cratergator

Welp, got rejected by Stanford today. So thats 2/3 rejections for me. Honestly though I had kind of made my peace with the fact that I might not get in anywhere. If my last one is an admit itll be a surprise for sure, but Im weirdly ok with across the board rejections. Somewhere along the line this year I stopped tying my self worth with academic success and thats made a huge difference on my outlook. Not knowing what Im going to do after my masters feels oddly liberating.

im getting ready to defend my masters thesis along with waiting, and a few weeks ago I had a dream that my current advisor invited one of my POIs to my defense as an interview. It did not go well and I forgot everything, but instead of critiquing me they beat the shit out of me. I woke up as I thought I was dying in my dream.

Im sure everyone is pretty stressed about waiting, so heres to hoping everyone who hasnt heard something gets good news soon!

Finish my thesis, cry a lot, then join my husband at his afb and sell pyramid scheme leggings? Actually though Im not sure. Im finishing my masters degree this semester but I went to school to see if I liked academia enough to pursue a PhD because ultimately I wanted to teach. So I guess Id try again next year.

Thats very disappointing. I really thought I had a shot there.

Oh god one of my application statuses went from *under review* to *being processed* sometime in the last few days I am not emotionally ready for this I have things to do please. Also, thanks to everyone who had a kind reply about my.....unfortunate POI situation. After our first call I was pretty certain I didnt want to work with him after all those red flags, but it still was pretty crappy to hear. Also, after that call he made me promise to visit? Then a few days later changed his mind? So strange haha. Im glad I didnt get in.

Oh no really?

I saw Stanford sent out a notice to someone today. If youre reading this, was it the generic email to look at the portal? Also, im sorry about that. I just got my first notice and rejection the other day, so Im waiting with bated breath over here. Also, a fun fact I learned from this rejection: you can have excellent qualifications but be rejected based whether the POI likes you or not. I got an offer to visit from this school, then my POI grilled me on my personality last week, and got my visit rescinded based off (and im paraphrasing since I deleted that email) "depsite an excellent background, you werent excited enough and fit is incredibly important". Which I believe is code for they personally didnt like me. Ultimately it makes sense to base a decision off that, especially in a PhD program, but damn does that sting.