merpgirl

as i said, it's just some feedback. no one is forcing jess or THEIR team to do any extra work. Just offering some suggestions to make the data even more useful than it already is. plus I think lots of people, MOST people I'd argue, in this group really love and appreciate Jess and THEIR contributions to the group.

just curious - why are you so against it? this is just my feedback as someone who uses the sheet, and it would only improve things. it's not a criticism, just input, just a suggestion. and it would make things a lot easier for future users who want to filter the spreadsheet. yes, it could require some more work, but not too much, and it would be a great improvement. what's the issue? not to mention, there are already existing lists of all these programs that could easily be copied and transferred into the survey, and more could always be added with recommendation by users applying to programs that aren't in the data. it could be a great resource. why are we against improvement?

i was more just saying that for next year's and the following years' sheets they could make it a drop-down to standardize things and make it easier to filter and stuff, no need to edit or standardize all the past years' data

i think google forms does have drop-downs actually, just checked

yeah, I just thought it would be worth it in the long-term since it would just take a few hours max in total, and that would make info easier to parse and help avoid mis-clicks that render the data a bit unreliable. i think ppl are already stressing themselves out regardless of the extra info but it's not a huge deal, just offering my feedback as a user of the sheet

serious question - why don't we add drop-down lists to the spreadsheet to make things easier to parse? it's difficult to sort the spreadsheet when everyone is hand-typing all of their info and when there isn't a standardized version of school names and such. just thinking it might be easier to have things be uniform. it'll def take some time to put that together, but once it's done it'll be great and it'll make all of the data even more useful. i also thought it would be useful to ask the time of notification and (if the person entering data is comfortable), the initial of their last name, to see if schools are going alphabetically and at what exact time they were making phone calls/sending emails. for example, i got into a school recently that said i was "at the top of the list," yet my last name is near the end of the alphabet. that would be useful info for those stressing and checking the spreadsheet relentlessly, to know whether or not the school is going by rank, name, location, idk, etc. there's also a column on the spreadsheet (if accepted, were you notified about funding?) that should have an N/A section for ppl not accepted, but it doesn't, so now all of that data is sort of meaningless, or at least takes longer to derive meaning from, since you first have to check if the person was accepted or not. just my thoughts!

random thought as I'm finally at the end of my second (and last) cycle - both programs I got into this year told me I was their top applicant for my genre but I got flat-out rejected everywhere else (not even a waitlist). I guess I'm a controversial applicant and I'm not sure how to feel about that lol

literally just sitting here suffering lol.

feeling absolutely horrible i wish mich would just notify me ugh

so i guess mich is gonna release tomorrow?

can I ask why we shouldn't share the spreadsheet outside of the draft?

I don't have much wisdom to add since I'm also a first-timer, but I'm using the same exact materials I used during the first round. The email said they started anew and that it was fine to repeat material, and since the stuff I'd submitted for R1 was my strongest work, I decided to go with it again. Not sure if there is a "best" approach for this--from my understanding, R1 doesn't "mean" much unless you're someone who was on the fence about applying. In that case, being advanced to R2 might be the push you need to fully take the plunge, but other than that, it doesn't seem like R1 means much else anyway. Good luck with your apps!