Kathiza

I'm a Fulbright grantee, so Fulbright/the IIE is handling all applications for me. They are the only ones who can log into my application accounts. So I can't even check myself...

I think Fulbright is SUCH a great opportunity and I'm so thankful for all the doors it opened for me. I'm also thankful for all the help by the IIE, because it facilitated the whole application process so much for me. That's why I feel bad saying I totally agree with you. It took from 2/16 (date on acceptance letter) until 3/2 to be notified by Fulbright that I got an acceptance. I know I'm being impatient, but it's just really stressful to me to have to wait that long. Although - after my first acceptance - I'm gettin a lot more relaxed. I now know: I can go to IUB and be happy there and attend a wonderful program that is a perfect fit with a POI who is a genius. But still: I'd like to hear from my other schools sooner rather than later, even if it's only rejections.

Well, it seems like I'm the only PhD applicant (here on this forum) who hasn't heard... I guess that means that I'm on some internal waitlist? I already got one acceptance and I'm so happy about it. But Mizzou would be such a great fit...

I work on Office 07 and at work we have Office 2010 - and both are great! You should really switch. It makes life soooo much easier. You don't have to look for commands and buttons - they are all right there. And formatting a text is much quicker. I love it. Although for my university work I use LaTex.

Haha, you totally made my day But - and yes, after outing myself as a "drinker", I'm now outing myself as a geek too - I also had/have professor-crushes. And I think you're right. It's not anything romantic (although it might feel that way sometimes) - it's just that I'm so impressed what this person has done, what he says, how he leads a discussion, how much he knows etc... I would like to be that kind of a genius "when I grow up" (haha *g*)

I got my official letter from IUB yesterday and it was dated 16. February! (I got the e-mail notification by the Fulbright person in New York who opens my letters on 2 March). So the letter states that funding decisions will be made in early March (which would be... ehm... now?). If this process takes again that long, I won't get any news on funding until early April.... And: Still no word from my other 4 schools. I don't like the waiting game anymore....

I don't know how this is like in the US, but isn't not being old enough to drink the biggest reason to drink? And I mean REALLY drink and get drunk very badly. At least where I come from, people do this, because it's forbidden so it's especially "cool" to be doing it. And I can't believe that there aren't any grad students who don't like to drink (much) at your school. Also: Does drinking at these get-togethers always end in being drunk? I think that's really weird... (At least for me, drinking is not the same as getting drunk)

It's getting pretty quiet around here. Who else is waiting on òne or several schools? I'm still waiting on 4 out of 5. But Tuesday was a good day last week (got accepted to IUB). So I hope for the best tomorrow ;-)

As one of the "drinkers" here (as I already explained: I drink in moderation and for the taste of it; NOT to get drunk) I feel like I have to comment on this one: Yes, I like to drink a cocktail or a glass of wine when I'm out. But this doesn't mean that I NEED alcohol when I'm somewhere. So when I'm invited to somebody else's place, I drink what the person offers me. And I wouldn't think twice about it if this person doesn't serve alcohol. And I think I can say this about most people who are in grad school and do drink: It's not that big of a deal. I would NEVER ask for alcohol at somebody's place. I guess I wouldn't even think of it. I'd just have what the person offers me and that's it. So please PLEASE don't feel like you can't have people over because you don't serve alcohol. If they can't get through an evening without alcohol, then you might reconsider being friends with them. Spending an evening together should be about having a good time, not about drinking.

thanks bhikhaari for the explanation... I didn't know that there was a fee even if you use an ATM in the same country (but from another bank), since I don't pay a fee all over Europe (except for the countries who don't have EURO currency). I guess I'll be getting a credit/debit card anyway, so I could use it when I'm somewhere where there's no ATM from my bank or if I don't want to spend 3 dollars for nothing.

