late bloomer

I spoke with the Graduate Admissions and Records Coordinator at University of Oregon (via email) yesterday. We exchanged a few nice emails during the application process so I felt safe reaching out to her and inquiring as to the status of the application process (note, I did not ask if I was accepted or rejected, simply if the program has completed its admissions process). She basically said that she has been asking for final decisions (didn't say from whom, I assume the PoIs or department/program chairs) for some time now as we are approaching the actual deadline of deadlines. She even threw in a smiley face. I know that applications go through at least 4 reviews right: STEP 1 - Sanity Test performed by Department Staffers (does the applicant have a unacceptably low GRE/GPA/TOEFL - if so, discard and reject); From my perspective, this is the only group that would have definitely received a rejection. STEP 2 - Review Dossier performed by Department Staffers (does the applicant have a strong application packet or a compelling SoP/notable recommendation provider (it's not what you know, it's who you know) - if so, pass along to PoI or PoIs named in statement); Perhaps you might be rejected here if your SoP was off-topic, or the PoI has moved on to another department or school or if the reviewer believes you won't be accepted by their direct competitors; however, I see no other motivation to send rejection letters to those who do not pass this step for a number of reasons. This may be you (or me - Temple), perhaps you received an interview with no follow up and you are on a hidden wait list, or perhaps it's an implicit rejection. STEP 3 - Intensive Scrutiny performed by professors (I believe this is where the process was stalled during Jan/Feb/Mar because of the severe winter week right after the deadline and the fact that these business professors have nobody to really hold them accountable to timelines) Now we have three piles. STEP 1 Pile is discarded, STEP 2 Pile is ignored, and STEP 3 Pile is divided among the appropriate professors where it is subject to the whimsy of a tenure(d) track professor's schedule and will likely be ignored for some time (generally, for no other reason than if you give a human a deadline, there is a high likelihood that they will wait until the last bit of the allotted time to complete the task). If you applied to a smaller program - for me, this is the sports management programs - then you advanced to this step fairly quickly and probably know where you stand at this point in the cycle. STEP 4 - Program Approval and Departmental Sponsorship (I liken this step to getting a herd of cats to agree on which toy to play with); Nothing much I can say about this except that, the bigger the department, the bigger the bureaucracy and thus the longer the wait. As well, you most likely have senior researchers from other programs (in the same department) opining on other professors' applicants, which could get weird. STEP 5 - Funding Decisions (theoretically an applicant could get through the first 4 steps by early February and still be waiting for a funding decision until the April deadline). Same thing here, no idea what constraints are preventing this process from progressing in a timely manner. I speculate that a department is not interested in finalizing funding decision until the number of GA/TA/RAs is known ACROSS THE ENTIRE UNIVERSITY for a number of reasons related to their budget. I have now started to get some pressure from the programs who offered me funding and assistantships but I would certainly prefer a bigger school/program/stipend associated with schools like UW, Oregon, Emory, Temple, Pitt... In conclusion... like she said, hang in there

