melvina

Where did you hear this from? I was actually in the opposite situation: ages ago I applied for a J-1 visa in by country of birth (and permanent residence) while I was also enrolled in a master's program in another country. I had a paperwork mixup and was denied the visa, but upon denial, I was also informed that in addition to my paperwork mixup, I should have applied for the visa in my master's country because that is where I would be arriving upon return from the US (so it would be that country's embassy that would need to ascertain whether i had strong enough ties to leave the US after my J-1 program and return to complete my master's program). I found this bizarre, but following that advice, I have been issued two US visas in two different countries after that original denial (1. I was working abroad and applied at the closest embassy to my workplace. 2. I was living in my birth country and i applied to my visa at that embassy.). I think the main thing in your case is to answer the question WHY you are applying outside your country of birth. Is it because you are currently legally studying/working in a different country? If so, there is no reason for you to have to fly home in order to apply for a US visa (make sure to have proof that you are legally in that country with visa/contract/work permit/school records). If you are outside your country of birth on holiday, then it's not a good idea to apply in that country for a US visa. If your situation is not as clear cut, for ex., your permission to stay in your current country is expiring imminently, then it's probably a good idea to contact the embassy and ask for advice as to where you should be applying from. It might make a difference where the majority of your nuclear family lives, so emphasise that point if they happen to be living in your current location (as those are "ties"). While my example shows that it is possible to be issued a visa even after being rejected, it is nerve-wracking to say the least to be denied a visa and you have to list it on EVERY SINGLE subsequent US visa application that you EVER make in your life, and it's definitely not worth it! Not to mention that you can always be asked about it during your subsequent interviews which could make you more nervous which in turn could make you seem more suspicious, and honestly, it's really not worth it! The last three paragraphs are just my opinions based on my own experience and the perception of what i think that consular officers look for, so other people might have completely different experiences based on where they come from. Anyway, feel free to PM me if you want to break it down further

I think this would depend where you are currently located. Where I come from, I would just got to the office of a notary public and they would copy and notarize it for me. Sometimes lawyers can both serve as lawyers and notary publics, so I would just google either of those your area and call to get a quote for copying and notarizing a diploma (it should not take more than 10 min, and while prices may vary it is a miniscule amount of work for them so it shouldnt be expensive at all). Hope this helps.

I'm so sorry you've been so stressed about it I didn't mean to say that you shouldn't accept the new offer until you get confirmation, but more that it would be great if you could just bug the first school until you get a confirmation. I would definitely accept your preferred school ASAP (unless you have a different reason to not accept immediately, regardless of your status with the first school), and make it official ASAP (it's good to get the ball rolling on all that admissions/orientations/registration/apartmentsearching stuff anyway). So back to your original question about the first school rejection---if there's no way that you're getting a response, I would then call the Admissions office and just apologize for calling (etc, etc), but that you just want to make sure that they have recorded your rejection because you want to make sure that they have received your request since you want the next waitlisted candidate to get accepted ASAP. If you're really polite and nice about it, there is no reason for them to not be civil back to you on the phone (but i totally sympathize with your stress, it's an uncomfrotable situation for you, but trust me, it's an everyday situation for them. kind of like Disneyland visitors and Disneyland employees :p). Good luck!

I guess it depends how you accepted the offer. If you accepted via email, then I think you could count it as acquiescence. If you accepted more "officially" through their website, then I think you would need to reject equally "officially". Personally, for my own peace of mind, I would make sure to hear back from them either way. Even if it's a bit more uncomfortable for you to email or call, at least you would know that this way your spot is going to someone on the waitlist for sure (rather than you potentially being counted as an admit in the system by mistake). At least for me, that would make me feel less bad about the late rejection. The Admission people deal with this kind of thing ALL the time, so I if you're apologetic, there is no reason to stress

This question was actually discussed here:

Hello there! I've been filling out the DS-160 form slowly and I feel like there are a number of questions that make it hard to know what the right answer is! "Who is paying for your trip?" a) self b ) other person c) other company/org I am paying for my flight and start-up costs, but the university is covering my tuition and will be paying me a stipend. Do you know which answer I should choose?

Thank you so much, @TakeruK for such an thorough explanation. Really helpful for me too! And well done for getting your refund! It's so helpful to hear these stories beforehand, to be able to prepare better @xyzpsych I've heard okay things about PSI Insurance, which is also specifically for international students (so they don't have to cover all the benefits that the ACA requires for other insurance companies), but to give you a reference point, it's about $1000 per year with basic coverage that fulfils most grad school requirements.

