secretly_yes

Also, I called the department and the grad coordinator is out on medical leave, so nobody really knows anything. They said if we are accepted/denied the status would change on applyourself and that's all.

My new theory is that Chicago hates my application so much, it's not even going to honor it with a response. (Sigh).

They could have rearranged the letters. Georgetown calls the same program CERES (Center for Eurasian, Russian and Eastern European studies. Gotta love the hoyas.

I haven't heard anything from Chicago or Notre Dame. I called GWU a week ago and they said decisions should be out in a month. I am really surprised that your friend heard back from them already.

I started praying to Baby Jesus in Portuguese last week. If this keeps up I'll end up learning Aramaic.

Pick Gtown if you get in. Not only do they have the best people, but the IMF and the WB are blocks away. Also, that's my school (my MA school, ie), so I am very partial to the Hoyas.

I am starting my dear baby Jesus (or really "querido bebe Jesús") strategy today. Additionally, I am going to pray that my praying strategy works.

I called GW about a week ago and they said it would take another month or so.

I agree. Undergrad and grad admissions are not the same. I wanted to go to college to "become" something (a journalist, then an investor relations person.) After a few semesters in the Michigan tundra, a couple of jobs and an MA, I already am who I am going to be. Undergrad admissions was whether that school could help me become whatever I said I wanted to be, grad admissions is about whether I, fully formed as I am, can do research at a school. To me, applying to PhD programs is more like applying to a job than applying to undergrad. Hopefully that made sense. I am tired from not sleeping because of the stress of all of this.

I am 28. I started college in one country and finished in another. Then I tried to pursue a "career in retail". Then in non-profit. Then I got an MA. Now I've been working fro a year. If I had applied to a PhD program when I was 21 it would have been a in journalism; at 23, in business; at 24, in education. It was at 25 that I finally got it. Or so I hope. Then I had to go back and write a SOP explaining each of those choices. That was fun.

The lady at Chicago said that pretty much all acceptances went out yesterday. "Other decisions" (ie, rejections) will be sent out in March.

You have to check here (https://www.gradadmissions.ucla.edu/newapp/Login.asp?topage=AdmissionStatus.asp) to see if you too are the recipient of a lovely rejection letter that is most certainly not worth the money I paid to apply to this school. I think the quality of the rejection letter should be directly related to the admission fee; ie, if I paid $100 or more to apply to your school you'd better write me a letter that says I'm too awesome for your school or else... yeah, I have no lever on this. Or else nothing. I could dispute the charge with my credit card company, I guess.

When I was applying to Masters programs "Just like a pill" by Pink was my song. I loved screaming "instead of making me better, you keep making me ill."

I work doing research for a multinational. Everyone thinks it's almost a dream job, but I want to get out and go do research in academia. Now I am just waiting to see if academia wants me. (Academia, will you be my Valentine?)

I applied to 9 schools and I am already starting to come up with a Plan B. If I don't get in this year, I don't think I'll reapply next year. I already have an MA. Maybe it would be best for me to continue working as an analyst, but maybe somewhere else Also, considering I only have one rejection so far (please, please God let it stay that way) I think a lot of my lack of confidence is coming from seeing the results board. Somehow my mind can't process that someone getting rejected or accepted to a school I didn't even apply to has no bearing on the decision about my own application somewhere else. I think I am going to try to ban myself from GradCafe on Monday and see what happens.

I keep waking up after crazy nightmares too! I keep seeing the little red Blackberry light blink in my sleep telling me I have an awful e-mail. I hope, hope, hope, hope that you are right and that come September we will all be laughing about this from our respective schools. Buena suerte!

I am making a pitch for my town: DC has excellent food. I have lived here for three and a half years and found the food here wonderful. There's farmers' markets if you are a talented cook (I am not) and lots of options for the culinary-ly challenged, like myself. In case any of you end up coming to DC, my favorite restaurant here is Founding Farmers. It's a block from the World Bank in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood. They get all organic, fresh food and they make everything from scratch- even ketchup! It's owned by the North Dakota Farmers Union or something like that. It's a little expensive but definitely worth it.

AdComm Member 1: Ok. Minority kid. Speaks three languages. Good grades. AdComm Member 2: Good grades, good GREs, good letters of rec AdComm Member 1: WTF Was she drunk when she wrote this SOP? AdComm Member 2: Seriously. And way too overconfident. All that grad work and teaching doesn't make up for her completely unrelated undergrad degree and crazy career history. AdComm Member 1: Try to think of something nice to say. We don't want people to think we are discriminating. AdComm Member 2: Ok. How about this? We put this app at the bottom of the pile and pretend we never got it. AdComm Member 1: Genius! Voice Over: Except that Michigan State already did that when she applied for undergrad. AdComm people are not so smart after all...

I called UPenn. They said they hope to have decisions in 10 days. Good luck to everyone! Also, that should be "I called UPenn from my work phone" and then posted about it from my work computer during work time, indicating that thanks to this waiting business I am doing everything except work. Oh well.

I am 100% sure you didn't misspell your e-mail address . I wonder what kind of system they are following to release decisions. As a grad student I worked on campus and helped with the grad admissions (MA) process for my school. I remember VERY clearly that all the decisions were announced within minutes of each other. This is driving me crazy!

I am so nervous! I have checked my e-mail 20 times today and my phone about 100 times. I have also checked the website a dozen times thinking that maybe I only imagined that I had applied to ND and that's why I haven't heard anything yet. Uncertainty does kill human beings. I can feel it right now.

I think one should be allowed to say I really want to work with Professor Lowenthal or whoever replaces him while he is away on sabatical/at a fellowship/rejecting applicants at other universities. Unfortunately, I think admissions committees don't reward honesty. Oh well...

I used the D-K effect to say that if I had gone from middle of nowhere school in unrelated program to PhD that would have been crazy, but that I worked really hard to go from middle of nowhere school in unrelated program to what I hope is a good application. We'll see how that strategy worked. I am waiting on Chicago too, but after Michigan's decision today, I am not excited about Chicago.

I hope that's not true for either of us. I wrote in one of my essays about the Dunning-Krueger effect, which basically says that people always underestimate how incompetent they are. I used that example to explain the really long, winding path that I am taking to a PhD. Now I am hoping they didn't just read that and go "Oh! You definitely suffer from this! Good to know there's a name for your problem!". Any way, good luck with the rest of your applications. I don't know you, but I want to say that I am sure you will get in somewhere you like.