lotf629

I would say that the only thing you might be able to do to help your case is that, if it's geographically feasible, you might be able to swing some kind of stopping-by-office-hours routine. "Hi, Prof. X, I see you have office hours on Mondays at 3 p.m. and I will be on campus [or visiting Y other campus in the area, which has accepted me]. I wonder if I could stop by to discuss your research project Y which has influenced me greatly and also to get your feedback on the definite offers I've received," or whatever. Show up, be very well-informed about the person's work, demonstrate if possible that you are Very Wanted by other programs and express excitement and interest about them but make it clear that you are not committed to them, apply no pressure whatever. Hint that you'd be very excited about their program, too, but show no stress whatever. Basically, do the academic/jobhunting version of flirting. However, if this not feasible geographically, I'd wait. I wouldn't drown 'em in paperwork.

Don't think so. My guess is that if you wrote something casual like "Sweet, I'll take it!" (okay not that casual but you know what I mean...), and then they needed something more formal, you'd get an email from the DGS saying something like "We're delighted you've decided to join us! At your convenience, can you please contact Person X to confirm the details of our offer and sign Y Important Piece of Paper?" If a more formal acceptance is necessary, they'll tell you what steps to take.

Hi All-American, I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but sadly, the answer to your question is "no." What happens is that most schools keep wait lists. If a lot of students turn them down, they take students off the wait list; they don't reconsider the rejected apps. Schools that don't keep wait lists will content themselves with a smaller class, rather than invite people whom they have already denied. So, the answer to your question is unfortunately no. I hope you have some other excellent offers this year or a chance to reapply next year.

Parts of your post sound like you're a college senior; other parts like you've been out of school for a bit. Are you wrapping up your undergrad degree? If this is your last year in college, I'd say to go visit the school that offered you funding, sure, but remember that you have almost nothing to lose by waiting. I'd suggest you think about taking a year off of school. Reasons you might strengthen your app by doing so: a) You could get that Q score up. I've worked on standardized tests with high school kids that have some form of LD before: it takes more time, but it's very often possible. I don't mean you'd ace it; you'd just get it out of the "red flag" zone. Plus, my guess is that you'd really be pretty well served by shoring up your quant skills before entering a sociology program: don't they want you to do a little stats occasionally? This book is supposed to be extremely good: http://www.amazon.com/Math-Review-Stand ... 367&sr=8-1 I'd say, buy the book, get a really awesome math tutor (maybe a patient and gifted educator who tutors on the side, not a Kaplan GRE tutor) and master all the content. Then sign up for a prep class if you need to or get some test prep books in order to learn all the silly tricks that will help you find extra points here and there (the icing on the cake stuff). You could, perhaps, find the $3000 for a formal diagnosis (in a truly civilized country, this stuff would be covered by insurance, no?), qualify for testing accommodations (which are no longer flagged by ETS in any way), and then rock out on the Q score that way. If you really have some kind of brain quirk, a formal diagnosis is a wonderful thing to be able to pull out of your pocket at key moments. I'm not saying that you should formally disclose it at your school or anything else; just that this might not be the last time in your life that you find yourself stumped by it. So you might want to look into it. c) You could ruminate on your research interests for twelve more months and write a much stronger SOP. As awesome as I thought my SOP was last year (and, FWIW, my advisors agreed with me), there are a million things I would change about it now. d) You could revise your awesome thesis chapter into a publishable article and start building a CV. Let me also agree that you are a spring chicken. I will be 29 when I enter my Ph.D. program, and I still consider myself reasonably young. And now I have written an essay of my own to answer your essay! Best to you, whatever you decide!

I agree about the visiting. I had exactly the same number of offers as you, and I finally had to tell myself that while I felt a little safer with all of my options open, I was wasting my own energy and was going to have to start making commitments. I emailed my most trusted advisor and said, "I'm about to decline offers to X, Y, and Z places: you wouldn't advise me to do anything different would you?" and he wrote back and said, "No, turn 'em down." So I forced myself to type the emails and hit "send." My guess is that, although you have seven offers, they're probably not all real options...not even all schools that you would want to visit. Don't you have two or three that are *clearly* the bottom of the list (for reasons of funding, clear advisor mismatch, significantly lower rank, etc.)? Keep three or four to visit, but cut the others loose. Remember: you will be doing some other student on a wait list somewhere a huge favor! Picture somebody else learning a few days early that they will get in to a dream school, and maybe it will be easier.

Wow, so much for all the helpful and specific responses. A follow-up: if a program doesn't give you summer money (as my NYC program did not), what are you supposed to do in the summers? I know that if a program *does* give you summer money, you're expected not to work full-time but to research, read, etc. What are the expectations of you at a no-summer-money program: is it just "See you in August?" or are you expected to get grants, etc., to do quality summer work? Thoughts?

Oooo, sonnets, lyonessrampant! Did you read the Pinsky thing at Slate http://www.slate.com/id/2211066/? Do you think it's basically on-target? I love sonnets although I know appallingly little about them. I'm an Anglo-Saxonist.

