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polarimetric

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About polarimetric

  • Birthday 01/25/1993

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Buffalo, NY
  • Application Season
    2016 Fall
  • Program
    Economics PhD

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  1. Hmm, let's see... 8am, 9am, 10am, 10:30am, 10:45am... Seriously, it's bad, but these decisions can really come at any time! I was getting ready for bed the other night at 11:30pm, wasn't even bothering to check my phone because I figured it was way too late to hear anything (I'm in EST and so are almost all of my schools). Looked at it one last time, had an email notification: acceptance from Pittsburgh. There really is no rhyme or reason to it. I think I'll calm down at the end of next week, though--I'm bracing for a waterfall of decisions on the 17th and 18th based on previous year's results. I could feasibly hear from seven schools in one day.
  2. Checking my application statuses every day reminds me of final grades in undergrad--my university always gave explicit dates and times when grades would be rolled in, so you knew nothing was going to appear on your transcript until December 20 at 4pm, or the 23rd at 4pm, etc. I still checked literally every day because I thought I'd catch them rolling grades in early. It never happened, but I did it all 4 years. Now I'm doing it again, knowing that none of my remaining programs are going to give any decisions until the 15th at the earliest and yet checking every day. Maybe I'll catch them deciding early.
  3. Yeah, this is probably the best idea. Start prepping now so that you can get as much prep in as possible before the decision deadline. If it looks like things are trending upward, it's probably worth waiting a year (since you really don't seem enthused about your alma mater and an extra year of waiting is fairly small in a lifetime career context), but if April comes around and you're stuck at the same level, it's probably best to go. I have a similar problem on math tests--I freeze up whenever I see an unusual question, especially if it's worded in a confusing way. My solution was to do enough quant practice questions that I went into the test having seen (literally) every possible type of question beforehand, so nothing caught me off guard. More computational training and reviewing the concepts will help some, but you'll get more out of doing as many practice questions as possible so you get used to the way they're worded and general strategies. Once you crack that code, the quant section becomes way less difficult. I used all of ETS's official materials (the official GRE practice book, the official quantitative reasoning practice questions book, and Powerprep II). I've heard good things about Magoosh (would be especially good for your situation because it will give you projected score ranges to track your progress) but haven't used it personally, I believe it's much less expensive than some alternatives also.
  4. It's probably a good idea--I'm also hoping for funding, but a few programs I applied to recommended that you file the FAFSA anyway because there's no downside (if you get funded, it won't matter; if you don't, it's good to have a backup).
  5. I've been lurking silently for a couple weeks now and the intensity of February definitely motivated me to start posting. I was so excited when I first found this place because I was like, omg, these people get it, these are my people! It's important to have that like-minded environment, lest you drive all your friends and relatives insane talking about the application process... I mean, I'm still doing that in addition to posting here, but at least I feel better.
  6. Oh god, me too! When I got my first acceptance, everyone I told said, "Well, you got in somewhere! Aren't you relieved?" All I could think was sure... but do you know what this MEANS!? I could get an email or phone call from one of the other programs at any time now... IT HAS BEGUN! and I've been glued to my email ever since. Just one decision is enough to get you hooked. (Unfortunately, now I'm halfway through my second week of withdrawal.)
  7. I swear, if I get one more email that says it's from "Office of Admissions," get really excited/nervous, and open it to discover it's a solicitation email inviting me to apply to some MA program in a totally unrelated field... Why did I ever sign up for the GRE search service...
  8. I hear you! This is my first time applying to grad school (economics PhD programs) and based on gradcafe's results and other sources, I expected to hear back from most programs around mid-February, so I had prepared myself for that and wasn't thinking much about it before then. Totally out of the blue, I got a decision from one of my programs (Ohio State) a week ago, and it has seriously messed with my head. Now I'm checking every day obsessively even though most, if not all, of my other 12 applications will stick to that mid-February timetable. For others who haven't heard anything: if you haven't already, one thing that helped me is searching through previous years of gradcafe results for particular programs and schools (e.g. searching for "ohio state economics"). That will give you an idea of their general timetable--each department within each school notifies at a different time, and looking at historical results will give you an idea of the first wave, second wave, waitlist, etc. It's no guarantee, but it looks like most schools are fairly consistent.
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