NTNerd

@jujubea all your advice is amazing! Can you talk a bit more about your master bibliography and master reading-notes doc? I would love to do something like that, so I'd love to know more about how you do it. Thanks!

Congrats to all those who were accepted to Harvard today!

not silly at all! @bonhoeffer80, i think it would be worth it at least to wait to accept your offer until right before the deadline if there is another school that you would rather go to. It seems to me that people often do sit on their offers until the very end, so getting in off of a waiting list march-early april seems very possible.

for those in waiting list purgatory, should we not expect updates during a school's spring break? Or do adcoms usually continue processing rejections and extending offers off the waiting list during their institution's spring break?

@Anonymon1234 are you waitlisted for GPR or DDS? They don't do things the same way. A current Duke GPR student told me that their waiting list is universal, not field-specific.

speak of the devil, official rejection just came

I haven't heard anything and assume that i've been rejected...I also think it's odd because it seems that in the past everyone regardless of status was notified on the same day. There is an acceptance on the results thread that I assume is legitimate because their interview (which is non-competitive) was weekend of Feb 14. I was holding out hope of being waitlisted but hope for that is slim because I met someone at an interview about week ago who said they were wait-listed at Duke (subfield Hebrew Bible). of course there is a chance that not all subfields were notified a the same time, but i would assume they were because their waiting list is universal.

congrats, @lumpengrad! post it on the results page and break up that sea of red

we all read into everything in this PhD app process, right? ? in response to my post-interview thank-you's, most emails back were neutral (e.g., it was nice to meet you too, all the best). I am waaaaay reading into one that says "best wishes for your onward study," thinking that this prof doesn't want me because it sounds like it's assuming i won't be at that institution....and that if they wanted me it might say something like "best wishes for your onward study, whether here or elsewhere"...am i reading into it? is it common perhaps to reply to everyone in that way because they don't want to give any hints about what they are thinking before the departments and committees meet? The reply was sent during the weekend and before any admissions meetings had happened yet.

@soitgoes, thank you so much for that super long and detailed answer!! it is extremely helpful, and I'm sure that others on this thread who are going through the process for the first time will find it very helpful as well!

as we are waiting in agony for results, i thought i'd throw out a question about interviews....do programs usually ask you detailed questions about the content of your writing sample? or would questions be more in the realm of how it connects to what you are interested in pursuing further for doctoral research? I used a paper I wrote for a class a year ago. I did read it again, but it's definitely not fresh. If it's typical for interviews to ask specific questions about it, I should probably spend some time studying it...

condolences to all who were rejected from Duke ThD today ? @JDD is the Duke NT acceptance you know of to the GPR/PhD or DDS/ThD?

@SAH08 where did you apply and what is your subfield?

sorry to hear that, @gls2814!! yes, best to everyone!! this is such a grueling process of waiting and being rejected. hope everybody stays emotionally strong! our worth is not changed by whether we get accepted. sorry to get all oprah-y, lol

Someone mentioned in the app thread about a week ago that PTS was interviewing that week, so I assume I've been rejected ?. Still holding out a bit of hope for a second round or wait list.