russianblue

I believe it is four for the GRE as well, but, yes, they must all be sent right when you take the exam.

Also, I wanted to report back to you guys on the board- but I received an acceptance to Princeton yesterday! I am SO overjoyed! Is anyone else on here planning on coming to the hosting weekend?

I was not arguing with his professional advice. Obviously you should be polite and courteous to admins, that's a given. I only commented that admins should not be short in response (life is hard for everyone, that doesn't give them the right to be rude). I was pointing out a hypocritical statement Sigaba made to another poster. Sigaba ASSUMED he/she had been rude to an admin in their email. My only points were 1) that Sigaba had no idea what the user had said and 2) that making assumptions then reprimanding someone on those assumptions is wrong. As for Trumpian language, I am not sorry for saying "snowflake." It is kind of ridiculous, instead of engaging to my point about assumptions, to then pull the "I go to a Cali school and I know buzzwords" routine. I am sure that even if I said I was a liberal Democrat that it would not make much a difference. Sigaba has declared him/herself as the pinnacle of excellence and is morally superior. I am sure there is a discussion here about Foucault and the power of words (though that can be saved for another day).

Since you went this route, I'll play.
You want to be a graduate student in history.  Yet you decided not to do any research on this BB to gather accurate information about where I currently work. Instead, you made an assumption that is not supported by evidence that is readily available.
You also failed to read my post correctly. The use of bold face in first quote was to indicate that the email in question came from an admin--something that you should have noticed before popping off on how "shitty" Columbia is.
Yet you insist your situational awareness isn't an issue. I disagree.
By the bye, as you say you're not an ass and as you're clearly a person who doesn't say anything on line that you'd not say in person, here's a question.  Since you feel so strongly about this matter, how did the conversation go when you shared this view with the admin in question and told her how she should do her job?
Before you respond to this post, I recommend that you check your temper and read this post. 
If you still want to stay on this path, I suggest that you take it to PM --especially if you're not going to reconsider your tone.
Or, if you prefer, the discussion can shift to the ups and downs graduate students' relationships with departmental staff or dealing with the disappointment of rejection in sustainable ways.
It is your call.

@Sigaba was giving you advice, and that advice was well meant. That's why those of us who have already gone through this process stick around. Ignore it to your own disadvantage.
Also, disparaging the ivory tower while applying to PhD programs is... special.

The admins are the ones who field calls from individuals looking to hire graduate students, who pass along important, actionable information about the department, and forward messages to professors who are ignoring their email queue.
If you don't find it in yourself to dial down your attitude and increase your situational awareness, the staff will figure you out and extend to you none of these courtesies. 

@Sigaba I love your comment:  "If you don't find it in yourself to dial down your attitude and increase your situational awareness, the staff will figure you out and extend to you none of these courtesies." By saying that the admin's comment at Columbia was "shitty" has nothing to do with "situational awareness," it has everything to do with not being an ass. Also, you assume that the person who sent the first email had an "attitude." Judgemental much? The admin could have just said "letters of admissions are coming out in x days" or not responded. I would appreciate if you could make the trek down your ivory tower and drop the air of moral superiority.

I was playing Overwatch with friends on a Friday night! I actually received an email to create an account on the University's website and I hastily did so, hoping that maybe admission decisions were posted. I left my friends hanging in the middle of a game to do that, but couldn't find anything--I just assumed it was the same kind of fake out I had had a week prior with a different school. Later on, I was messing with my headset and mic because they weren't working properly and I was on my computer looking for possible answers when the acceptance email popped up! 

Congrats on Columbia! It was a reach for me, but I was still hoping. I'm happy for everyone who received an acceptance, though!
And thanks for the info--I hear that is the story in a lot of places. I know OSU has drastically cut their intake. I was on the Graduate Studies Committee last semester at my school and heard that generally, application numbers are much lower, but that schools are also accepting fewer. 

My first response was also an acceptance! I had a similar response, especially since I found out at 10:56pm on a Friday night! It was definitely a shock, and I kept thinking the whole weekend that there may have been some kind of mistake--especially since I didn't feel the school was one of the best fits for me. But I quickly received follow up emails from the Graduate Director and my POI, so it's finally sinking in. I'm still eager to hear back from some of the other schools I applied to (and still pretty nervous!) but I do feel like I can breathe for the first time in two months. 

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