balderdash

CP, it's the way forward. Yeah, doing my best to correct this when I see a negative on your posts for no apparent reason.

Yeah, I didn't get anything.

Last year Stanford sent out the emails on the last Thursday of January. This year, that would be tomorrow. Anybody else going to be a nervous wreck at 8:00 pm EST?

Yes, I think that's actually what tergellian's question is based on. Sorry, T, I can't remember it. I honestly was going to respond with "oh, well it's acceptances first, then rejections," but then I looked and saw the staggered acceptances. I think it might be a system wherein they try to nab their top acceptances, and if those people come back with "sorry, I'm going to Harvard," then they adjust the number of 2nd-round acceptances. I honestly don't know though.

Too many kind posts to quote, but thank you for all of the well-wishes. I am glad to see that others have benefitted from my experience, just as my application was helped by reading others' advice last year. As for my specialty: I'm a comparativist, too. And yes, welcome to all of the lurkers who are now joining.

Haha no I'm following it (I can't believe about Nigeria), but I'm a Boston guy first and foremost. We need to avenge the 2007 season.

Thank you, I also appreciate it. Now if the Patriots can win the Super Bowl, it'll be a really good couple of weeks...

Thanks dude, and yourself as well. The Madison Africanist contingent is amazing, so this was my 4th choice behind P, Y, and S.

I'm in too. Loving it. This feels amazing.

Watched it last night. The cinematography was good, and the understated tone worked well for what they were trying to accomplish. That said, I didn't like any of the characters (until pretty much the last scene), so I found it hard to really get involved with the storyline. I should also like to recommend Four Lions. Absolutely hilarious. And I might be wrong but I think it is available online with Netflix.

The "if" doesn't look likely. But if we do, call it a deal. That is, if I don't have a heart attack by August.

Well, for all of the talk of keeping stress down, I have to say: Here we are at possibly the last week of waiting, and I'm a nervous wreck. Anyone want to suggest some movies to distract? I'll go first. If any of you haven't seen it, "A Separation" is amazeballs. Seriously.

Glad to hear it has worked out. If I recall, the only worry with Harvard was that the cohort would be a bunch of not-so-nice people, so I'm happy that isn't the case. Cycle is much better this year, I'm certainly better prepared. The stress has been better, too - the benefits of experience, eh?

Tufnel, good to see a familiar face. How's Harvard?

One week until we should start seeing Stanford and Madison, among others. Yikes.

Congrats. Now you at least know you'll be going somewhere next year (providing the funding was reasonable?).

Ah, sucks. I think I would've skipped presenting my own paper to be there, haha. But if you've got a conflict, you've got a conflict. As for me, I just get asked about 20 times per day if I've got any acceptances yet.

Happened to me too. I called to have it all reset and the helpdesk person spoke to me like I was a moron, but the long and short of it is that your NetID should have been emailed to you, while your username will be the first initial of your first name then your last name (ie, Barack Obama = "bobama") and the password should be the same as you used on the application form.

Provided you're able to make small talk, that's wonderful. Given a choice between an interesting, qualified candidate the POI doesn't know to be amicable and an interesting, qualified candidate the POI knows to be friendly, s/he will choose the second: you.

So long as your My UW page works and all, then I imagine it would just be an oversight.

So re: UW-Madison's email about filling out the FAFSA, the grad coordinator just told me that it's not necessary for departmental funding. She indicated that their grants and such were independent of the form, which makes sense. However, she said, stipends go as low as $11,000/year ( ! ), and that if we want supplemental aid, we should fill out the form and ask the government for it. As for the email, she said it was standard, implying that every student or applicant in the entire Madison system gets it. Finally, when I asked when it was due by, she said, "Oh, you have lots of time to do it." I think that indicates my March-ish hunch is accurate.

Quite. I got an 800Q, but I'd be hopeless with any kind of statistical or formal-theoretical work (I do historical-sociological instead). Anyway, apologies for starting an immense blathering war.

I don't know, I always thought it was much later... but I can't find anything on the website to back it up. You'd think it'd be mentioned here, but there's nothing on it. I got it at 3:00 Wisconsin time on Friday. If I remember correctly, I think there was a box to tick at some stage of the application. It's all a bit murky.

Absolutely nothing beyond the fact that they've added a note ("sub: LatAm") to the file. Also, UW-Madison just sent an email about filling out the FAFSA. Isn't the deadline like March 1? I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather not take the time to fill it out until I know I need to...

Got an email from Yale yesterday informing me that the application had been passed to the Department for review. I think my heart stopped for a full half of a second.