 2013 to May 1 2017 and combined data for all years together, so all data is based on five year period. For each university and program in question I built a cumulative sum of decisions as a function of days since beginning of the year. For analysis of GRE I only chose records which included both Q and V scores. For analysis of GPA I used only 4-point scale grades and didn’t convert other scales to it (i.e. 10-point). Selection of universities/programs was done by regular expressions so there can be some noise added by incorrect parsing. For example, “University of Washington” may both mean Seattle and St. Louis. I tried to avoid it the best I could but there can be mistakes nonetheless. How did you choose universities/programs?
Voluntarily, so there are a lot of omissions. Sorry, if your university/program is not there. Also, bear in mind that programs may overlap (for example ‘Computer Science’ and ‘Electrical Engineering’). Finally, I excluded uni/program from analysis if there were less than 30 observations.
Will you share your code/data?
I am thinking about it, but undecided yet.

Hope it helps and good luck with the admissions!


 

Oh gift cards are a great idea! Our campus has some great coffee places and I definitely have grabbed coffee with them all.
BTW, who knew CRJ was such an ambitious graduate student?

I got my first acceptance and it's to my top choice! I can't believe it, I didn't expect to get in, let alone this early. I'm scared to accept the offer in case I wake up....

Admitted to the University of South Carolina!!! I know it is not a top program but I was so worried I wouldn't get any acceptances at all I can't describe how happy I am

Congrats! I just got in to UIUC also, literally don't believe it. My jaw dropped when I saw the email. Pretty good Tuesday to say the least  

Congrats!
 
Has anyone who has applied to UChicago (materials) heard back from them? I see a lot of acceptances on the response page but nobody (except a few theoretical) specified their subdiscipline. Wondering if any materials subdiscipline applicants have heard back

Congrats! That's amazing!

I got my first acceptance and it's to my top choice! I can't believe it, I didn't expect to get in, let alone this early. I'm scared to accept the offer in case I wake up....

I just got my first acceptance!! I thought I had months more to wait out, but wow!! I'm walking on air. I'm stunned. I'm alternating between crying and screaming. It was my top choice too!
 
Of course, there's the details... A different professor than my top choice to work for was CC'd, and my status on the site is different... but I'm assuming the email supersedes all that. Right...? Right?

I got my first acceptance and it's to my top choice! I can't believe it, I didn't expect to get in, let alone this early. I'm scared to accept the offer in case I wake up....

I just got my first acceptance!! I thought I had months more to wait out, but wow!! I'm walking on air. I'm stunned. I'm alternating between crying and screaming. It was my top choice too!
 
Of course, there's the details... A different professor than my top choice to work for was CC'd, and my status on the site is different... but I'm assuming the email supersedes all that. Right...? Right?

Congrats! Which school is it? 

Congrats! That's awesome!

I got my first acceptance and it's to my top choice! I can't believe it, I didn't expect to get in, let alone this early. I'm scared to accept the offer in case I wake up....

Congrats @scientific ! That's awesome! I wouldn't worry too much about the online status yet. They might have to wait for the graduate division to change it, but the department chose to let you know before that happened.

So, in my application letter, I indicated that I wanted to work with a specific professor.  Went I went for a campus visit and met with two other professors, I found out about a grant-funded project another professor is working on that perfectly aligns with my research interests.  So I took a chance yesterday and emailed that professor saying that, although I am interested in the work of the professor I mentioned in my letter, I was particularly interested in his work and would love to partner with him on his research.  I was worried I was crossing some sort of line, or that he wouldn't respond, or that it would cast a negative light on my application.  This is the response I received:
"Thank you for your note!  I would certainly enjoy working with you on our shared interests, and I'll let the graduate committee know of the possibility of us working together pending their admissions processes and your final enrollment choices!"

I don't want to read too much into it, but I'm glad that I reached out and that he's letting the committee know.  Hoping it's a good sign, but trying to distract myself in the meantime.
 

I got my first acceptance and it's to my top choice! I can't believe it, I didn't expect to get in, let alone this early. I'm scared to accept the offer in case I wake up....

I got my first acceptance and it's to my top choice! I can't believe it, I didn't expect to get in, let alone this early. I'm scared to accept the offer in case I wake up....

