fuzzylogician

Those sound like questions that should be addressed to your supervisor. I would imagine that if she's talking about assistantships and internships then she thinks you're getting in, but I don't think anyone here can make you any promises. Just ask her what the internship (and assistantship for that matter) entail, and when you might get an official notification.

Yeah, there was a problem yesterday but it's fixed now. No need to report anything. But thanks for the heads up!

I graduated with my PhD from a top private university a few years ago, and I'm teaching at another one now.

No news is good news if the relevant department hasn't sent out interview invitations or acceptances, and bad news otherwise. Without knowing which one holds, it's not really possible to say much of anything other than that as long as you haven't heard otherwise, you can hold onto hope that something good will happen.

For me, repeating some things that were already mentioned, the biggest pro is that there is money around. If you want to do something research-related, there will be a way to do it. There are just more events all around, it's easier to bring in speakers, organize talks and conferences, run experiments with fancy equipment -- really anything that requires funding. The biggest con is that it's at least much easier to live in a bubble. You don't have to, but you have to work at it if you want to connect with the local people or underprivileged populations where you live. Relatedly, you get less teaching experience and less diversity more generally.

I've never heard of this happening. Which doesn't mean it doesn't, but I've been around these fora for almost a decade now, so it's at least not a frequent occurrence. Also, as things go, not something worth losing sleep over, because there is exactly nothing you can do to control it. You just have to wait this one out.

Congrats! You should be perfectly fine. You didn't lie on your application, you gave the truth based on your knowledge at the time. I would strongly suggest waiting this out, it shouldn't take more than a few days.

TAing is not an extracurricular, it's teaching, and I would put being president of your school's philosophy club under service. Those would be things that an adcom might be interested in. What they will probably not care about is whether you played sports or were in a band or in a Greek society, for example, which is what one usually means when one says extracurriculars don't matter for grad school, unlike undergrad. I would also suggest thinking of the admissions process as holistic, not mechanical. It's hard to imagine any one small thing having a big impact on your outcome, but these small things add up to an overall impression, and that's why these things matter.

No news is just that, no news. Since you haven't seen any updates, most likely there are no decisions yet, so I wouldn't interpret this as any sign of any kind. You'll have to continue waiting. That said, if by "my top choice program told me" you mean that you had personal communication with someone, you might follow up and ask about the timeline for decisions. I'd do it early/middle of next week, not on a Friday, though.

Heh, I don't know what would ever make you think that I did not lose steam... But there was no way I was doing that trip twice. (And yes, being international is hard, for a variety of reasons. And one never realizes the privileges one has, until (and sometimes despite) it is pointed out them.)

You're not going to be alone in this. I assure you the schools themselves don't really know what to do -- classes may be canceled*, transportation may be delayed or canceled, campuses and roads may not be cleared in time -- everyone is going to be facing the same problem. Whatever happens, they'll solve it at a higher level and either rearrange different visit days or they'll do Skype interviews. You won't lose out on anything just because there happened to be snow! * E.g at my school the administration has sent out a "don't be here tomorrow if you don't have to" email, but they haven't officially canceled classes so those of us who teach tomorrow may have to come in, even if the students don't. Everyone's confused.

Hi all. Just dropping by to say that the conversation on the previous page seems to have gotten a bit derailed, but I hope that it's back on track now. Let's please try to stay civil, despite any anxiety and tension you might be feeling. Good luck everyone -- it's a difficult time of year for everyone, but that is all the more reason to keep this board supportive and accepting of everyone. (This includes not downvoting posts that don't seem to deserve it, just because you've decided the poster has rubbed you the wrong way! Also being thoughtful about how you post your good news in a way that is sensitive to the fact that it may be bad news to others, or that they are simply still anxiously waiting! Be gracious!)

Yeah, well, I don't know that I would recommend that kind of travel to anyone, it was so exhausting that I actually cancelled my 5th visit (also, declined some interviews) because I just needed a day off (and I was pretty sure I was going to accept another offer by then). It was a school a couple of hours away from NYC and I ended up getting invited to a faculty member's house who lived in the city. She was incredibly gracious and I am still appreciative of what I think was a very friendly response to my fairly awkward "I am just too tired to go out there, sorry!". But I was most definitely not going to go to the States twice, I was already missing work and school for the one visit, and it'd be too expensive, too. Totally worth it, though. The cat is a random cat I found online oh so many years ago when I created this profile. It's been with me for close to a decade now, so in a sense I feel like it's really mine

@Throwaway1 you say that this advisor and department have a strong track record in placing students in jobs like the ones you'd like to have; if so, then it seems like a safe bet, the general ranking of the department notwithstanding. Where did that ranking come from, anyway?

The ranking you discuss here is for the school in general, the program in particular, or even for your particular sub-discipline? In addition, do you have an idea of your post-PhD plans? If you hope to go into academia, your advisor and department's reputation are far more important than the school's overall ranking. Excellent programs will sometimes sit in pretty (otherwise) mediocre schools, and no one will care about that because everyone knows the department is good. Your particular advisor's record also matters a great deal -- if s/he has a strong placement record and connections in the field, that should be all that matters. On the other hand, if you're planning to go into industry, the "brand name" may matter more, because employers will be less familiar with the particular standing and research abilities of particular departments and professors. The more the field is specialized, the more the department matters more and the school less. Overall, I'd rank fit and advisor above school ranking. Those rankings don't really reflect advanced degrees and research that well anyway.

