vondafkossum

I hear ya; the English department's grad advisor was the one who stated that final notifications wouldn't be sent out until April. This was back in February, so they seem to have already have planned not to notify until the end of the process.

When I emailed weeks ago they made it fairly clear they wouldn't send out the rest of their official notifications until April. Other people on the forum have made clear that Berkeley isn't going to extend any other offers or waitlists, so I just assumed it meant a giant middle finger to their rejects pile. It really soured me on Berkeley in general. I mean, they've already had their accepted students weekend/visit; what purpose does it serve to delay rejections this long?

YESSSS!!! Congratulations!

@illcounsel Congratulations and good luck!

Can we, for the briefest of moments, reflect on the fact that Berkeley’s accepted students weekend is next weekend and they’ve yet to send out rejections? I’m under absolutely no delusion about my status with them, but it’s just rude.

I also received the same offer for Chicago’s MAPH but with a $30k scholarship—and I thought *that* was ridiculous when I scrolled to see the tuition is $60k (just the tuition!!). When half of your offer letter is how to pay for your program, you have to realize that what you’re doing is completely out of touch with reality. Who fills these program slots, and how are they perceived when/if they apply to PhD programs?

I left off mentioning the graduate-level classes I’ve taken since undergrad because I thought they weren’t relevant since they were education-focused. See also neglecting to mention the number of grants I’ve written and been awarded funding for over the last five years. I realize now this was incredibly dumb. So dumb. The dumbest. Don’t do this. I should have considered fit with a more flexible definition and really focused on programs that had more faculty doing work I’m interested in doing instead of trying to make it work. I feel like I did *a lot* of research into programs, but from lurking here for a while and now posting it’s super clear there are programs I didn’t apply to that are a much better fit than some of the ones I applied to this cycle. So maybe a good thing I didn’t get accepted those places. I should have reached out to more POI, anxiety about looking like an idiot be damned. I should have allowed my closest friends and family be more supportive during this process instead of obsessively hoarding any and all information about the whole thing as a way to stave off eventual and expected embarrassment. It really was not that serious, Jaremi.

Chiming in as a 30+ year old whose fire is still burning (my freshmen just finished reading The Road, so I’m ~feeling this fire motif today). Sometimes life takes you down a different path than you intended, but the journey is just as meaningful even if you jumped in right away, I think. There’s a lot of life to be lived. Not much has changed about what I’m interested in, but in my years since undergrad I’ve had some time to develop a few different perspective on my interests and the relationships between them. It’s been good for me, and I hope whatever happens for you either way is good for you, too.

There were some posted to the board during the first week in February, then additional ones came through 7-10 days later. No one has posted about a waitlist or rejection, but that's fairly typical if you check the board for previous years' notification dates. ETA: I just thought the phrasing was kind of strange, honestly. It's one of the better non-answers I've seen in a while.

I emailed Berkeley last week asking 1) if it would be appropriate that anyone who hasn't received an acceptance should consider themselves waitlisted and/or rejected, and 2) if there was a more clear timeline of when applicants should expect to receive official notification. The response I got today stated that yes, they "have begun to make [their] initial offers of admission" and that final notifications will go out in April. Make of that what you will!

Sorry to hear. I’ve enjoyed seeing you around the forum. See you next year!

Bummer, dude. Will we see you next year? I'll be here; we can commiserate/cooperate in app dominate(ion), if you'd like!

@WildeThing oh gosh, I’m so happy for you!!! I hadn’t seen you around in a few days, and it may sound weird, but I was really wondering how you’d been doing. Congratulations!!!

My experience with administration at the K-12 level leads me to say, no, they’ve probably never even considered that their emails may be ill-timed, and even if it were brought to their attention they’d still fail to see the problem.

Asking candidly: how much emphasis is a committee looking for on these issues? As someone who is a first generation college student who went to community college and worked full-time to pay my way through college and who also has a minoritized sexual identity (never thought I would type that!!), at what point does explaining these things border on parody? I ask because I had an extremely difficult time writing and revising my diversity statement. It genuinely felt absurd and uncomfortable disclosing that much information within a tightly constrained word/space limit. The more I worked on it, it started to feel very much like a ticky-box response and very much disingenuous to the point of embarrassment. Would you suggest a more focused emphasis on one particular “kind” of diversity, or is this just my midwestern sensibility about (and deeeeep aversion to) disclosure of personal information getting in the way? Thank you, btw, for all of your thoughtful responses to others! They’ve been very insightful.

@mandelbulb @kendalldinniene I’m out of reacts, but I appreciate it! Thank you!

And, I finally have my last rejection. I’ll be back here in a couple weeks, scouring old threads to figure out how to present myself as a more impressive applicant next year. Right now I’m going to take some time to feel sad about this shut out, but I have so much happiness in my heart for everyone who got into programs. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for those of you still waiting to hear back. Good luck, y’all, with all your endeavors!

Welp, y'all. All I need is one more rejection to be batting .000. I feel oddly zen today.

With another rejection, I’ve made my peace with this cycle. I have a few more programs to hear back from, so it’s not a shut out yet, but I’ve learned a lot this cycle. I think ultimately I just didn’t apply to the best programs *for me*. I’m going to do a better job next cycle on diversifying my applications to programs that are a better fit, and so much of the conversation here has helped me realize that not getting in isn’t the end of the world. It just means not yet. Thanks so much, you guys, for maintaining a positive environment for everyone. I get so excited for those of you I’ve seen while lurking this past year when you get into programs you’re stoked for. Congratulations!

I wondered when you said you didn't get a "Decided" when the rest of us did, but I didn't want to jinx you. Congratulations!

Mine appeared last night and was still there around 6am, but now it's gone. Just reject me already, Chicago!!!!

I try very hard not to equate technically correct SAE grammar with intelligence or goodness—because SAE is a totally bogus ass construct—but a director of admissions can’t find anyone to copy edit a five sentence official correspondence? How do you have two comma errors in five sentences?

Minnesota’s rejection letter was a MESS.

Oh, bummer. I'll keep my fingers crossed just in case.

@fortschritt22 @natalielouise My Minnesota portal status changed to "Submitted - Decided" but there is no decision when I log in. Have y'all seen something similar/different?