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.

congrats, @foucaultsturtleneck!

hahaha great question. I assumed that it's legit because the timing is at least plausible. I imagine GPR is sending out their invitations this week and/or next.

congratulations to the person who posted an interview from Duke today. If you claim it, what is your subfield?

to anyone who was worried about that skype interview posting for Duke GPR: an inside source has confirmed that the GPR has not sent out any interview invitations yet.

Yes, I've seen a lot of FB friends change their name when they're applying for school or jobs. But...I'm somewhat ubiquitous online, and I would have had to delete a lot of accounts. I didn't really want to do that. Hopefully it doesn't hurt me.

haha @JDD i have the opposite fear - what if they find me on Google and don't like what they see...it didn't even occur to me to try to disappear from the internet before the application cycle.

thanks so much for the info, @JDD! I guess I've been passed over ? not surprised since I don't have an M* from PTS, but it still hurts

I went through something similar...two of my LOR writers submitted their letters about a week after I asked, well before my earliest deadline. My third did not respond to my reminders for about a month, and then a few days before my first deadline she finally responded. She still ended up submitting one of my letters 8 days late. But during that month when she wasn't responded, I also questioned everything....did she actually not like me? Did i offend her in some way to which she no longer wanted to do it? So I'm really sorry that you had to go through that stressful ordeal, but I'm so glad that you found someone else willing to write the letter. Since she had agreed to write the letter, and since you never got the impression that she had a problem with your sexual orientation, I don't think she flaked because of her church's teaching. LOR writers flaking is actually pretty normal, unfortunately (I discovered this as I was freaking about my unresponsive writer). She probably just got really busy....and then maybe she felt awkward about how to say that she couldn't do it and then just chose to not respond instead. I don't know how academics could be irresponsible in this way, but I hear that profs are actually notorious for stuff like this...

@kenshiro, prayers and best wishes for your interview! Do you think it's possible that the GPR changed their admissions process that drastically? I guess I'm still hoping that that post is actually for DDS. If the person who posted that reads this, please do illuminate for us and either ease the suffering of those of us freaking out, or drive the knife all the way in ?

@kenshiro that was odd to me as well...given that I've seen some people confuse uni with div school programs at schools that have both, I assume that that Duke skype interview posting is for DDS since they send out skype interview invitations around this time, whereas Duke GPR, as you mentioned sends out invitations for (non-competitive) on-campus interviews a bit later in the cycle. Congrats on getting invited to interview! Why do you think the email you got does not bode well for PhD applicants? Also, I can't believe they sent at email at 10:32 PM! on a federal holiday, no less!