KevinJHa

Just got invited to Northeastern open house next week via email! Northeastern was my last choice but I'm just happy I got something!!!!!!!

It's okay to be negative, theres no need to fake anything you dont feel. All I can say is you wont actually know until you see it in writing and its official, plus theres still months left before all decisions are made. 
Either way im starting to feel very discouraged too and it really, really sucks. I used to be so confident i could get in somewhere, now I feel so unsure.

It's okay to be negative, theres no need to fake anything you dont feel. All I can say is you wont actually know until you see it in writing and its official, plus theres still months left before all decisions are made. 
Either way im starting to feel very discouraged too and it really, really sucks. I used to be so confident i could get in somewhere, now I feel so unsure.

It's okay to be negative, theres no need to fake anything you dont feel. All I can say is you wont actually know until you see it in writing and its official, plus theres still months left before all decisions are made. 
Either way im starting to feel very discouraged too and it really, really sucks. I used to be so confident i could get in somewhere, now I feel so unsure.

It's okay to be negative, theres no need to fake anything you dont feel. All I can say is you wont actually know until you see it in writing and its official, plus theres still months left before all decisions are made. 
Either way im starting to feel very discouraged too and it really, really sucks. I used to be so confident i could get in somewhere, now I feel so unsure.

Im happy for you youre in most of our dream positions hahaha.
"Going bananas" would be my reaction as well.

OH MAN CONGRATS!

Just found out I was accepted to University of Iowa with five years of funding! 

A CUNY interview update. They can only fully fund 8 students and accept 7 more with a tuition waiver. I was asked if I’d be willing to attend without a fellowship. I don’t think I can do that. I hope they give my spot to someone soon.

Whoa, that's intense. But welp, gonna cross CUNY off my list, since I can't attend any program if I'm not fully funded (and I've yet to be contacted by them or anyone else for that matter). 

Hi all.
 
Tired of waiting for graduate committees’ decisions I estimated decision timelines myself based on gradcafe data. For each university and program in albums below you will find three graphs:
Decision timeline as a cumulative sum of decisions (accept, reject, interview, waitlist) as a function of time between Jan 1 and May 1 for the last five years combined. Boxplots of GRE Q and GRE V for people who reported both scores. Histogram of GPAs (from 2.5 to 4.0 with 0.1 step).    
Here is the list of programs I analyzed (some important notes below):
 
Computer science PhD https://imgur.com/a/cXaEs 
Computer Science MS https://imgur.com/a/u3joC 
Electrical Engineering PhD https://imgur.com/a/ra3Eh 
Electrical Engineering MS https://imgur.com/a/KUGrD 
Economics PhD https://imgur.com/a/NzlYm 
Economics MS https://imgur.com/a/JfgSk 
Statistics PhD https://imgur.com/a/mB5UC 
Statistics MS https://imgur.com/a/tXowL 
Mathematics (applied and pure) PhDhttps://imgur.com/a/d0821 
Chemistry PhD https://imgur.com/a/U5x91 
Physics (applied and pure) PhD https://imgur.com/a/35tTy 
Chemical Engineering PhD https://imgur.com/a/Tng2r 
Literature PhD https://imgur.com/a/LDKpT 
Anthropology PhD https://imgur.com/a/d5ub4 
Bioengineering PhD https://imgur.com/a/RpTSD 
Philosophy PhD https://imgur.com/a/ihoGS 
Biology PhD https://imgur.com/a/FWhoD 
 
