aucinema

I think people probably take a rejection as a blow to their ego, which makes it hard for them to be reasonable about it - at least initially.

Apparently the Comm Dis secretary also starts an e-mail thread that students can join to set up housing to other cdis grad students.

Somerset, I disagree that she sounds uninterested in moving you, I think she is just being honest about the situation. Her e-mail was vague because it has to be - they currently have no idea how many of the 5 students will accept their offer. I'm sure they would be happy to have you in their program, but right now their priority lies with their first-round choices and waiting for their decision. I know it's unpleasant to hear that it's all up in the air, but it would be even worse if she were to give you false hope. Anyway, try not to take things personally. The decision is really out of their hands for now.

A bunch of mail intended for our next door neighbor. So not only was it not for me, but I had to walk down their extremely muddy driveway to return it. E-mail? A bunch of messages Verizon telling me I was going over my minutes for the month. Thank you, got it the first time.

Well, it looks like they've started sending out rejections but I still don't see any acceptances. Gah! I need a life!

Has anybody here received an acceptance or rejection from UConn? It appears as though a few people on the results page have been waitlisted, but that's all I've seen so far. It just seems weird that waitlists would go out before acceptances/rejections.

Well, just remember that there's no way to absolutely know which decision is going to be the best down the road. Each choice will have its own pros and cons! Don't stress yourself out over it too much!

I say that, all else being equal, go with the new experience! That's what life is about!

I did research during my first time in graduate school (I was in a clinical degree program but I thought I wanted a Ph.D., too). It wasn't an assistantship so I only had 10 required hours in the lab a week but it usually ended up being a lot more than that, especially around submission deadlines for conferences. It's really just a matter of your priorities. It sounds like you don't want to do the research for the research itself but rather for the experience and the financial benefits. If I were you I'd try to make a list of your priorities and rank it. How important is it that you get a unique experience? How important is it that you are debt free? How important is it that you go to the higher ranked institution? If you can figure out what your real goals are, it might help you decide whether it's worth it or not.

Honestly, it does sound like you are leaning towards UPenn both due to money and geographic location. Is your MA advisor your only real draw to UConn? I can't speak to funding, but I am familiar with the UConn area and it is very isolated and there is very little public transport. If you aren't okay with being at least 30 mins away from "civilization" you are going to be quite miserable there, despite it's beauty.

I wish I had applied to one or two more schools than I did. The last time I applied to graduate school I was still in undergrad and my parents helped me pay for my application fees and GREs. This time, I was on my own in that regard and so finances were a huge barrier. Not to mention, my GREs were from 2010 so I had to pay to send them to every single school I applied to, which as you guys mentioned, adds up pretty quickly. Oh, well, I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to apply. I just wish I had had a few more options.

I was 21 when I started my first graduate program and I'll be 23, almost 24, when I start my second. It's only been acouple of years but I feel a lot older and wiser this time around! :-)

I'm not sure why they don't do it, but as I think about it more, the one downside is that making the undergrad a 4+1 or 3+2 might make speech path programs even MORE competitive. I think a 4+1 would make it far more appealing to many students and put it on many more people's radars. I think about how very competitive programs like education and nursing were at my school (both programs that 4+1) and realize that they admitted far more students every year than I think most speech-path programs could ever hope to admit. Can you imagine finding faculty and placements for that many students in a field that's small compared education and nursing? I'm just guessing here, but it's something to think about. Also, I don't want to be cynical and say money, but I kind of want to be cynical and say money.