I had an interesting experience last weekend actually. The Graduate Coordinator at Virginia Tech reached out and left me a voicemail saying they were missing my Goals Statement and asked if I was still interested in applying (I left the application not submitted at the deadline). I didn't call her back because I was not intending on putting out any more application fees or asking my recommenders to submit any more letters. The next day she followed up with an email restating that they wanted to see my goals statement. I was pretty surprised considering that my scores and whatnot aren't amazing (320 gre, 3.89 ug, 3.8 grad) but at this point I responded to the email and told her to give me the day to polish the statement and I would submit it and my C.V.. I thought about it for a minute and while I did fill out most of their application, I didn't upload the main documents (c.v., statements, official scores, recommendations, etc...) because that is how I was filling out applications; however, I would certainly go get my PhD from VT. The reason I did not finish my application is that their program is on the bigger side and I didn't have the time to appropriately sort through professors and research to ensure that my statement was tailored for the program. I did not want to straight up waste the fees on a bad application (considering how quickly GA Tech rejected my application, it’s obvious that my statement did not impress them.) What if this is happening across the U.S. for business school programs outside of the top 15-20. I mean, unemployment in America is extremely low for those with college degrees, application numbers could be down and it could be causing a bit of havoc internally and for funding planning. I feel like only the big schools or schools with very popular programs are sending out interview requests, acceptances, or rejections. http://www.howtogetintograduateschool.com/decisions/havent-heard-back-grad-school-rejected/ See #6 - We aren't there yet. Even for the Econ & Finance programs and liberal arts programs, I see a lot of 'no funding information included' & 'funding to be decided in early March'. I really only see a lot of arts & science-based programs sending out acceptances, and rarely with full funding disclosed. I only see a handful of results when I search for 'management' that are not quantitative programs (ops management, STEM management, applied econ, etc...) in nature and I know these programs have vast and qualified applicant pools that would require the review committees to be proactive with their process. To be honest, I think the business professors are practical enough to know that the business applicants are much more focused on the funding package because of our unique understanding of opportunity cost ? and there is literally no point in accepting a bunch of folks without being able to provide funding information for them (honestly, the acceptances I got were not that gratifying because I have to wait to find out if I get a fellowship in addition to GA funding) Not to mention that 70 percent of North America was shut down for the week after the January deadline, this certainly threw a monkey wrench into the decision machine.

Sports Management. I have only heard back from the Sports Management programs (4 of 4). I heard from Georgia State on Monday, and they said it is traditional for them to submit shortlisted candidates to their entire departments' research professorate for additional review (he also said the meeting isn't even scheduled yet ). As for the Strategic Management programs, I have technically heard back from GAtech but by way an upload to the portal, no other communication (it was a typical decline.pdf, did mention that the research wasn't a fit). So that makes it (1 of 7) in terms of hearing back from Strategic Management programs (I really didn't make too many reaches, i didn't want to bring down program admission cohort averages , I still expect to hear from most of them).

This is the first posting mentioning Management from one of the universities to which I applied. It's an international student with a really nice quant score. Anyone have any information about Oregon?

I applied to two types of programs... Sports Management & Strategic Management. My focus is almost entirely related to business aspects of varying sports organizations, revenue development, sponsorship, eSports, lots of 'sexy' stuff right now. Sports Management applications went to 4 schools, none of which are in the top 40. I have heard back from 3 of 4 (I think #4 got held-up in the portal because of a document issue before going to the department). Of the 3 that I interviewed with, I got 2 snap acceptances with GA stipend + tuition (they both submitted me for the presidential scholarship, so we'll see), I am still waiting to hear back regarding accept/reject from the 3rd (it's a more prestigious program, didn't expect a snap decision; don't really expect an acceptance as the skype interview was only meh). I haven't heard back from a single 'traditional management' school out of the 7 to which I applied; many are large public schools with big and productive management programs that likely receive hundreds of applications. I don't really see any of the programs to which I applied having results posted, so I am fairly optimistic that this or next week will be the big week for these 'traditional management' programs to respond to their many hundreds of applicants.

Worries: I might not get a scholarship offer from UGA. This is my biggest worry because I have already been accepted (and offered 1/2 funding) by my POI. He is truly a leader in my field of interest and would certainly ensure a productive and fruitful 5 years in Athens for me. I might not get offered full funding from any school because of my lack of publications and pedigree. I am a non-traditional student and I might appear as an ambitious job-hopper looking to do the least amount of work possible. I often worry that I come off as too confident though in some of my application materials and it might be considered bluster by some professors. I'm worried that I might get dinged because of my test scores which are only in the 80th percentile; I definitely could have restudied, retaken, and waited another year to apply with much better scores to much better programs. My girlfriend (of 5+ years) might not want to come with me. Excitement: Well, I got accepted and sponsored by the professor whose research is most relevant to my interests (awaiting scholarship approval to secure the second half of funding). He said that he was not a traditional student and he had to work his way to where he is now, which really resonated with me personally and reaffirmed my inner monologue. Obviously this was super exciting but now it has resulted in my severe impatience. I want all of my decisions, good or bad, right flippin' now.