Please explain to me: With an ATM-card from Bank X, I can only use ATMs in branches of Bank X?!? Then what's the sense of an ATM-card anyway, if I can't use it to get money when I need it? That's really strange to me... With my foreign card I can use any ATM in any country in the world* - and of course all ATMs (no matter which bank operates them) in my country. (* ok, well, I'm not entirely sure of that; but until now I just used it whereever I needed it and I've never had any problems in Europe - no extra charges - and in Asia and North America, where I had to pay extra charges for the exchange to the local currency when I used the ATM)

How strange is this?! My doctor here in Austria has the exact same name (and it's not a very common one at all... they might even be related *g*)

I just read the first posting - so please forgive me if I'm repeating what everybody else said. I came across several postings like yours here and in other forums and I still think it's odd. I don't know if this is a cultural thing (I'm an international student and in my country people are allowed to drink when they turn 16) or not, but I don't really understand why so many people make such a big deal out of drinking. Some people drink, some don't. I do drink, but I don't like beer (like to you, it just tastes bad to me). So if you're invited to go out for a drink, just say yes. And get whatever you would like to drink. If you are at a cocktail bar and you don't want to sit there with a glass of water, just get one of those alcohol free cocktails. Or coke. Or whatever - it's your choice. Why would people care what you drink? (Unless the "goal" of the evening is to get completely drunk and puke all over the place - but this seems more like a high-school or undergrad thing to me - and personally I think it's just stupid and I wouldn't want to hang out with this kind of people anyway). So what I'm trying to say: Don't worry about this kind of stuff. We are all adults. If somebody makes a big deal out of drinking/not drinking, (s)he is showing really childish behaviour. And I can't imagine that there are really that many grad students out there who would make fun of somebody for not drinking. It's a personal choice. Everybody drinks what he wants to drink and that's it.

I just counted: 130 postings in February. So I ALMOST made it :-D

Oh my god... i just was rejected by GradCafé. I was posting so much crazy stuff in February, I thought I'd make it into the top 10. Oh gooood.... How will any of my schools take me if I can't even make it to the top 10 forum users?

No no, of course you're right! What I am trying to say is that - to me - it doesn't really make a difference if there are 45 applicants or 100... It will be very hard either way, because all applicants are going to be extremely qualified.

Well, when you look at the numbers it seems like a huge difference - but to me it isn't. Because at LSU for example you'll just need 5 applicants who are better than you - and you don't have a chance. At Columbia you need 2 applicants better than you. I guess it's going to be hard either way.

For Columbia University it's usually about 100 applicants for 2 spots. That does not sound that bad - but you have to consider that those applicants are all going to be extremely competitive; they will all have great GRE scores (except for me), they will all have (close to) 4.0 GPAs, they will all have great work/research/teaching experience... So it's going to be extremely tough, even though it might not sound that bad at first... Same is true - of course - for LSU and every other PhD program. So even 45 applicants for 5 spots is hard to get into, I guess...

So it's going to be just a couple days waiting.... Even though I'm pretty much sure I'll be rejected, I would like to know as soon as possible... just to put that aside and concentrate on my other schools who didn't get back to me yet.

Me too This just shows how ridiculously anxious we all are. It's gonna be alright.... hopefully ;-)

Isn't it a problem with citations? I was thinking about getting a Kindle but then I read that they don't have pagenumbers so you can't quote these texts correctly. That's why I was thinking of saving up and investing in an iPad instead, because it has more features and you can still read all kindle-texts.

The website says "Decisions will be posted in mid March"! (I checked about 12 hrs ago, when there wasn't anything; so this message is fairly new)

I'm also applying. But I don't expect to hear from them any time soon. And: They only accept 2 students. So I don't think I have a realistic chance of being accepted...

I'm a Fulbrighter, so if we accept an offer, Fulbright knows. And they are the ones that notify all the other universities that I don't take their offer or that they don't need to send me their decision because I already accepted another offer.

My application process is different, but we handle it like this: We have to make the official decision by the end of April. And it happens every year that schools didn't send out notifications by then, but we HAVE to decide. So we decide and then the schools (the ones who haven't sent out anything) are notified that we're no longer available. So nobody is pissed off and you won't even know whether you'd get an acceptance or not or if the offer is better or not. We were told that backing out after accepting is a no go and could cause us to lose both spots and even our grant.