My top choice was also the school at which I had gotten my MA (though in a different field), so all four of my recommenders were from that school, two from the department itself. Said school (wicked competitive) has almost certainly rejected me. A couple days ago, after emailing one of my recommenders/advisors with a question about the schools that had accepted me, I got an email back that said (paraphrased): "Many congratulations; how thrilling to have so many options! [Lots of very specific advice about said options]. As far as [top choice program], I'm not on the committee this year so I can't be sure, but I'm pretty sure you would already know by now if you were in, or even if you were on the wait list, so you can probably scratch us off. For what it's worth, I would have advised you to turn down an offer from us (or tried to force myself to do so). [several specific reasons about why top choice program is actually quite wrong for me]." It really sucked to get cut from a program at which I actually knew people...somehow it seemed much more personal...but as far as not getting in, I think that this was about the easiest possible let-down. Now that I hit this thread, actually, I realize just how lucky I was on this score. Conversely, the Yale rejection *sucked*. Please go log in to our system in order to see our generic rejection letter?? Why the hell not just email said letter? Somehow, the extra step of forcing me to log in made it that much less personal. Generally, I'd say that the more personal the rejection, the better: frankly, that's true whether it's personal in a good way (even though we did not let you in, we thought x in your application was great, or your y other options are great), or personal in a bad way (you did not get into our program for a, b, and c tangible and specific reasons). Also, the less personal...and especially, the more impersonal, redundant, and automated the steps of actually being rejected (coughYalecough)...the tougher.

I agree. Any process in which the most selective schools in the country are still taking hundreds and hundreds of kids, nearly 10% of applicants, does not count. Also I challenge you to find high school kids whose immediate livelihood depends on a college acceptance. :6

Thanks so much for all that feedback, you all: I have taken it to heart.

I have been advised to "be sure to mention" that school X has offered better funding than school Y. I think maybe the idea is that you drop it in conversation, or when asked what other schools you're considering: "Oh, I love your program but I also love Y program and their funding offer is very attractive..." Then you can see what ensues. The key to negotiating successfully, IMHO, is to have other actual options and just be open about them. So maybe the beginning is just having some open conversations as you visit these campuses...However, it seems that sometimes the more competitive schools are less likely to improve their offers. It's been true in my case (I've been told by my advisors that X super-competitive school is unlikely to improve their funding offer even if I mention my better offers, but Y less-competitive school may step up). Dunno if this is true in general, though.

This question is for those of you who have lived in NYC or for those of you who are also pondering a school in the area. Let's say, no summer money, just a stipend for nine months. How little is too little? Can you make it happen on $19,000? $21,000? Assume that your family can give you exactly no help, ever. What if you had a kid? Thoughts?

I have never heard of such a thing. I'd definitely advise against it. I can't imagine a program taking you up on it. They would probably tell you that you could apply to the Ph.D. after finishing the masters, along with everybody else. You also run the risk of seeming clueless...not that you are clueless, just that you could seem to be. Maybe others have different feedback?

Ouch, immersion. I'm in at UVA but waiting in agony for another school: I get the pain. I think, however, that just as I am probably out at my other school, so you are probably out at UVA . Maybe it's best for us both to let the dream go?

Yeah, socialpsych, the problem is that I don't know; I guess that's why I was posting. Maybe I should have posted this in the lit forum. I can see myself being happy at any of these places, but at the moment I am certainly leaning toward Columbia, one of my two top choices going in to all this. I don't know how many other programs I should hold onto: how many options do you think it's wise to hold onto? Columbia: awesome advisor match, so-so funding (would be okay except that cost of living in NYC is so astronomically high) Cornell: so-so advisor match, awesome funding (and in Ithaca!) but interdisciplinary degrees are notorious as useless on the job market NYU: interesting advisor, okay funding UVA: interesting advisor, okay funding, super-interesting department, but don't like location at all ... Also: my own financial situation sucks, my parents are really struggling and I have to occasionally chip in, and I have a million dollars in debt from my MA. So funding really matters.

What would you do?: Columbia (English) Cornell (Medieval Studies) NYU (English) UVA (English) Wisconsin (English) Fordham (English) Indiana (English)

I am 28. I am starting a PhD this fall. I will turn 29 within a month of entering the program. 24 is wicked young.

Best of luck to you too!

I hope this is not bad news for anybody else. I was notified of an acceptance yesterday, by email. But often, I think, these things go in waves, so as somebody else said, they may not be done mailing out acceptances yet. Good luck everybody!

I agree with the above poster. After all, if you *had* sent the other sample, you'd be asking yourself the same question in reverse: "Is my sample sabotaging my admissions? Should I have sent the stronger piece of writing even though it wasn't in my field?" I also sent a stronger piece of writing in an only tangentially related field, based on the same principles. I think it's usually the best bet. My advice to you would be to let bygones be bygones. I'm trying to imagine what my advisors would say if I asked them, and I'm guessing that it would be something like "There's no chance that they'll let you make the swap because it would be unfair to other applicants, and you run the risk of seeming unprofessional or insecure, so just cross your fingers and hope for the best." My feeling is that you most likely made the right choice. It would've been luckier if your strongest piece of writing was also directly in your field, but what the hell: it didn't happen like that. I and many other people were in the same position, so don't beat yourself up about it.

Agree with all of the above: I got an MA (mostly funded) and was a far, far more competitive Eng applicant as a result, but it's not worth the bazillions of dollars to do it unfunded. If your MA is unfunded, you can always apply to funded MAs next year or do other, less expensive things to make your app stand out in a year or two. If your MA is funded, I'd think about going for it.

Program X (okay school) notifies on Monday; potential future advisor wants to talk. I make a phone mtg for Thurs. Program Y (much better than Program X) notifies on Wednesday. Now I am sure I will not be attending Program X. Do I politely cancel mtg with potential advisor at Program X? Or do I keep phone appt, express (sincere) interest in advisor's research, etc., then later express regret about turning it down?

Yes, I was denied as well. Oops. I would be upset but I saw it coming.

Best of luck to you too, Sibilance7!

Oh, looks like we cross-posted. Professor Ingham called me, looks like on Feb. 6 as well, and also immediately sent a follow-up email. I haven't gotten anything official in the mail, nor have I heard back about funding (they nominated me for an interdepartmental thingy and said I would likely hear about it, or about dept funding, later this month).