How to use the graphs?
I used this data to decrease my own misery. Now that I know decision timelines of universities and programs I applied to, I can refresh gradcafe less and concentrate on more useful stuff more. Also, it is interesting to explore differences between different universities/programs. For example, some universities do gradual accepts rejects/accepts and others do it in waves. Some programs start early (chemistry) and some — later (CS). Keep in mind, that there may be errors in my analysis so use this data at your own risk.  
How reliable are timelines?
I personally trust them (but I am biased). In general, it depends on curve shapes and available data. If there are more than 100 observations overall — I would consider that data to be pretty reliable. If there are characteristic ‘steps’ — it is a good sign because may indicate internal deadlines for waves of accepts/rejects. But the number of admissions/rejections records in the data is definitely inflated by question records (i.e. ‘to poster below: what program?”). I filtered some, but definitely not all of them. Also, bear in mind that department policies can change.
How reliable are GRE/GPA?
Somewhat reliable. There is noise, mistakes (i.e. switched Q/V) and self-report bias. For example, salty people with good scores may more likely report rejections and lucky people with low GPAs may less likely report accepts. But for some universities which publish admission statistics (for example, Duke), calculated GRE/GPA medians are pretty close to reported averages (I didn’t calculate means, sorry). Also, we can’t affect GPA/GRE right now, so it is mostly for entertainment.
How did you do it?
Scraped and parsed all gradcafe results. Selected all records from Jan 1 2013 to May 1 2017 and combined data for all years together, so all data is based on five year period. For each university and program in question I built a cumulative sum of decisions as a function of days since beginning of the year. For analysis of GRE I only chose records which included both Q and V scores. For analysis of GPA I used only 4-point scale grades and didn’t convert other scales to it (i.e. 10-point). Selection of universities/programs was done by regular expressions so there can be some noise added by incorrect parsing. For example, “University of Washington” may both mean Seattle and St. Louis. I tried to avoid it the best I could but there can be mistakes nonetheless. How did you choose universities/programs?
Voluntarily, so there are a lot of omissions. Sorry, if your university/program is not there. Also, bear in mind that programs may overlap (for example ‘Computer Science’ and ‘Electrical Engineering’). Finally, I excluded uni/program from analysis if there were less than 30 observations.
Will you share your code/data?
I am thinking about it, but undecided yet.

Hope it helps and good luck with the admissions!


 

I'm starting to get delusional and waking up the last few days with a false feeling of 'I'm gonna hear something today, I feel it'.
WHY MUST MY EMOTIONS LIE TO ME?

I'm starting to get delusional and waking up the last few days with a false feeling of 'I'm gonna hear something today, I feel it'.
WHY MUST MY EMOTIONS LIE TO ME?

Mine was insane. 
 
I had just gotten off the phone with my mother who told me a friend of the family had gotten into a very serious car accident. While he was ok, I was really shaken up and crying. 
 
I happened to check my e-mail and there was the e-mail from Queen's - full funding and an OGS. 
 
My emotions did a 180 and I couldn't stop shaking, haha. 

When I got the unofficial notification I was sitting in a cafe upset about just being rejected by another program.

I will eat all the carbs. I'm talking a pizza from my local pizza joint, a cake, a few donuts and many, many last word cocktails. 

This is what I did.
I was coming home from getting my blood drawn when I got an email notification that my status had changed and to check the website. I proceeded to spend the entire drive home (only about 10 minutes) freaking out and coming up with every rejection scenario possible. Once I got home, I checked the status, still freaked out it would be a rejection. I couldn't believe it when I read Congratulations. I just sat there in shock for a few minutes and then my anxiety turned to elation. I was filled with restless energy and may have done a few laps around the house. As soon as my parents were awake I went to their room and said, "Guess who's going to grad school."
My father got a confused look on his face and said, "Why?" -__- He meant, "what brought you saying this on" but still. Anyways, I let them know I received an acceptance, high fived them both, then proceeded to text everyone I know, haha. I also printed out the acceptance and made them read it (partly because yay acceptance and partly to make sure I wasn't hallucinating). I also emailed all of my letter writers and thanked them. I then randomly said, "I got into grad school" at both of my parents for the next couple of days, multiple times a day.
I have yet to post about it on social media because I'm trying to get a job, but most people who know me know about it, haha. 

Ugh, bless you! This site was so helpful until acceptances started coming in! I'm going to peace out for a while and remember that I'm a human and not just an application. 

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/10-stages-waiting-grad-school-admissions-decisions
 

I've been pounding Haruki Murakami books. Since December I've read Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage, 1Q84, Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, A Wild Sheep Chase, and Sputnik Sweetheart.  Non-Murakami reads: A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and So You've Been Publically Shamed by Jon Ronson.
I have to admit, it's been pretty fun to tear through these over the past two months.  Once an acceptance (hopefully!) comes, I'll probably start getting back into some more sociology text intermittently with the fiction. How is the Marlon James book?
Also, as a side note, we applied to almost all the same schools! Fingers crossed for both of us!  

Nothing I do really fills the void of this limbo period any more. I can play all the Gran Turismo in the world, paint a dozen Bob Ross pictures, spend hours at the gym, but my mind is always on whether there's been any news, and my eyes are always on my phone waiting for that blinking notification light. I feel like I'm going crazy.

Here's some happy little trees to carry us all through

Same here, I claim the other Chicago interview. Though I heard from my POI that they are interviewing 40+ and admitting 20+. But I don't really get the point of the interview since they were just asking the standard  questions, which makes me wonder about what they are trying to achieve........

Haha thanks, by the end of this we're all gonna be strong as hell 

It's okay. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!