suovren

I received an email this morning, saying that they "would have the opportunity" to offer me admission, but would have to wait to see for certain. Not sure exactly what that meant, but I informed them that I would be accepting an offer from another program.

Claiming a waitlist from Chicago Harris. Pretty surprised by this honestly. I didn't think I had any chance.

Your POIs will almost certainly be understanding, and if they're not, that's even better evidence that you've made the right decision. I would recommend sending them a short email saying some like "I've appreciated our conversations, but I have decided that "X" is the best choice for me. I hope we can stay in touch." Maybe personalize it a bit more, but that's essentially what I would/will say.

This was the case for Stanford. The email said that they don't normally have a waitlist at all, but due to COVID they had to reduce the size of their cohort and decided to have a short waitlist. Absolutely crazy to think about! I was not expecting it at all.

Claiming a waitlist from Stanford

I used Manhattan Prep's self-guided online platform and I found it extremely helpful. I really liked the interface and the way it progresses through the material. I only used it for quant though, since I was already scoring well on the verbal. So, I can't speak to the verbal training it provides. The Manhattan practice tests are also much much harder than the actual GRE, which as @smug-face said, is actually helpful. My main issue going in was variance--I would get 168 on one practice test and a 159 on another. Manhattan helped me stabilize that and bring up my average so that I was scoring between 166 and 169, depending on how hard the specific test was. And I ended up with a 167. No perfect score, but certainly respectable for someone whose quant background is entirely self-taught.

I also received the "waitlist" email from WashU. I will take my name out of consideration though as I would prefer Rochester over WashU.

In one graduate student handbook it says that students should not seek outside employment and if they do, they must have it approved by the dean of the graduate school.

yes

Kosuke Imai's book has really helped me. It has a lot of good exercises and starts from the basics. Good for self-study.

It absolutely would NOT hurt to reach out if you're waitlisted. Your prof is right. I've been waitlisted in past cycles and in my experience, the department is just as excited about you joining as they are about the people who they admitted outright. The fact is that there are only a few funded positions and many more qualified applicants. The decisions between admits and waitlists can be extremely arbitrary and subjective. So don't feel like you are putting pressure on them or complicating things.

claiming another emory admit. formal theory

formal theory/political economy

just received an email to check the portal, where the page had an official letter from the dean of graduate admissions mentioning funding and other details.

claiming rochester admit!