celestial

Hiiiii I’m the one posted Columbia interview on the results page. Got an email from the phd program director this morning. Not a mass email. Hope this helps!

If I didn’t hear back from harvard PiN, is it safe to say I won’t get an interview? I’ll survive haha just wondering if I should still be on the look out

Yeah, I want to teach, so I need me a PhD unfortunately.
If I fail across the board, which I really feel like is going to be the case, I'm going to go teach overseas for a year, write a whole new writing sample because mine sucks, and reapply. And my SOP got much stronger over the app process, so that means the early applications must have been terrible. Room to improve there too.
The part I DREAD about reapplying is asking for LORs again. I already don't have the world's strongest relationship with my professors (okay, but not a close working relationship on research/a project or anything like that) and I do not want to go through that again.

Hi everyone,
I am starting this thread to those applicants that haven't gotten any interview yet, what are your plans for next year? 
Anyone like me is re-applying for the next round? What are your guys doing to improve your application?
Feel free to share anything here about your application and thoughts on why you didn't pass we are all on the same boat guys
 

"I tried to enter my stats, but my number keys were flooded by a torrent of tears"
 
on a rejection, "today's my birthday"

Most ADCOMs have not even met yet. The select few that have begun the process of sifting through applications are merely starting. I would give it a couple of weeks before even considering emailing anyone at the university. If you are going to email someone, do not email your POI. They are most likely not on the ADCOM and will not be of much help. In fact, some professors may see an early/anxious email about the department's decision as unprofessional. At this moment, I would remain patient and talk with your professors and colleagues at your current university.

I'm no expert either, but it's highly dependent on the school. It seems like most places send them in waves over a few-week period, somewhere like Harvard BBS is a notable exception where they send them all at once in a few-hour period. Based on last year's results thread, most of the schools on your list send them in waves. Basically, unless someone calls and asks if they're done sending out invites (and they say they are), you don't really know until the 2nd-3rd week of January, at which point you can assume they're done. 

Hey guys!
By the grace of Michael Jackson my apps are all finally complete (Soooo much anxiety up until the last recommendation was submitted...late...today...at 3:37pm). This is my second round applying to PhD programs and I've definitely become more flexible in choosing programs and more specific in my interests. Regardless of what I learned from my first round of applications, I'm terrified. Luckily my job keeps me busy 95% of the time from 8am -4:45pm, so I haven't been able to check my phone 767 times a day....but whenever I take the slightest break, I think about it and check the results page to tear up over folks receiving interviews. Currently, Im applying to an assortment of Clinical & Clinical/Counseling programs, such as (ranked): Utah State, Seattle Pacific, Michigan State, Ole Miss, USC, UCSC and Oklahoma State. I'm praying at least one gives me a chance to interview, especially having no-such luck last year. I honestly can't imagine applying to PhD programs after this...too expensive and waaaay too painful. I'm happy for all of my friends from my Masters program that were accepted into PhD programs last yr but having to endure them asking me why I didn't receive any interviews was too much...I can't take another year of that :/ 

Though I'm with you on feeling a bit pressured and anxious that people are hearing back, it is early and everyday more and more schools are sending out invites. Though it's next to impossible, relax and trust in yourself and your application. Good things will come soon enough. (It's helping me that I haven't really seen any of my schools on the results page yet.)

Got an interview invite to Princeton's Molecular Biology PhD program on Friday!

There really is no average student- or rather, you can average things out but you get a useless answer. 
It mostly comes down to fit- can you convince them that you'll be successful in an area in which they need success, and that you will be more successful than everyone else applying in that area. 
There's no helpful or useful way to boil that down to averages. In my program we had people with 4.0s and sub 3.0 undergrad GPAs, but averaging it to 3.5 is pretty worthless. 

I agree with @Eigen. Especially at top schools, there are huge variations in the background of students. Some people have years of experience and some people have none. Some people have top GRE scores and others have 50th percentile. In my field, I do think GPA is an actual factor at the top schools though, since physics/astro/planetary is a field where you really do need a strong undergrad foundation. So I think most students at the school I went to had at least 3.5 GPA. This doesn't mean that there aren't people with lower GPAs that still get in because of other merits though. 
Also, at least at the program I was at, I get the sense that top tier schools actually are more willing and more able to take more "risks" in accepting students. I got the sense that my program accepted students based on potential more than standard achievement metrics such as GPA, GRE, amount of experience etc. Every prof there had plenty of funding for students, it's not like they can only take one every few years and therefore have to be very selective to ensure they get a return on investment. 
So, my advice for top schools is to figure out what they want and show them you've got it. Showing a great fit into their research program is very very important.