I wouldn't worry about it. It sounds like you have several good choices. And you're welcome -- just pay it forward! For what it's worth, I came from Europe, started from the West Coast, and made my way back east. In some cases I couldn't attend the official open house because that didn't work with my schedule, but that was never a problem. And visits can be short, mine were 1-2 days each with some travel/down time in between. I would usually know within the first few minutes of talking to a person if we got along or not, and that is absolutely not something I could have predicted. In some cases, I found out I got along great with people who weren't even on my radar (including, as it turns out, the person who became my dissertation committee chair!). You also learn a whole lot from seeing how students interact with one another and with faculty, and also from how they talk about their program. In one case, I even learned that a POI was trying to leave, although no one would have ever put that in writing anywhere, so that was good to know. You just get so much more information than what you could get online and talking to random people who may be in the know, and trust me, I read everything there was to read before going!

All I can say is that my pre- and post-visit school rankings are not at all alike. You may discover that you get along more with POI A than POI B, and that the students seem more (un)happy at place X than Y, or you like the city more, or the stipend/cost of living makes it hard to get by in place X than Y. I came in thinking I pretty much knew where I wanted to go, and ended up having very different opinions by the end of my visit(s)*. You also get to meet your potential advisors at all of these places, and if you do it right, they'll have a favorable memory of you that, believe it or not, may actually be helpful 5-6 years from now when you're looking for jobs and/or postdocs. If you can swing it, I can't say enough how important I think it is to go. * I did a bunch of these in a row over a period of two weeks, since I was coming from abroad. I went to 4 places and canceled a 5th because I was exhausted by the end and I had pretty much made up my mind by then. But it was totally worth it.

I usually just do emails, and in cases like yours I will send it to whoever was my main contact person (the program chair, in your case), say thank you, and ask that the person convey my thanks to the other committee members / people I met with / students, etc. I don't think you need to write individual emails to each person, it'd be perfectly fine to do a group email or "please forward this to XYZ" and be done with it. It's the gesture that counts more than the particular content, I think.

They might also check that your application is complete, which would entail checking that you have the right number of letters, you submitted a writing sample, etc. But I would think they wouldn't read letters, essays, and such, because those are used for departments to determine fit and wouldn't be as useful for people who aren't specialists. But yes, every school will have a possibly different process.

Hi. I'm not sure what's going on here but maybe everyone can calm down and just answer the OP's question, or move on if you have nothing constructive to say.

It's really hard to give specific advice for such a vague question. The best advice I can give is to do what your advisor says, he has your best interests at heart. I don't think it's that uncommon for students to present half-baked ideas at graduate student conferences. I don't think it hurts their rep because these conferences aren't that important to begin with. It's just an opportunity to get some experience presenting work at a low-stress event and to get some feedback. Regardless of how much data you gather, one thing you can make sure of is that you give a good presentation. I think you'll learn soon enough that that often matters just as much as (if not more than) the content; people will remember a well-delivered presentation. So concentrate on doing a good job where you can. Maybe that also means, like your advisor says, to concentrate on qualitative data at this point. I would also make sure that your conclusions are in line with the data and not over-blown. But I do think it's entirely fair to say that you are reporting the preliminary results of an ongoing study, and that the findings suggest ABC, and you are now working on expanding XYZ to explore [whatever].

At that stage you'll most likely get an admissions offer. The department needs to get approval from the graduate school. The graduate school will usually just approve the department's choices. They may have their own cutoff criteria (usually for GPA and GRE scores); departments will sometimes have the ability to advocate for exceptions to be made for students who don't meet those cutoffs. It's not unheard of for someone to be denied at this stage, but it's rare.

Not in applying to grad school but applying to jobs: In my field when we give talks we give language data; for example, the simplified text here (don't take the content too seriously!): Example (1) illustrates that in English, the subject agrees with the verb. (1) Mary likes to read books. For one job talk, I happened to choose a name for many of my examples that turned out to be the same first name as that of someone who had recently and unexpectedly passed away. I didn't learn about it until after I had left. It was completely arbitrary, a common name. No one said anything, but I was mortified when I found out!

You should visit if there is a chance you'll want to attend. (Assuming they are covering your expenses.) You'll meet POIs, get to see the place, talk to students, it'll make for a more informed decision at the end of the day. If you don't go, you'll miss out on all that. You don't need to know you'll attend, just as long as you haven't already decided you won't.

If you need to know (e.g. you have another offer and time pressure to make a decision), you could reach out and explain the situation. In general, I think it's best to wait. If you really feel like you need to know, I think a better question would be "when can I expect to hear", or "what is the adcom's timeline for making decisions". Before you do that, though, I would recommend searching through the Results tab to see when your schools sent out notifications in previous years, to give you an idea of when you might expect a decision (though of course there is no guarantee that they'll stick to the same timeline).