There's no reason for it to hurt your chances any more than having an MA from a non-top-10 US school. If you want to get into a Top 10 school, I would say that the rest of your application would have to be stellar (excellent research fit, GREs, LORs, and SOP), but otherwise, your UK school is not something I would worry about. (I am an international student with two foreign master degrees who got accepted into 2 PhD programs). Also, studying British lit in Britain is actually a great thing that you should definitely spin for all its worth in your SOP (assuming your PhD will be literature or Britain related). While there are no "safe schools" when it comes to PhD programs, I would still recommend applying to a variety of different schools.

Thanks for sharing this email. At least they are being upfront and detailed about what the reason for the delay is. I know other schools are in a similar situation, but I don't see many of them officially announcing the same thing, which is frustrating.

Ouch and UGH, that really sucks. How many schools did you apply to? And do you know if they've already sent out rejections? If you let us know the schools, maybe we can share which ones have sent out rejections. Are you sure everything is okay with your SOPHAS application, as in, have you had any correspondence with any of the schools? (I have answers from all my 7 schools, including many rejections, so the fact that you havent heard anything at all is a bit strange).

This made me laugh

Yes, that makes sense. Thanks so much for finding that sample for me, really helpful! I feel like my school at the moment has no idea how much i got in funding, so they are showing the "highest amount", but your advice about submitting what i have, and then emailing them to ask if that's enough is AWESOME!! That way i'm not delayed. Thanks SO MUCH!

That's really great advice, thank you so much, @TakeruK In terms of what the school writes on the I-20.... do you know if they just tick a box that says that i have enough funding, or do they specify the amount of funding that I have shown them? (because i dont want to go to get the visa with one thing on the I-20, but perhaps a different amount in my bank account (in case I need to top up the amount, or need my parents to co-sign, since I don't have $38k fully in my name)).

@SocialPubHealth I agree with @thetemp regarding the funding issue, and that would be compounded by the fact of: will you have to use all your savings or get a loan to attend. If the answer to that is yes, then I would take my chances next year. I would only consider it if I felt that the financial hardship was not prohibitive. That being said, I would also look into the possibility of deferring Pitt or Hopkins for a year, and try again next year with my dream school (though i would definitely also apply to other schools that i didn't apply to this year as well). This is my vote in your context of applying next year again. Personally, at the moment, I'm not sure that I would do another application cycle---but that could also change in a few months.

Hello! I recently received the automated email by the university to start filling out the form so they can issue me an I-20. I started and got up to the financial info and now i'm stuck. The form shows me a table with the following info (amounts are approximate): Without an assistantship: Tuition + Fees: 30k Living Costs: 18k Insurance: 3k TOTAL: 51k With an assistantship: Tuition + Fees: 17k Living Costs: 18k Insurance: 3k TOTAL: 38k I will have an assistantship, so i have to prove $38k. Now my question is, do I need to prove the full $38k with bank statements, OR can i prove half of it with my assistantship stipend (since that will be covering most of my living costs) and the rest with bank statements? Also, can the bank statements be online printouts or do i need a stamp from the bank? The form I'm filling out lacks this kind of basic information, and i emailed the international office, but they are on spring break, so I likely won't hear anything until next week, and it seems like such a waste of time to be waiting for an answer when it takes them 3 weeks after submission to issue the I-20. Any advice would be appreciated! PS Did anyone's form include examples of what these bank statements should look like? Mine don't, and it seems completely bizarre to me that they would not include any samples since there are literally 180+ different banking systems/statements in the world and a bank statement from my country could look like SOMETHING they have never seen.

Ughh, i'm not a fan of that message from them at all...and it rightfully makes you anxious. If the last time that you heard from them was last month promising that you would hear mid-march, then i would definitely email them. Can you find out when the students day was? (i would wait to email until after that day has passed, and maybe don't use "feeling" words like "curious" and "upset". You are just asking a question politely because duh, they should be able to give you an answer). You could email them something like "I am following up regarding my waitlist status. Now that the admitted students day has passed, do you have any other information? Also, it would be helpful if you could tell me my ranking on the waitlist." I assume you don't have any other offers....? If you do, then i would definitely mention it. Even if their deadline to accept is not imminent. Let them know that other schools also want you Would you mind sharing what school this is? (Im curious :p) Honestly, i find this really bizarre. If UCLA doesn't even offer DrPH how could you have accidentally chosen it on SOPHAS? Makes absolutely no sense to me. As for reapplying, I hear different advice on this (some profs say they never take re-applicants, but i was accepted to my master's after i re-applied, so if the only difference is $50 and it's your dream school, it's really not a lot to risk, imo (unless the feedback you get is something that cannot be worked in the meantime). What i did when i re-applied, was submitted all the docs that qualified me the year before (obviously), but i also included a section on what i had done in the one year gap---explaining what made my application better now compared to the year before). Since you're first on the waitlist, it's a total coin toss. At the end of the day, people may reject Hopkins for a whole host of reasons. Like you said, UCLA was your dream school, so would you have rejected Hopkins for UCLA? I think you can remain cautiously optimistic, but on the whole, it doesn't really sound like Hopkins is YOUR dream school, and maybe the funding situation plays into your decision. If you have the time, i would speak to current Hopkins students and find out more about the program, so that you can actually decide whether you even want to be offered Hopkins. Like you said, it may be too good to refuse even if it's not your cup of tea.

