plisar

I don't want to crush your hopes, but depending on when you submitted your application, it very well could mean nothing. Us graduate coordinators (secretaries is a slightly derogatory term) are constantly going through applications. Remember 250-400 applications is a ton of work!

When was the deadline?

The rules are there to protect you, not the school, and most schools will let you out of any acceptance even after April 15th. Essentially, they are there to prevent schools from bullying you into accepting an offer before others may come in.

NYU took a notoriously long time posting my transcript on their grad school status page. I would not worry.

I applied to 21 programs at the encouragement of my three thesis advisors. I am sure that I will get declined from all 21.

You're going to be fine my friend. Keep your head up and know that positive energy will help push you over the edge!

In my R1 school, departments are given a certain amount of funding from the graduate school (about $250,000-500,000) each year to fund graduate student "recruitment". This money is usually spent on creating "fellowships" for incoming first year students. Beyond this, students are typically allotted an additional one or two named fellowships to give out to students. Depending on the size of the department, $250,000 will usually fund about 5-8 students for a full academic term. Humanities and social sciences receive more of this funding than the sciences, because have more access to grant funds to hire RA's. After the departments go through their funds, they can also opt to fund first year students through assistantships (TA's or RA's) if such positions exist.

Just going through CV's while applying for programs was enough to show that this is the case. I attended one of the top six as an undergraduate and know that they regularly accept well qualified students from their undergraduate program. Why not accept someone if they are qualified for the program and they are a good fit? Whether it is in the best interests of the student to attend is a completely different matter.

I've heard the opposite. If your previous program feels you are a good fit for the department, there is really nothing for them to gain by turning you down.

Boz, it's fine that you didn't. Admissions committees usually don't like seeing visiting faculty listed in SoP's anyway.

No one cares, nor do they know, how often you log in to your application.

Usually it won't matter t_ruth and Embark will be the one calling, not the programs. Typically Embark would try to get into contact with the letter writer letting them know their account was compromised. In your case, you were authorized to help, so it likely wouldn't matter, but in the case of the OP, he or she was looking at things that he or she shouldn't. Provided Embark does call the original letter writer, it may not look good.

I hope you didn't log in from the same computer as you submitted your application. Embark flags that.

Reading your letters is extremely unethical, especially if you don't have permission to read them!

Engineering, but I am not hearing any major increase in applications in other areas of the universities.

Doubtful, we're not really seeing an increase in apps here. In fact, it looks like we decreased in one of our programs.

Colin, when did you ask for the letters?

Out of curiosity, which schools are these? You can PM me if you do not want to advertise.

Yikes, someone actually did that to their student? What a jerk. One time I saw a letter of recommendation which said: "My graduate student told me this student was OK." That's it. It did not even have a signature. The moral of the story is to be sure you know who you are asking for letters from and more importantly, be sure that you read signals. If they do not seem terribly excited about doing it for you, ask someone else!

I wouldn't worry about it CA. I speak from experience when I say that the application tracker updates are very low on the priority of the graduate program or the graduate school. If a school is interested in you and doens't have your transcript, they will give you one of two things: an e-mail asking you to get a copy of it to them ASAP, or a conditional admit based on receiving your transcript.

All letters of recommendation for research degrees should come from research based references. He'd be great for an extra letter, but certainly not one of the required letters of recommendation.

Certainly sympathetic to their plight, that's for sure. Although engineers have it good. Admissions are fast and they are much more personalized. One professor, even if they aren't on the AdCom, can easily get a student admitted.

The only transcript you send is to the graduate school? That seems really inefficient.

Frank is correct, but I know my department keeps e-mail contact on file with the graduate application, so if you have been pestering or openly rude, the grad committee will see it.

Yeah, we all have a long wait ahead of us. Even two weeks is going to feel like a long time, and that's assuming that UNC and Duke are on the ball again this year. The worst part about this is I work in in a top ranked engineering program as a graduate coordinator, so I am constantly surrounded by applications -- I can't get away from it!