Zouzax

if you see my other postings, youll know it's my fear as well. It's all I think about, which is probably not good as I read we manifest our own destinies (actually I didn't read that. My mother is an Oprah addict and happened to watch too many episodes featuring the author of 'The Secret' and has unfortunately read the book 'Eat, Pray, Love", thus causing her to remind me at any and all opportunities that we create our own fate). If I dont get in, Im going to move to a different country and teach there, all while perfecting my application for the following year, finishing my thesis, and attending conferences. Thats the plan, at least.

I agree, this has been very therapeutic seeing my exact thoughts (and I mean EXACT) voiced by other posters. If I didn't have this venue to vent on, I don't know what Id do. When I try to explain my anxiety to friends or family, they just roll their eyes and say, "You know you'll be accepted." and I'm like, actually, NO i don't!! Don't you understand this process?! Since I've explained it to you one million trillion times?! *pulls hair out* a rollercoaster between zen and despair is exactly what it is.

Youre right, its super annoying. I stopped checking the results page (for the most part)

please. someone needs to make this. i would send this to all of my family and friends immediately. Yepp welcome to the club. When I say I'm applying for a Ph.d, the next question always is, "So what are you going to do after THAT?" like a Ph.d is nothing, it's just one more hurdle before getting a real job. And everyone loves to call me the "permanent student" because they think I'm too lazy to work and not ready for the real world. And what don't I want to hear if I'm not accepted to my dream school?: "There's always next year." ARGH.

"this hurts me more than it hurts you"

Thanks all. I know I'm being a bit negative so early in the season, but I do want to notify professors asap before they erase the letters from their computers. I'm a bit shy when it comes to asking people to do things for me; it took a lot of self-encouragement for me to even email the professors in the first place to ask for the LORs. I just want to get it out of the way soon, so that they're not surprised if I ask them to do it all over again next year. My professors are actually pretty cool, the only thing is that they don't seem to really understand the American Ph.d application system. As I said before, they were quite surprised when I said I was applying to 6 schools. They're also surprised that it's taking so long for me to receive a response. I *hope* this year will be a successful one, so thanks for the positivity @newms I'll leave the decision to rewrite up to them .. but if I know my professors, they would probably just send in the same one

As I'm feeling increasingly negative at this point, and am already thinking ahead to the fall 2012 application cycle, I have a question: is it too much to ask a professor to second your recommendation again the second time you apply? My department is really small- there are only 6 professors. This year, I asked the 3 professors that I'm closest to to write the LORs. They seemed a little surprised at how many schools I applied to (6). It's not that normal to apply to that many over here. I am thinking to email them within the next few weeks and ask them to save the letters they wrote for me, if possible, as I *might* need to send them all over again next year. Has anyone had experience doing this? Were you met with a favorable response?

Thanks for the nice response. Actually, I used to be like you -- I was in charge of importing goods for a fashion company from Europe to America, and also of collecting money from vendors for the goods received -- so I used to get well over 100 emails per day. As soon as I sat down at my computer at 9 AM, I would have at least 40-50 emails waiting from Europe that had to be responded to within the hour (due to the time difference). Then, when that was finished, I had to move on to the local emails from vendors. Not to mention all the other work I had to do. I always made sure that, no matter how short they were, that my answers were always polite (like you). Unfortunately, she didn't take the time to reply with equal thoughtfulness I sent the email back in September lol. I'm over it at this point, I just wanted to share my experience with the original poster, and I'm afraid I kind of hijacked his post.

now THAT's interesting. I wonder what the chances are for an international minority? and what color tag would you receive lol

Ive been trying to do this for weeks already. Seriously, if you think about it, there's no reason to continually check that thing. If you're accepted or invited for an interview, you'll find out basically the same time everyone else does. And if you're rejected, well ... do you really need to obsessively check all the posts from the fortunate people who were given offers? I prefer to keep that last glimmer of hope until April 15, tyvm.

I turned off my facebook notifications, but i get SO many GradCafe forum notifications its crazy! Today I woke up to 22 new emails, almost all from GradCafe. I was *praying* that I would find an email from a school buried in between them, but no dice. sigh. Well, in my case I cant be sure if the school *only* sent invitations to Americans or not, there just happened to be two americans that reported the invitations, and no internationals. The idea that they're waiting on international interview requests is what lets me sleep at night

Don't worry, I'm in the same boat, too. One of my schools seems to have given out interview requests already. The only thing that's keeping me sane is that both students were American and were invited to the interview weekend. I'm telling myself that International students will come later ...

SO in the same situation. I'm in Istanbul, so I have to wait until 4 pm for the stress to start. Of course, this is no way means that I sit around, relaxed until 4 pm -- nope. Instead, I check my email obsessively as soon as I wake up, thinking that a POI will be *so* excited to give me the good news that he'll write me at 3 am EST. And do you wake up in the morning, wondering if you have any good news waiting for you in your inbox? It's like the excitement of Christmas morning, but without the guaranteed presents. I've even woken up, checked my mail on my phone, then gone back to bed. I would LOVE some insight on how to pass the time, because if not it's going to be a loooonngg february.

First off, congrats on landing an amazing job! Your story was inspiring. I truly feel like things happen for a reason, and yours is a perfect example. It's funny that you wrote this, because the past few days I've been seriously putting together a plan B ... and truth is, the plan B is ... awesome. It would involve my moving to a country Ive been wanting to live in for a very long time. I put a lot of work into the Ph.d apps, and at this point I feel like if I'm meant to go I'll be accepted. Or, if I'm meant to take the leap and continue my European adventure, I won't be accepted. Call me naive but it helps alleviate the stress a little bit.

haha! Ive been craving Dominoes like a fiend. Im trying to limit myself to once a week though. Can't say the same about whiskey.

thanks for that website! I thought the acceptance rates were going to be much lower. Now, with my new calculations, I'm down to about 35%. Not bad. EDIT: by the way, how old is the data? the application fees are way off lol. EDIT EDIT: I am by no means taking this seriously. But I still enjoyed it.

has anyone else been getting an inordinate amount of emails from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee?? How annoying are those?? The other day, I heard my email "ping" and I ran over to check who it was from. I didn't have my contacts in so all I could see was a long name as the sender. My heart stopped, thinking it was from a university. Of course, once I could see properly I realized it was a spam email from "President Obama". Argh!!!!

Oh no! I only applied to 6 schools, so by this calculation I have a 53% chance of being rejected by every school. I knew it. The odds are against me.

Im going through the same thing. Schools I applied to are starting to have interviews and I still havent heard a THING. I have now started going over every detail of my application in my head and thinking about all the things I should've changed. When I'm not doing that, I'm questioning my life decisions. UGH.

Same for me, as soon as the date turned to February 1st, I thought "here we go!" On a side note, has this day seemed REALLY long? Maybe because of all the anticipation and worry, but I was really shocked to look down at my calendar right now & see Feb. 1 still. I thought for sure it was the 2nd already.

I agree with Natsteel, Akraz. I wouldn't try to contact them at this point. Let the chips fall where they may.

yep, i figured the same - if a question came to her mind and she wanted to ask me about it, she would -- no need for me to harass further.

That's great, good luck with the interview!