GopherGrad

Not that anyone should do anything that I did, but probably 1/3 of my SOP talked about faculty research interests and how those lines of inquiry would inform my own. The notes I took on interesting faculty were essential to making that happen.

Well, I'm relying on my pre-application notes, not speaking from the top of my head. For a couple of reasons (ignorance; past investments is education) I looked up a couple of rankings of comparative departments and made a list of the top 30 schools by reputation. I then read every faculty member's profile at those schools, including skimming the research I could find for profs that seemed like decent adviser options, and gave every program a point score. When application time came, I asked myself how much money I was willing to spend on application fees and went down the list until I ran out. This approach is clearly not perfect. I can already think of two schools I should have swapped in for those I did choose.

At least as competitive and longer shots on fit. (Cornell, G'town, Columbia, MIT)

12. But in terms of competitiveness and fit, Northwestern and UCSD were the most likely. The chances that Harvard or Princeton will magically pick me up with no love from either of those two is razor thin.

I'm with you. The implied ding at UCSD makes me 0 for 6. Great work, Tufnel!

I felt that way about the law schools that rejected me six years ago. Then my law school performance proved that the foolish schools were the ones that let me in. What I'm feeling now is the dawning realization that just about every aspect of my application could be improved, which, given the competitiveness of programs at issue, means they must be improved for me to stand a chance. Next will come the difficult decision of what to do about that.

UCSD is coming out? awesome. I'm almost at the end, then.

Sweet. That means I can expect the dings from Chicago and Berkeley any day now.

Congrats to the Northwestern admits! Harvard's PEG is a different program with a different adcomm. I know because I accidentally submat my application to PEG and then had to frantically petition the helpful people at Harvard to channel it the right direction.

Just got dinged at Northwestern. Apparently the carnage is not over.

I've felt this same way about jobs over the last couple years, actually. Applying to highly competitive positions, academic or private, result in this type of frustration and uncertainty all the time. It sucks. If you do strike out (far from a foregone conclusion), contact the departments you felt most confident about and ask if you can email someone on the adcomm and see if you can get feedback. This rarely worked with me contacting employers, but it's always worth a shot. Also, it bears mention that this first cut was maybe as deep as 80% of applicants.

Generally only once in the US, yin. HP's figures would seem to match with readeatsleep's if RES's are enrollment rates of applicants.

Holy crap. Tell me that's spots over applicants rather than total acceptance. If the postings on this site so far are representative (and they probably aren't) NU has already rejected about 2/3 of applicants.

Anyone know what Northwestern's acceptance rate was over the last couple years?

Sorry, man. That's the fish I'm after, too.

If we've got two early alphabeters that haven't heard, I'm inclined to say that anyone still standing after today made some sort of first round cut. Far too many of us left, though (in my opinion) to get too hopeful yet.

Yes, it did! Still nothing, though. They probably just haven't gotten to my last name.

Sorry, bugbear. The wyas of the adcomms are mysterious and despair inducing. I am experiencing the same smidgen of hope, but it occurs to me that I might not be looking in the right place for the message. The result would be on the "Applicant Status Page", down at the bottom?

I'm comparative at Berkeley and I've decided not to sweat the acceptances posted yet. Berkeley is a comp. powerhouse. We would have seen the ripples if they has sent out admits. What bothers me is that some schools seem to notify admits first, where others reject people first. Hard to gauge where one stands...

I knew I'd heard it somewhere. I was referring to grad school, but frankly it might apply to everything in life. You work hard and if you succeed, someone pays you more money to work harder.

I agree. I think one of the first things I learned when looking into these issues is that there aren't a lot of reliable, easy answers. The irony of my critique of Noma's book (at least the parts of it that relate to it's implicit promise of sustainable practice) is that in the end I'm following my gut, too. Thanks for your encouragement about my application. If adcomms are aware of how law schools grade, I might yet be in for a pleasant surprise. If not, I'll have to decide if I want to reboot this process or start a rip-off Noma in the Twin Cities.

I've not read a lot one way or the other, but I don't know that leveraging economies of scale necessarily requires that we take a contiguous 1000 hectares and use it to raise wheat. Then use it to raise wheat again. Then again. And again. I know that some areas are better than others in terms of soil and weather, but not so much so that some crop rotation and diversification erodes the advantage of size. It means capital investment, but that might pay off if it means farming the same land an extra hundred years. Minnesota is hugely fertile, but farming is on the decline here in favor of Mexico and California. There's no way that would be the case (at least in summer) if there were a price for carbon. Part of my disagreement here stems from the fact that large companies will chase competitive advantage only to find that the advantage wears through faster than expected. Ask the wheat conglomerates that chased the Murray-Darling boom and now have salted fields if the move was worth it. History is replete with examples of humans arriving in a bountiful land only to find that a couple generations of farming strip the soil of value. Ecological appearances can be deceiving.

It's like a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie.

Sorry, man. You must have other places you felt more strongly about? BTW, I'd call that you get in somewhere great still. I was right about Tufnel and I'll be right about you.

Oh, great. Now I've got to sweat Berkeley AND Northwestern. Somebody tell me something!!* *Note: if that something is a rejection, do not tell me.