It's really unfortunate that somebody gave you such blatantly false information about a comm dis major being necessary. That said, a little bit of research on your part would have quickly brought to light the fact that this isn't even remotely true. Also, regarding GPA-based rankings, they are just rankings - they are not the end all and be all of the admissions process. Once they've ranked based on GPAs, they then have to sort through all of the many, many applications with extremely high and somewhat high GPAs, which is when other factors come into play. I'm not denying that GPA is extremely important, but I think that you may actually be inflating the difficulty of the CDIS major a little bit. It's challenging, but it isn't so hard that a 4.0 in major on top of a full course load is really that unattainable. I know many people who did it and while I didn't have a 4.0, I managed high in-major grades on top of a full course load, lab work, and a part time job. In fact, I think CDIS is actually relatively easy compared to most science majors and I think adcomms recognize this (I am basing this on anecdotal information from my undergrad professor who's been on adcomms for a couple of universities). The fact is, that if you have a low or mediocre GPA, you just aren't going to be competitive since there are so many people both outside AND inside of the major with stellar grades and excellent SOPs, letters, and work experience on top of those GPAs. However, I do want to add that I agree that the undergrad major is pretty pointless and probably hurts many students in the long run. If they are going to have an undergrad major, it would be nice if they did it like education masters where you apply in your 2nd or 3rd year of undergrad and obtain a masters in 5 years. I think that would be really do-able in our discipline and save us a lot of time and money.

I don't think it's really fair to say that their educational experiences are less "meaningful" than yours, they're just different. Also, in speaking with professors on the admissions committee at my undergrad, I learned that most adcomms certainly DO take into account your major when looking at a GPA and even consider the rigor of your undergrad institution itself. And honestly, while speech and hearing science is a challenging major, it's certainly not the toughest out there by any means and I think many students come to speech from even more challenging majors like pre-med or bio or neuro. I applaud them and am happy to see students from those fields show interest in our field. Anyway, long story short, you can make guesses about other people's applications, but you never get to actually see them so you don't know what else it is that makes them appealing. Maybe their SOPs are better, maybe they have stellar GREs, maybe their letters are even more glowing than yours, maybe they have other life experiences that make them better candidates. You really just don't know and it's unfair to make assumptions.

If I've learned anything about graduate admissions, it's that it ain't over till it's over. General wisdom is that a long period of no news probably means a waitlist or a rejection, but that's not a hard and fast rule and varies from school to school and season to season. I don't think any of us could possibly give you a satisfactory answer at this point.

I have one acceptance under my belt, but I'm expecting to hear from my top choice any day now and of course I have a snow day from work, so I don't even have that to distract me (I don't have access to personal e-mail or internet). Also, the school I'm waiting on seems to send notifications out via e-mail AND postal service so I plan to spend my day obsessively checking my e-mail with the occasional break to trudge through the 16 inches of snow to check the mailbox. Yay! Fun is!

Congratulations!!! Sounds like it was your first choice? I'm still not 100% sure where I'll end up going in the fall, but I'm also taking a trip up to Amherst soon to check it out. Maybe we'll be classmates!

I applied to UMass. I just got an acceptance from them today! I hope you also got good news.

If I was just "dating" somebody, I would rather lose my SO than abandon my career. That said, if I really saw someone as my future husband/life partner/soul mate, I would choose them over a school any day. I like school, but academia will never be the most important thing in my life. If forced to make such a choice, I would choose meaningful relationships and family over my career every time. I understand that this isn't a direct answer to the OP, but it kind of relates to some of the other answers.

Yes, I have heard something similar about UMass since posting on this thread so I assumed myself to be on the waitlist. I wish they would at least e-mail you to let you know the status of your application. I've already accepted admission else where though, so I'm going to withdraw my application anyway.

Yes, I had one acceptance that came via snail mail.

When it comes to this stuff, I have found that the rule is that there are no rules.

For some reason, I didn't post anything on facebook - even though I had planned to. I was on a train when I learned about my first acceptance so I just called and sent text messages to my closest friends and family and that was it. By the time I got home and was able to get to a computer three days later, I had already told everybody who actually cared, so I just didn't see a point in putting it on facebook. I think the rest of my facebook friends will figure it out in due time. :-)

I think that all you can do at this point is call the department and tell them about your concerns. Hopefully they can clarify and/or fix the situation for you.