paraent

curious what's the downside of disclosure?

i didn't get any structured questions, but i was definitely asked repeatedly to remind interviewers about my background (i went from door to door)

A recent study I read found that, controlling for everything else, prestige matters about twice as much as gender. Think about how much you think it matters for your career that you're a man rather than a woman, or vice versa. Prestige matters about twice as much as that.

yeah, was just talking relative probabilities

Can't help but uselessly wonder if yield rates are likely to be higher or lower for initial admission offers compared to waitlist admission offers? The former (initial admits are more likely to yield than waitlisted admits) would suggest poorer odds for people on waitlists, because a higher share of deflation in mean yield rate would be from waitlisted people turning down offers. The latter (initial admits less likely to yield than waitlisted admits) would mean the opposite. On the one hand, if someone gets an offer right off the bat, that means the professor considers them an especially good match with their goals for their lab and overall "style" and that probably means the person admitted is more likely to feel the same. On the other hand, an applicant who gets an off-the-bat offer at one spot is more likely to also be getting offers at other locations and so has more room to turn down offers compared to waitlisted applicants. Waitlisters are likely poorer matches with the department in question but are also probably more likely to have fewer other options. Not necessarily very many fewer, though - they were waitlisted rather than rejected, after all. Guess I'll call it even and go do something useful with my time instead of obsessing over my waitlist spot haha

It’s only a little window, but UPenn, a school I’ve been eyeing that generally ranked in the top 5 or 10 in practically every area, reports on their website that it tends to admit 15-20 students a year to fill an entering class of 8-12. The math works out to suggest that yield rates reliably land between 40% (20 offers for 8 spots) and 80% (15 offers for 12 spots), and they're presumably careful not to extend more offers than what they’re sure they can carry. This suggests a substantial role for the waitlist even at the most influential and well-funded programs.

Funding is most important. I can't do grad school if it ain't free. Then research, because that's the whole point. Then advisor, the how to go with the why.

grad programs need to be more open about the extra fellowships they offer, especially the ones for minorities; i should hear before i apply rather than after i get in that i'll get an extra $5k at this school for having background X; stuff like that greatly colors whether I'll think a particular program is financially worth it or not

Congrats, dude! Honestly, I suspect that a rejection for me would be for the best. I match with a less prestigious program and advisor better. At the same time, if Penn gave me an offer I dunno what I’d do, haha.

hate to say it, but my top choice probably wasn't the right pick for me anyway; i've got much better odds of succeeding in this other program that might be less prestigious or less ideal locationwise but matches my research interests and background better

sighh

changes to windows 10 over the last few years and programs like MobaXTerm make unix-based operations just as or even more easy to use on a pc compared to a mac

Git waitlisted haha

Honestly? Ask the POI / make your intentions known before you volunteer. There's no downside to being straight-up here.

waitlisted yay more waiting