I got my first acceptance and it's to my top choice! I can't believe it, I didn't expect to get in, let alone this early. I'm scared to accept the offer in case I wake up....

This is the time where many schools are sending out interview invitations and a common (un?)fortunate situation is having accidentally double-booked themselves for interviews**. So, I hope you'll indulge some unsolicited advice:
Resist the urge to respond to interview requests immediately! Consider potential conflicts first.
If you get notification via email, that's great, you can take some time to think about your options before sending that RSVP. If you are notified on the phone, then try not to commit to anything immediately (hopefully the caller will be considerate enough to not even ask you to make a decision on the spot). However, I would rehearse a line to ask for more time to decide in case you get that unexpected phone call. It doesn't matter if you are 99% sure you are free on that date, unless you already know the school in question is your top choice, practice saying something like "I am very excited for the opportunity to interview. I just need to double check my calendar." Then ask if how they would like you to confirm (call back? email?) and ask for a deadline.
While waiting for interview invites, you should think about how you feel about each school and get a rough sense of how you would prioritize one over another. It may also help to know when schools typically notify you of an interview invite and also of their typical interview dates. TheGradCafe's "Results Survey" database is a great tool, and so is searching the forums if people in your field post their dates here. 
The point of this advice is that accepting an interview date and then asking to change it later can reflect poorly on you and cause you extra stress. Instead, make sure you are aware of possible conflicts ahead of time. If you get an invite from School A today but know that School B generally sends invites 2 days from now, and that in the past the A and B interview dates have overlapped, then I would wait a couple of days to see if School B responds before committing to any date with School A. If it would be too awkward to simply wait in (email) silence, it's okay to reply to "School A" a day after the invitation and say that you think the proposed date could work but you just need a little bit of time to ensure there are no conflicts. Then you can ask about a deadline (if one was not already imposed).
(** To clarify, this is not meant to "out" anyone already in this situation! Just hoping to help out others).

I don't think any graduate program have this type of "legacy" program.
However, for better or for worse, professors have told me that they read letters of reference to get another scholar's opinion of a candidate. They then try to calibrate that opinion with what they know about the person. For example, if there's a letter writer that consistently writes letters that say "The candidate is the best student in 20 years" then the program might change how they interpret letters from the same person in the future. Or, if the letter writer is well known to the evaluation committee, they might use their knowledge of that person to calibrate the letter. So, if the letter writer is a recent PhD from the school, (some of) the profs there might still remember them and/or might have still been there when your letter writer was a student there. This could be good or bad, depending on what the profs thought of your letter writer.
Note: I'm not saying this is fair or anything since I can see so many different ways for this to be abused or for unconscious bias to slip in. I am not convinced that letters of reference are a good evaluation metric but I can't think of a good alternative to the kind of metrics you get from a letter. That said, maybe the problem is that we should be using different metrics altogether, but that's another topic!

I looked up the acceptance rates for my programs (which are obnoxiously low) and that made me feel a little better, honestly. Knowing how much of a crap shoot it is will lessen the blow if/when I get rejections. Until then, I'm going to try my hardest to be prepared to give great interviews and stay positive about the process - if I do everything I can do to reach the goal, then I know I'm an excellent candidate and if I get rejected, it's not because I didn't try hard enough.

Something I would recommend is organizing something that makes you feel accomplished, useful - or even simply good. That means that bad news one day is partially offset by something positive. A few years ago, when I was going through a very hard time (where there were definitely more negatives than positives), I forced myself to write down three positive things about each day before I went to sleep. It helped to remember that even when bad things kept on happening, I was still lucky in many respects. 
More specifically to graduate schools - the best outcome from graduate school admissions isn't necessarily getting into a particular school, but is getting into a program where you can thrive, feel supported and feel like you belong. During applications for graduate school (and a few years earlier when I was looking for jobs), I kept on telling myself that if I wasn't accepted or hired, it didn't necessarily mean I wasn't capable. It just meant that I wasn't a good fit. Fit can be research interests, preparation, culture, expectations coming into the program... ultimately, even if a program sounds awesome on paper, if it's not a good fit, it's not somewhere you want to be. 

The advice my advisor gave me was to apply to 10-20 programs, with several of them being programs you could be really excited about. That way, you're bound to get into at least one of your favorites, and you won't have to deal with crushed expectations.