You're not the only one feeling this way. I was reading an article the other day saying that graduate students are at high risk for depression and anxiety. I'm so sorry you have to go through this. I am assuming there are counselling/therapy services at your uni. 
I live with a mental illness, but even if I am in recovery for many years, I still do a couple of things to make sure I don't fall back into depression/anxiety.
I do yoga on campus. I always go to bed at 10pm no matter what I have left to do. I always allow myself to have that time to rest.  And I take 3 meals a day and do not allow myself to be checking emails or anything else while I am doing that. I listen to a lot of music also and take a lot of walks just to be thinking about other things. I go shopping every once in a while and reserve time to watch funny tv shows with my family. I also have a good agenda and whenever I get up in the morning, I give myself goals of things that I need to do in that day so that I don't end up feeling overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done. And I try to always do things in advance and prioritize tasks. I'm a highly anxious person and that's how I've managed to feel less anxious.
Whenever I start anxiety coming in, I sit down, and I just write down everything that needs to be done and prioritize and the fact that I see it on paper and divided into small chunks helps me a LOT.  
I know this comes across as simple, but for me, it has been incredibly helpful because I have a very heavy schedule. 

After the venting thread, stress, and other forms of despair I've seen at this forum - let's share something positive that happened to you today. I'll start.
 
My mum bought me Ben & Jerry's ^^, 

I applied to 9 English PhD programs last year. I was accepted at two, wait-listed at two and rejected at 5. The average cost is about $100 per application, especially if you have more than one transcript to send. There is no set number of places you should apply. It all depends on what your budget can stand. Apply only to schools in places you really want to live in and that have professors in line with your research. Otherwise, you might end up somewhere you don't want to be. Remember, there is no such thing as a safety school. You can have terrific grades (BA 3.85 & MA 4.0); pretty good GRE scores (V-163, Eng dept don't really look at math), SOPs and WSs that have been picked over by half the faculty in your department and still not get admitted to the majority of schools you apply to. The unknown factor of what the committee is looking for still prevails. You can only do your best and then wait. Good luck.

My best friend and I have a plan: If I don't get into any graduate programs we're both going to go in on opening a cat café. We've already started a rough business model. It makes exactly no money but we'd get to spend our time hanging out with cats.

No, i would not do this until after the first week of march. It's not uncommon for many schools to release that late.

@EvelynD -- I've been struggling with my fair share of self-pity...Thankfully, I have a good support system in both my personal and professional life that hasn't really let me get too down. I've also found that trying to figure out why certain people get accepted and why others don't is just a painful, unproductive exercise. We weren't in the admission meetings and have no idea why they picked the people they picked. Trying to compare yourself to the accepted folks just brings more frustration, in my experience. But four schools is a pretty small pool of possibilities. Just think, maybe the people you want to study with can't take any more students right now, are leaving, or have already left and the school hasn't updated their website. Maybe research interests are changing at a particular school and while they once studied what you want to research, the department is trying to move away from that area. Also, one of the schools I got rejected from took a cohort of 7-ish people. That is a very small and very competitive group of people fighting for just a handful spots. We could have been rejected/waitlisted for any number of reasons that really have nothing to do with our abilities. I know that there are areas in my application that I can improve upon (such as a better tailored SOP and raising my quant GRE), but I know that I'm qualified to do this and I won't let a couple rejections get in the way of that. 

I've been through B and C already (at a surprisingly fast pace) and have moved on to A. And I'm also trying to appreciate the gift of more time before I lose my life to academia again. 
@eloquentrivka - I would hardly take the small handful of rejections that we've seen (most of the folks I've seen on this forum that are already planning on the next cycle are those of us who only applied to 2-5 programs) as an indication that we aren't cut out for this route. I think, if anything, the drive to get back up and try again next time is an indication that we ARE made for this. Rejections come more often than acceptances for many things in academia - and life in general. Sure, if your GPA is low, your GRE scores aren't great, you don't have strong letters of recommendation, etc. you might want to consider looking at alternate paths...but I'm choosing to have faith in myself and my abilities. And I would encourage others to do the same.

A) Time to think about next cycle?
Panic? 
C) Cry?
D) All of the above?
Anyone else out there with me?

Agreed.
Besides the personal peace of mind and the ability to ensure all your materials are in in time, no. The adcom will not meet before the deadline, and the review process does not account for when an app was submitted (provided it was submitted before the deadline). 

