Faraday

head blow

Can't you set your email to "push" to your phone? It becomes instant then. I turned that feature off because it drained my battery too quickly, but it would have helped with the email anxiety.

I feel like I recall reading through previous years that if you interview at Scripps you chances of getting accepted are very good. As for the questions they might ask, I don't imagine they will be any different then most graduate school interviews (i.e. there are already many threads on this topic). What is your subfield? I think you'll find the profiles people post here are not necessarily a representative sample of the overall application population.

keep out

I also come from a field where virtually everyone who is accepted (for PhD programs) recieves funding, however I would say accepted without funding is the lesser of two evils. It depends on the context, but as was already mentioned, accepted without funding at least shows that they saw something in your application that looked promising whereas rejection means they flat out were not interested. Moving forward that could give you some confidence if you reapplied the next season that you could get funding after improving your resume.

Chemistry programs never really interview. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing since I know I am a very good speaker/communicator and I feel like I could really improve my application during an interview; however that is one less thing to stress out about. Having interviews seems to double the stress-factor. You are worried about getting an interview and then you repeat the process worrying about having the interview, how the interview went, and it you will get accepted after it is all said and done!

Don't stress yourself out. You've put in the work during the past 4 years to give yourself the best case possible for these schools to accept you, and based on what you have said it sounds like that is a pretty darn good case. Just because others are hearing back doesn't mean you will not hear back soon as well. You don't know when they submitted their applications, and you don't necessarily know what the people who have recieved interviews were like. Be confident that your application will stand out above almost everyone and be excited for your first interview invitation! It will come!

That is quite unfortunate. Even for a very low cost of living area, living on ~19K is a pretty tall order. The Colorado public upper education system must be in dire straits, or CSU gets the short end of the stick compared to University of Colorado-Boulder. I suppose if the have graduate students that is a sign it is at least doable... If you end up getting accepted and you plan to visit, shoot me a message.

Ah, if you have 4 weekends then you should wait it out as long as possible. If you have to book through a travel agent they might have a time limit to how late you can book (e.g. 3 weeks in advance) to keep costs down. If you are just going to get reimbursed then I suppose it doesn't really matter as long as you are not too close to their reimbursement limit (i.e. booking late would put you over).

Yes, you have a change of getting into those schools. Sorry, I couldn't resist. On a serious note I've already heard back from Colorado State (stats posted on first page) for Organic and if anything it sounds like you have better "stats" in everything except GPA/GREs so your chances there are probably quite good there as well assuming you are a domestic applicant. They updated my status on their application website a few days before I recieved an email from a professor so you can keep checking that if it helps you to cope with the stress. It seems they don't offer health insurance to TA's though and the stipend is only ~20K after university fees, however, so I don't know what to think about their program. If I end up seriously considering it more (I don't get accepted to Princeton, Yale or Michigan) then I guess I will need to call and confirm the health insurance policy. They've got some great people doing organic synthesis though. I feel like I heard somewhere Berkeley/Stanford coordinate so students admitted to both locations can visit both places. Maybe not. Either way it's hard to imagine a school that would take priority over Stanford (out of the top 5) and it is hard to imagine any schools in the top five where you might be accepted would want to conflict with another top 5 school, so you might as well make the reservations as soon as possible, within reason. Do they require you to make reservations though a travel agency? If that's the case you may have to book things a few weeks in advance.

Congrats, I knew you'd get in to one of them!

Time Machine

institutional control

mass panic

Congrats, hearing back this early is a great sign!

anger management

butterfly stroke

French kiss

fire eater

I think dendy is right. I am sure they get hundreds of international applicants for a very limited number of spots and this Skype interview will help to separate out the best applicants, so look at this as a great sign that you have already stood out to them. You've already got you're foot in the door! Good luck!

graduate courses

Like mewtoo, I am starting to get the "Why can't you stay closer to home?" questions as news slowly spreads to the family that I have been unofficially accepted to the big in-state school. Me: Well... Their research interests are not as ideal as other schools... Person B: What does that mean? Isn't it all the same?

golf balls

great wall

public library