Ok, so what I want to say is that your 2.98 GPA for a one year diploma in Liberal Arts is a problem, straight away. Is there some set of circumstances that you detailed in your SOP that would explain the low grade for this program? I assume it was a master's degree of some kind? I mean your test scores are very solid, good enough to quality for those lofty, top-tier programs if you had a GPA above 3.5; however, I think you need to rethink your list. Excluding Michigan, which will attract a large amount of highly qualified applicants from across the world, the programs you applied to are all top 15 or so, without question. These universities don't really have to compromise on any of their admissions criterion. They will get an ample supply of applications that meet or exceed their historical averages for test scores and GPA during most application cycles and have little motivation to accept students who will bring those averages down. I would say that the reason you heard from UIUC is that you are an applicant they would consider, because they are in a position to evaluate applicants holistically, at least somewhat, compared to the top-tier group who are playing to public opinion regarding rankings and averages (obviously this has merit). This next group, I have pasted below is the group where UIUC resides, any of which would be a reasonable program for you to apply. As you can see it isn't very far down the list, after all, Michigan appears at the top. Anyway, I hope this is useful. If you want to message me, I will send you the spreadsheet.

DeepSea, would you mind supplying you test scores, gpa, experience, and the like? When I look at your list, I see exclusively top 25 programs (according to my 'custom' ratings). You mentioned Kellogg #12, Wharton #11, and Yale #2 as your ambition universities. You mentioned Ross #25, Cornell #10, MIT #5, Duke #8, Columbia #9, Carnegie Mellon #14 as not heard backs. These programs are extraordinarily competitive, and your field is perhaps the most saturated with strong applicants. My point is, even if you get rejected from all of these schools, you should not rule out a PhD if it is what you want. Business PhDs aren't like English Lit PhDs, we're getting good jobs immediately out of the programs (and they obviously can't all be top 25), at good schools. Best, ~Michael

I saw a nice thread in the Biology forum that inspired me. Please feel free to add to this post with your own profiles, or experiences thus far in the 2018/2019 entry phase. I could not find anything similar here, so I wanted to do my best to establish a thread that can stand the test of time throughout 2018. Please feel free to copy the text I use as a template for your post. Here is my profile for evaluation. I am hoping for a Tier 1 research university with full funding. Obviously I won't be attempting to apply to anything in the top 30-40 because of my undergrad school and "not incredible" test scores & GPA. I have some solid recommendation letters from tenured professors; however, my school is not a research school, and I am not a published researcher. I have a lot working for me in terms of work experience, interpersonal & writing skills, and have focused my desires into contributing to academia in a meaningful way. I know that I would be welcomed at a Tier 2 university; however, I would like to hear whether or not you folks think I am aiming too high or too low with my choices as stated below for the Tier 1 selections. Undergrad Institution: Private-For Profit (lowly regarded, not online) Major(s): Business Minor(s): Accounting GPA in Major: 3.9 Overall GPA: 3.89 Position in Class: Top Type of Student: Domestic, White Male, Adult/Professional Graduate Institution: Southern Region Jesuit University Major(s): MBA Minor(s): Finance Overall GPA: 3.80 Position in Class: Top GRE Scores (revised/old version): Q: 161 (78th) V: 159 (83rd) W: 4.5 (82nd) Research Experience: Low-medium; Independent research study during MBA, focused on predicting outcomes based on statistical analysis using STATA. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Honor society undergrad. Endowed scholarship recipient during MBA. Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Significant professional experience and related skills Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Professional certifications from globally recognized entities Special Bonus Points: Strong recommendations, chosen to represent the University in various ways. Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Pre-doc candidate at the 2017 Southern Management Association, should have some connections within (safe choice) target universities Applying to Where (I would like to think I could be a strong applicant for this group): University of California San Diego – PhD. – Business – Management George Mason University – PhD. – Communications or Public Policy George Washington University – PhD. – International Business | Management & Strategy (Several school within the SMA conference region as well that would be straight PhD. Business – Management (HR/OB/Entrepreneurship), but I will pretty much know if I would be accepted based on my conversations with the faculty at the 2018 SMA conference.)