Musmatatus

Huge congrats to you!

I asked for thoughts on MA programs, and I was told in no uncertain terms to not do anything (including a PhD program!) unless I was guaranteed funding. This opinion was very strongly shared by two of my mentors (across two different institutions), one of whom did a funded MA. It was also noted that an unfunded MA may be looked down upon as being "bought," and may count against me in PhD admissions ultimately. I know that opinion isn't universally held because I do know some people at top 10 programs who went through Chicago's MA program, but this is the advice I received. I would also really recommend talking to your advisors, too!

Thanks so much to all for sharing your experiences with the portal! I think the theory about them not being updated until much later is spot-on. On the results board, I'd come across a lot of people who mentioned they got an email to check the portal for their UPenn notification (all of them, including acceptances, waitlists, and rejections) last year, so I wanted to see if I could find a rejection yet. Alas, no such luck, so I'll be trudging along...

I feel like a complete dunce, but I don't even see the "decision pending"? I'm looking on ApplyWeb (Michigan's platform) and only see "Submitted" and a list of all my recommendation letter writers. Is yours is a different portal platform? I've only received decisions/waitlists to my email, so I haven't been instructed to check anything ? Appreciate the help here!

Big congrats to the Penn acceptances! BTW, so when everyone talks about portals, do they mean the application portal? Just want to make sure I'm not missing anything--none of my portals have been updated (acceptances or rejections), so I'm starting to think I'm looking in the wrong place.

Ah, ok--I completely misunderstood. I thought you just got a rejection letter today/recently that was dated from last year (like they didn't change the date in the template). Fingers crossed you're getting better news this cycle

Could you specify what school you heard from? Penn or Brown?

I'm lucky enough to have received acceptances, but I was looking at a shutout a week and a half ago. I had a couple plans in place: IRT for application help and fee waivers (mentioned by @WildeThing) https://www.andover.edu/about/outreach/irt Revise writing sample--I submitted my senior thesis, and (sloppily and hastily) edited it to meet the page count. Submit to a conference (as a couple mentors have mentioned this would be a good conference paper.) Have mentors read Statements of Purpose and ask for feedback--I procrastinated on these and only wrote them after my letter writers had submitted their rec letters so I felt too behind to show it to them for feedback at that point.* Read material from POIs to customize SoP more. There was a good post discussing how people identified "fit" recently that you might want to check out! (Note: If you don't otherwise have access to academic resources, you might look into your nearest public university's library.) I considered studying for the GRE (quant section) and the subject test. There was a recent post about how the GRE quant section didn't matter at all, so I think I would recommend against that after all. Not sure to what extent the subject test matters, but I would also wait a bit to see if any schools will change whether or not it is required. *Edit: I would also try to supply my LOR writers with my application materials well ahead of time. I met with each of them to talk about what schools to apply to, but I think it would have been helpful for me to supply them with at least my CV and SoP.

I've answered all these wrong number phone calls lately because I don't know if a POI might be calling from their personal cell! Alas, no phone calls for me.

Can someone die from refreshing their email too much? Asking for a friend, of course.

Thanks for the info about subfields! I’m not a medievalist, so I will hang on to my shred of hope.

You only need 1, and that 1 can be Berkeley!!!! Congrats!!! (Although fingers crossed for you if you have other pending apps, of course) May I ask if it was a POI email or a form email?

Ok, thanks for letting me know! Fingers crossed for both of us!

@adornianjazz did you get a notification from UPenn??

My understanding is April 15th is the deadline.

After applications were due, I did handwritten thank you cards with $20 gift cards to on-campus coffee shops. It was super fun picking out thank you cards with images that suited each professor's personality/style! (As a note, if you're still in school or money's tight in general, I don't think gift cards or gifts are at all necessary.)

CUNY just set a marketing email from the "Office of Admissions." C'mon, CUNY, you know this is the week where people are jumpy!!!!

Obviously @emprof's advice doesn't need to be seconded, but I wanted to weigh in as a student. One of the first questions two of my letters writers asked me when they saw me in-person was about the funding offered, and it wasn't awkward at all!

Is anyone else having trouble submitting results? It says there must be an error, but won't tell me what the error could possibly be!! Can't see a darn thing wrong with it. (The result is a UCSB English waitlist, fyi.)

Also one of the Michigan acceptances! I see that we'll be sharing hotel rooms for the visit, so might be rooming with one of you GCers there

I think attending visit weekends is not quite the same thing as doing nothing. It seems like an incredible show of interest to me, especially if travel funds were not provided. I’m not sure if you were waitlisted at multiple programs and did get off a waitlist at one where you didn’t talk to anyone (which I am sure is both possible and plausible!), but it seems like you showed a lot of initiative otherwise.

I already thanked my professors before winter break (when applications for my field were due) with handwritten cards and gift cards for coffee on campus. Whether or not I get into schools, they certainly tried their best to help!

Shout out to everyone's friends/roommates who have done this! Y'all the real heroes of this admission cycle!!

I'm wondering if schools across the board are moving towards smaller cohorts in response to the job market? I showed a current grad student (in a social science field) my acceptance letter to get feedback on funding and his first response was "The warning about the job market was not included in my acceptance letters"

Following up on this, are there any non-monetary things to be negotiated? At my undergrad institution, there's a bit of a housing crisis so I know that incoming grad students would negotiate for a guarantee into graduate housing (heavily subsidized) because there's a waitlist. However, I'm not sure if there are any other things people should consider when negotiating.