vondafkossum

Just received my acceptance to NYU! The DGS emailed me instead of calling because I'm abroad. And I was in deep despair because I hadn't heard when other people posted acceptances! One of my top 2 choices and I'm over the moon. For those applying to NYU, don't lose hope! The decisions are still rolling out!

As my flight home from my Northeastern pre-admissions visit was about to take off, I received an acceptance email from Tufts! I somehow managed to not shriek on the plane but I was definitely doing a happy dance in my seat. I am so insanely pumped and so extremely grateful! 

That was me! And thanks!!!

Ok I was MORTIFIED reading comments on these from years past. Honestly idk if I would’ve applied if I had known about it. I hope for their sake they stopped communicating in that way...

Same. I'm kind of concerned about the person who submitted 22 applications. I need to know how they accomplished that? I did 9, and I was wiped. 

Should feel grateful in some small way as Davis’ rejection letters are notoriously rude af. 

Should feel grateful in some small way as Davis’ rejection letters are notoriously rude af. 

Yes; I think absolutely no one should feel obligated to rush any offer, waitlist or admittance - hell, take until April 14th if you need to! - but if you're sure, everyone benefits from you moving the process along.

That would be me. My first acceptance and I’m thrilled.

I got in with the Eugene Cota Robles Award. Acceptances went out January 31st. I haven’t seen any waitlist or rejection notifications. Open house is March 4th, so maybe they will send out more notifications after that. Someone else said that they were aiming for a small cohort of only 4 or so students. 

I’m in at NYU!

I love NYU but if I’m being honest with myself, it probably wasn’t the best fit. Still, the idea of another rejection sends me into a panic. It’s hard going through this ‘will they won’t they’ game without a single acceptance to fall back on, y’all... 

Everyone ready for hell week?
Get your wines, ice-creams and tissues ready.

Oregon is notifying! I just got in. (I'm also super stoked about this because I am a huge fan of Forest Pyle's work!) 

Congrats! I also got accepted to Buffalo today...by some miracle. My acceptance process was identical: generic email, multi-page attachment on the site, etc. etc. Good luck to all other applicants!

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting, so apologies if so, but calm down, dude. Her sharing specific details about herself and her application are not really going to help you with yours, and her doing so would not really be "paying it forward" as you so put it. 
 
I feel like there's more to say, but as I may be misinterpreting it, I'll leave it at that.

Got in at Buffalo with a pretty nice stipend considering the living cost in that area, congrats to all the other admits from today and especially to anyone who got their first acceptance! Good luck to everyone going into the next week of February.

In at Yale with the kindest email I've ever read from the DGS oh my god 

Holy sh*t, I'm in at Yale!

Got into UT Austin!! 

In at UT-Austin! If there's anyone still waiting to hear back from them (unsure if this is the case anymore), maybe call to check in? That's how I found out--I hadn't heard a peep otherwise.

You all are too sweet. I hesitate to do this, not necessarily because it would reveal personally identifying information (though no doubt it would—I just mean I don't really care about that; I mean, I've showed my ass here no more than I usually do on Twitter or something similar) but because ... well, I'm not sure it would be helpful, and at worst it might be misleading? I first looked at gradcafe the last year of undergrad (a 3 year BA for me) and it freaked me out so much that I didn't apply that cycle, or the two after that! (Did a 1 year masters and have been working full-time as an editor the past year.) From the results board, it seemed like scores of people with insanely impressive stats got rejected each year; from the forums it seemed like everyone was doing so much and it was all a lottery and I felt paltry by comparison. I had weak parts of my profile, weak parts of my app—still did even this year!—and literally none of my mentors educated at places like Yale/Harvard/Brown said 'Oh you'll get in you'll be fine'. Nothing is guaranteed, and I think there is an element of lottery here. 
The fact is I did a ton of things with the hope that it might make my application stronger and I could roll out that laundry list, but I'm sure only a few of them were deciding 'standout' factors and it's impossible to know which (I mean, I have a couple hunches, but maybe they're different for each school, who knows). I would hate to say "Hmm, maybe I got in because of this", or "Maybe it was a combination of this, this and this" make anyone think they had to do all of that in order to get in. Also: the few schools that have indicated to me what they felt was strong about my application—well, news to me, that wasn't my opinion of those elements when submitting lol. What this process has taught me, if anything, is that a strong writing sample and an SOP that truly reflects your research interests and intellectual ambitions—whatever those may be—is really what counts. And the thing is, those're the two elements that we on GradCafe never see from each other! 
Anyway sorry this was a roundabout non-answer, if y'all still want to know I'll give some profile details but did wanna give that disclaimer!
 

IN AT YALE!!!  IM GOING TO LOSE MY MIND I DON'T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE 

Just found out my panel was accepted!

Went straight to the Goodreads Want to Read shelf with that one--yes pls. 
Related on the field of interest front: I finally got around to Rebecca Makkai's The Great Believers a few weeks ago and it Wrecked Me. Read it in about two days, sobbing on the couch at the end, whole nine yards. I haven't read much that's focused on Chicago during the AIDS crisis, and I look forward to diving into the extensive sources that Makkai lists in the acknowledgements.