alizeh55

Wow, congratulations!!!! If you happen to get any insider info on how many candidates they accepted/had room for this year, please do share. It would be helpful to know for the next cycle as well.

Do you know if acceptances went out for CSR yesterday too? I only know of people being waitlisted

sigh

I only applied to one PhD program this cycle so I realize I am an anomaly on this thread. I did this for two reasons: 1. The programs whose faculty I was interested in (such as Columbia and Brown) were not accepting. I saw no reason to apply places where faculty did not fit into my interests because I wouldn't even know what to say on my SOP. I did a lot of research and even consulted my advisors and although they warned me not to put my eggs in one basket, I knew the risk I was taking from day one. 2. I am trying to keep my options open in life. Of course my attention is completely

Thank you for sharing and being honest. At this point I prefer that over sugar coated responses! That makes sense... I just wish they would reject me already so I can begin my process of grieving. I just want to know if it's a yes or no at this point and not hold onto any bit of hope anymore

Seeing that made me feel pretty down considering I haven't received any update yet... which is sort of an answer within itself.

This may be common sense / a common practice, but I like to download my application proofs whenever I apply to grad programs and save it to a drive folder before the portal locks me out. This really helps me think about room for improvement especially if I decide to reapply again. It also serves as a reference point in advising future applicants if accepted!

sharing this masterpiece from Facebook: ”Reply to rejection: Thanks for your interest in rejecting me. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your rejection. Please note that I have received a record-breaking number of competitive rejections this year and your unsuccessful rejection does not mean your rejection is not good. In light of this, I will still attend your school this fall and I am looking forward to see you on campus soon.”

Thank you for sharing this. I completely agree that rejections are just a part of the process, and this is extremely true even for some of my own experiences in the past. However, it is *so* hard to come to terms with that in the moment! Hoping we can all gain the courage to see the brighter side in the next days and weeks.

I really do hope my analysis was correct! I just did a lot of unhealthy stalking on their website which led me to this conclusion, haha. I really don't think they'd go past this Friday, though. Or at least hope so. Also, I saw that someone posted an acceptance to NELC at Harvard but there were no rejections listed, which makes me wonder if the Religion dept. has already accepted their handful of students, but they just haven't posted their results... If you type in just Harvard into the results page you'll see someone from Music explaining what's going on with GSAS. It seems lik

Just read a wholesome thread on a Facebook group called “grad school memes with relatable themes”: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GradSchoolMemesWithRelatableThemes/permalink/716233179258090/ The comment section is similar to our thread here. A lot of reassurance and solidarity. The only thing that sucks more than the waiting period is applying in a COVID year, and as passionate and hardworking students and academics, we deserve better than to wait for months only to open rejection letters and question our self worth and scholarship. Critical thinking, especially within t

Right? So many of us are technically competing against one another for spots, but this thread is nothing but solidarity, showing it’s truly not a competition and we are genuinely good people who want the best for others as well as ourselves. I think that in and of itself will get us all very far in life ❤️

At this point I'm refreshing the results page to finally find out that they sent out acceptances... and I didn't get one. Agh lol

Exactly. So what I do remember is getting in touch with someone at CSR who said the program at Harvard is a lot more Christian-centric, which I think isn't a big deal for me as an Islamic Studies student considering you can take classes at any department including NELC. However, I'm sure it doesn't help the actual admissions criteria. While I do like that the PhD holds a title of Religion for future teaching purposes, I really wish each track or religion had their own acceptances and merged under one program. It's probably not in their hands, though. Columbia did that. They have Isla

I also really wonder how admissions works in "religion" departments. If you have several tracks, such as Islamic Studies, Buddhism, Judaism, etc. but only take 10 applicants a year, are you essentially taking one from each discipline or just choosing the best applicants overall?