I think you're overthinking. The amount of people you'll interview with depends on the program but they'll tell you to choose way more, however the range is from 3/5, typically. Michigan told me to choose 12 to interview with 5. You might get someone you whose research doesn't interest you, or someone you were expecting, just listen to their research and try to ask questions based on that. Grad school interviews are NOT job interviews, so don't use the same approach to prep nor the same questions. It is VERY unlikely you'll be asked what your biggest flaw is, for example. Key questions are: Why a PhD? Why your field? Why this school? Why this program? ( The last two can be combined). IT IS CRUCIAL YOU KNOW YOUR RESEARCH! They most likely WILL ask you to tell them what you've done in the past; however, try to not be TOO specific or take too long since you're wasting time for other questions. Don't bring a notepad or anything, it'll make it seem scripted. Interviews tend to be SUPER casual unless you make them not thay way, which might make you look boring. There's more to just knowing your stuff during interviews, you want to seem like you have a personality. You might interview with an adcom and not be aware that they're on the adcom. 
I suggest you dont overprepare and read papers, it's really not constructive, in my opinion. Most faculty went out of their way to talk about their research and most of the important details are in their web/labpage. I'd suggest just reading those so you have a good idea of what they do and can ask questions. Reading papers is more suitable for a journal club kind of scenario, which this is not lol
Of course, different strokes for different folks but the person that read up on the faculty the same day of the interview and was able to have an insightful and fun conversation (me) ended up in the same place as the person that read the most recent papers to prep. 

Like you mentioned, most interviews should be fairly casual and conversational. However, this can all be based on luck and whoever ends up interviewing you. I was asked at one interview why I didn't want to pursue an MD since my CV had some clinical and public health experience on it. We literally spent over half the interview just discussing about why I should not pursue an PhD, but rather get an MD and do research without practicing medicine.
I've heard of people getting interviewers that wanted them to do a chalk talk of their research or draw out signaling pathways for them. I've also heard of interviews where the faculty member completely disregards the student's research/field as irrelevant or wrong. I had an interview where the faculty member did not want to hear about my research at all.
In one of my favorite but more stressful interviews, my interviewer started talking about his research and background info in his field and then asked me to come up with hypotheses given the information he had laid out. He was really encouraging and the interview was really engaging, but nonetheless, it was stressful at the time. 
In this end, its going to be a mixed bag with a dash of luck depending on who you get. There's only so much you can do to prepare for the interviews - just know your research well and be able to explain the logic behind the big picture. If you get any interviewer who is just hostile or disrespectful to you, it's ok to bring that up with the program coordinator. After all, if the program coordinator brushes you off or doesn't care that you brought up a genuine concern to them - then perhaps they might not provide the best student support when you're actually in the program. 

It ultimately came down to which school had the whole package of research, mentorship/support and location for me. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very hard decision. I definitely lost some sleep over it.  
Long story short, the research fit was very good at both schools, and it would be very hard for me to choose solely based on that. 
As for mentorship/support, I got along better with the faculty I interacted with at Penn. This obviously depends on who I happened to interview with/run into, but the gut feeling was there. I decided to listen to it because I got matched with POIs I was really interested in at both places, and simply could see myself working with those at Penn over Harvard. I’ve learned the hard way that personality is something that matters to me. 
I also approached it from the angle of: “If (or maybe when) something goes wrong, who (other than my PI) can I go to for guidance?” At Penn I could name two such people after the visiting weekend, at Harvard it was a bit harder. I think this one is largely because CAMB is broken up into a few sub-groups, and each has a chair and administrator. It’s very different when you’re one of six or seven people, versus one of 65. Both of them at Penn sought the few of us in the sub-group out during the interviews to touch base and get to know us. Does not being sought out during the interview mean there is less support at Harvard? Probably not. But the structures of the programs are undeniably different, and I decided that Penn fit my needs better. 
Also, there is a higher junior faculty turnover at Harvard than at Penn.  To me, this had a higher probability of translating into a high pressure environment that I didn’t feel would fit the type of environment I learn best in. Of course that will differ on specifics labs and it’s probably avoidable; but again, it’s there, and might limit who I get to work with. I tend to gravitate toward smaller labs (which tend to be led by assistant professors) so I did not want to be limited by this fear. 
Finally, I preferred Philly over Boston. I can afford a one bedroom apartment about a 15 minute walk from campus by myself in Philly, in Boston that is nearly impossible. I wanted to have the option to live by myself comfortably. Ruled out NYC because of this one too. 
All in all, I had to go with where I felt I would have the highest probability of being happiest and most successful. So it’s not really one deciding factor, but kind of the context of the whole program, including the location, that just made Penn the better fit for me. It was one hell of a personal decision.

To future international applicants: Many programs are not "international-friendly", especially some small programs that rely on NIH training grant. When selecting programs, do some homework on whether these programss have a proven track-record of taking intl students.