nervousnelly

My faith in the results board has been decimated. Last night I searched "smurf" to see if anyone had posted results from that fantastic village. There weren't any results, but I held my breath for a moment while I waited.

If the results page is to be believed, someone got their results today. Huh. Did you get an e-mail? I didn't get anything yet. Or are you just checking the application page?

Pretty funny.

Hi all, I will probably be attending Stanford in the fall, and my partner may be at Berkeley (if fortune smiles on us -- fingers crossed!!). We have two dogs, and are not independently wealthy, lol. He's a young professor, and I'm an older-ish grad student. Where might be a good place for us to live? We currently live in a large city and prefer that to a suburban feel, but we would also need to have reasonable commutes on both ends. And, no matter what, our dogs are coming with us!! Any suggestions would be great, so that I could start looking for housing. Thanks for any help you can provide!!

I am going to agree with the vast majority here who say be formal until explicitly told otherwise or until you are very, very familiar with them (which probably won't happen until you've been their student for a while). But I wanted to add this: I have heard my own mother (who is a psychology prof.) get angry when students (usually undergraduates) assume that she is not a professor because she is a woman. You'd be surprised how often it happens. In the same note, they'll address her male colleague as "Dr. So-and-so" and they'll call her "Mrs. Last-name." Sometimes this will continue even after she's sent them e-mails with her title and rank in the signature. (For what it's worth, I think studies actually show that women are less likely to be addressed by their professional title than are men.) Anyway, I know that until she says otherwise with a student, she expects the title. She might be more sensitive about this than others, but I suspect not by much.

Have to agree. How hard would it be to draft a more appropriate letter? "We wish you well in your future endeavors" would be less condescending than "We are sure someone else will take you," when, clearly, they are saying this to everyone who applied and got rejected.

Original post-er: Since you haven't heard from HGSE, and you have two killer offers, why not send them a brief update on your situation? It might help if they saw you were in demand at good schools and also had a very good reason for choosing to attend their program. Better to act sooner rather than later, I would think.

I looked at that a while back, but it doesn't really say what has changed. I guess what I mean is, why are they now likely to take significantly fewer students than before?

Interesting news -- thanks for sharing it! I'm not sure I know what you mean by "overhauled program." What happened?

baseball player

Looking at last year's results, it seems like UVA might be gearing up to send out results around now. Has anyone heard from them?

player hater

sensitive artist

mix tape

From my boyfriend, who got in everywhere he applied except for Harvard (i.e., elite schools), and just got his PhD from a school that didn't take me: "Well... I didn't get into Harvard."

I haven't called them yet -- but if they've told some people that they are waitlisted, wouldn't they have told everyone? I guess what I'm asking is, do they ever go back to the pile after the first set of notices are sent out?

I understand your frustration at the mishandling of your application. That said, since you are in a position of wanting something from the school (admittance), and they are in a position to pick among many people, I think you should be as gracious as possible. Since it sounds like you may have already burned a bridge with the secretary, I don't know what more you can do. I suppose you could try to get the letter that's missing and send it by next-day mail or FedEx, with a note saying that you hope it can be added to your file. Keep in mind that if you are admitted, the person you just sent this e-mail to will be a member of the department office, who you will see on a regular basis for the next several years. You don't want to start off on the wrong foot! Good luck!

A number of schools that I applied to have already sent out acceptances and waitlist, and I haven't heard anything from them. My friends keep telling me, "Oh, you never know," but I think that if I didn't hear from the schools that have done this, I'm out of the running. Does anyone know whether schools ever have second "waves" of admits, or admit people they didn't invite to "prospective student" day? I'd like to be realistic about what is going on.

I don't know about all of them, but I've been waitlisted by one program. I hear that it varies (i.e., some won't tell you for a while), but I really don't know.

Just decided to be bold and called Harvard to ask whether they were done. The woman who answered was so nice (for which I was very grateful), and said that they are NOT done making offers. She said letters will go out in March. Whew!

I see that they've sent out admissions, and in Harvard's case, waitlists. Does anyone know -- are they done? Is no news a rejection?

Okay... So, I still have applications outstanding at 6 top schools, and haven't heard a peep from them. I see that some of them have sent out acceptances. I'm trying to be optimistic, but I am starting to think that I'm just going to hear nothing until the end of March, whereupon I will receive a flood of rejection letters. Is it really over so fast, or do some of them stagger acceptances?

Somewhat apropos, and anyhow it's my current obsession: "I Can Change," by LCD Soundsystem: http://www.youtube.c...bed/q-G1NltxNqE

Well, that's something! Thanks -- it gives me some hope.

It seems like schools already admit more people than they hope will accept (say, admitting 15 people, hoping 10 will accept), before they ever get to taking people from the waitlist. Am I understanding this correctly? If so, does anyone ever get off a waitlist, or is it just a soft rejection?