midweststudent

Very true.

Of course. The difference is whether or not they are hoping or are already in the works/confirmed (to the degree of confirmation actually possible in academia).

Why so? (genuinely interested, not sarcastic) I get the general idea that this may be a way to sell a program to prospective students who may see it as lacking, but I assume that programs that say this genuinely are seeking to grow. Is that a bad thing, or is it too risky?

Can do! Well, sorta. I couldn't find how to delete the post, but I removed the photo. Thanks for the clarification.

I'm wondering the same thing. Still waiting to hear from Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, and Yale. I don't know what I want more: Responses ASAP (and all at once) or them to be staggered and longer...

Duke has seemed to send out acceptances within a span of a few days, so fingers crossed for all who applied and haven't yet heard back!

USNWR I looked at combining 1) Faculty doing work in the areas I'm interested in, and 2) generally better-ranked places that have a good placement history.

I agree with the responder but would like to add another opinion. While dissertation and advisers are important in a T-15/20 program, pedigree is also super important. When you start getting into lower ranked universities, who you know (advisors and networking) and how good your work is and what experience you have (presenting, writing, etc.) becomes a much more distinguishable factor that may (or may not) work well in your favor if you want a TT job. While people may assume that Dr. John Doe is great and well educated because he went to Top Ten University, it's also possible to "compensate" for this bias by doing other work that cannot simply be ignored (such as presenting, publishing, great research focus, etc.). So yes, it's harder, but not impossible. (but also yes, if you're not focused solely on a TT job, if you can find a program that is a good fit for you, don't worry as much!)

I second that opinion, but that's definitely not the norm. Usually those admitted/invited for interview hear first, and then those rejected get their result. But then again, this person got an EMAIL notification, rather than just checking the website. Nevertheless, some interesting stuff... (Also the amount of speculation we put into all this stuff is...whew!)

What about Wisconsin? There were five or so who were accepted last Monday, but my application status in my.wisc.edu is still "pending..."

Thank you for that (fast) reply. That helps to calm my fears a bit.

I'll mirror what others have said: Thank you BFB for taking the time to form this thread and answer our questions! It's always helpful to get some type of clarification from an individual on the other end of the admissions process. I have one concern I'm hoping you might be able to shed some light on and help me settle. Like most other students in this cycle, I couldn't take a break after submitting my applications and have thus looked over my material a few times in the past few days. However, this was a bad idea because I've spotted a point on my writing sample where I have a grammar mistake/missing word--something I expect I was only able to spot after having taken a small break and re-developing "fresh eyes." From what I've read on other forums and websites, there seems to be a consensus that there is absolutely no leeway on spelling or grammar errors in an application or its supporting material. As you can imagine, this is pretty disheartening for me--and I'm guessing others as well who might be in this situation, knowingly or unknowingly. My question, then, is from your experience, is this true? How important is it that everything is flawless in this regard? I'm frustrated with myself that I didn't catch this in the numerous times I looked over my material, but it surely can't be the case that something like this would automatically disqualify someone--even in the final rounds of the admissions committee's deliberations...