I suppose it depends what you hope to get out of contacting them....? I don't think necessary fits here, but if you want to receive any other information that they might be able to answer, why not? As long as your email is polite (but perhaps don't mention that you're upset), you don't have anything to lose. Maybe if you provide some more details of what you hope to gain from the contact, we might be able to provide more helpful comments.

With the "dozen" others, I suppose the argument would be that no one should have a dozen offers in hand. I read that the rule of thumb is to never have more than one or two offers in hand while waiting for something else, which makes sense to me. That being said, since the acceptance rate is SO low, i think there are VERY, VERY FEW candidates who got into all of their schools and are entertaining a dozen offers (like, who does that?!). It's even worse for international students because they need to sort out their paperwork and visas, and with no decision or waiting-on-funding decision, that delays the whole process, putting in question the arrival to the US on time. As for the private sector.... There were times when I've applied to (what feels like) a BILLION jobs, and i've had ALL sorts of responses and non-responses and half-responses, so in my experience this isn't waiting game isn't particularly different, and at least the universities have a responsibility to let us know that we are rejected. I don't think companies need to do that at all, and while some are nice and let you know, others do not. I'm no particular fan of academia, but with some experience in NGOs, government, and the private sector, they are all filled with people supervised by one main (usually) man, who signs off on stuff, and as soon as one of the chain links is broken, things stop and....wait...wait...wait. All that being said, the delay is still RIDICULOUS!

Agree, @JSnow! It's interesting that some schools appear to have been affected, while others not at all. So I'm wondering if it might just not be inside departmental stuff.... For example, some schools appear to be good at issuing acceptances/rejections, but without providing details on funding, which still makes it impossible to make a decision.... From what I hear, that was frequently the case with that department at that school (i.e. it's not related to the political climate). Sigh.

@EpiNYC thank you for sharing your insight. I have heard that a good fit is a supervisor is really important for admissions, and congrats on having so many publications!!!

Really awesome that you can already see the silver lining! Are there any general tips that you can share about the "direction" that this person gave you that might be helpful for others...?

Oh, I'm sorry, that really sucks I told like three people, precisely because I didn't want to be asked all the time, and I still feel like I get asked way too many times. Kind of like, "I WILL LET YOU KNOW WHEN I KNOW." It's definitely strange that you haven't heard back from any schools either way, but it might mean that you have been waitlisted everywhere...... have any of those schools/programs sent out acceptances yet? If yes, then I would email/call the admin and ask whether the school has an informal waitlist that you might be on. There have been a few posts here recently where people found out their waitlist status only after they called (which I think is ridiculous, but that's another story.....). Do any of your programs have later submissions? All of mine had December deadlines (one might have been Jan), but I know some have March deadlines...... Anyway, really sorry you're in this sucky situation No clue. Weird though! Has it always been "manual"? I would email SOPHAS through their "questions" page. I had a bunch of questions back in December and they got back to me pretty quickly.

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I'm not sure that all schools have wait lists, so they might be waiting to have the accepted people accept officially before they send out rejections. Mostly a guess, really, or maybe the admin person is just so busy that sending out acceptances is easier and more urgent than rejections. Sorry you're waiting

@Epi_17 Also agree with joshre01, getting any kind of work experience related to what you want to be doing long-term/kind of program that you want to apply for would definitely boost your application. I read somewhere that PhDs is kind of applying for a job---they want to be sure that you can be good at being a researcher as well as a student, so any related work experience not only demonstrates commitment to your passion, but also says, "I know how to do this and this because I have done this and that in this job/role/etc." Supplementing that work experience with closely related coursework that you haven't done yet (even if it's via Coursera, edX), will give you knowledge about how to speak about that topic in theoretical terms as well as show that you are really into this (since you said you recently discovered your passion). Good luck!