illinoisellie

Yeah. You know what's crazy?? I KNOW that I have been rejected somewhere, but they still won't reply to my emails!!! :x So I'm gonna call them instead. I've heard that works. :wink: Maybe they'll answer the phone, or maybe they'll take one look at the caller ID and be frightened away... I suppose I'm just too intimidating to receive an answer.

Illinoisellie Number of times applied: 1 - This is my first! (unfortunately the sacrifices of virgin applicants don't look any better on grad apps than the sacrifices of regular applicants - maybe grad committees need some dragons or something) Schools: 8 +2 (see below) Rejections: 5(probably 6 - people just don't like telling you you're rejected, jeez!) What I did wrong: I think one of my recommenders didn't help my app at all. My personal statement needs more revision (I look at it now-what was I thinking?). I need more backups. Improvements: Hopefully, if I don't get in (which I don't think I will) - I'm currently frantically applying for two more schools with later deadlines ( I have four days to apply! ) Life goals: If I do apply again - maybe I'll take the psych gre. I'll improve my personal statement and make sure I get good recommenders. I want to get a job as a research assistant. But basically, I just want to go where life takes me. (hopefully towards a job with the government) Though a friend of mine told me that we could both get jobs as cops if nothing else panned out. I work out every, well, bimonthly maybe?

Yeah, I have three schools still to wait on as well, so I emailed them. I just wish the ones that rejected me could have sent me a letter or email about it after they decided. I mean, jeez. $50 dollars per app w/o getting anything back?

Thanks, Olivia. I feel alot better now - after I sat on my bum all of Saturday reading historical romance novels...

I'm surprised this article didn't go into the fact that doctoral students right now - they people who actually do get in - will have to take out more loans and will have to increase the percentage of their diet that includes Ramen noodles and PB&J... But don't worry - U-Haul sells some big cardboard boxes for pretty cheap - just need to laminate it, and then - Instant apartment!! :wink:

So I went out for Chinese a couple months ago - I think end of January. Right before I got back some of my rejections. I ended up taping the message from the fortune cookie to the top of my desk. I look at it whenever I'm feeling particularly dejected. "Your present plans are going to succeed." The only question is, which of my present plans, A, B, or C, is the damn cookie talking about???

That's awful!! Reminds me of that recent movie "He's just not that into you" - the whole breaking up thing - "its not you, its us" is just a lazy cop-out to relieve them from actually analyzing applications for bad points... Which makes me think that perhaps they 1) have cutoffs in GPA/GRE etc. then they 2) read the application and "intuitively" look for a good candidate... It makes sense given all the intuition research I've read... When experts (in this case, committee members) become good at doing something, it becomes automatic, so they may not know exactly why they rejected you, your application just doesn't feel right to them. (Jam study, anyone?) Or perhaps they're doing some recognition-primed decision making.... (yay, Klein!!) It would make sense then, if they told you they didn't know exactly why they rejected you, or if they just tried not to tell you at all... I'm not dissing intuition - I love it. Its just not a decision making process you can describe.

Exactly. I am quite the talker once I get going, so I think I probably told too many people about the grad school thing.... But I don't want to necessarily blame the economy. It might very well be me. If I blame something else, how can I truly better myself for future applications to grad schools??

Same here... I don't think I'd be waitlisted to all 5 schools - I have to be either rejected or accepted to a few of them. I don't know if I can wait another week.... Assesta - I was probably rejected from UIUC in the first round - I received my letter about a month ago. This second round is taking FOREVER!!! *sigh* I guess I just have to be patient...

All of the recommendation letters would have to be from friends and family, and mailed by carrier pigeon...

I was in the same boat - trying to decide whether I should apply to jobs while waiting on grad schools - but I decided that applying to several jobs at once and interviewing with more than one company at once was exactly like what I was doing waiting on grad schools. As long as you say your start date is after the end of April, you should be fine. Just tell them that you sincerely appreciate their offer, but you need to pursue an opportunity elsewhere. Then ask them if you can stay in touch(if you want). Supposedly that works... as long as you're very polite, then hopefully you won't burn bridges with perspective employers...

Don't worry!! You're in great company - I have only gotten rejections - at two of my backups especially. Sometimes its the size of the program, or wierd little things like: they let too many people in last year and so have to scale back. Sometimes, at least in my case, you mischoose my backups. ( :roll: okay, so what if "mischoose" isn't a word? Setzen Sie sich, grammar nazis!) Either way, there's still more than half to go! I was just wondering if anyone keeps their letters of rejection? I do, I have them filed away with all my other grad school app. stuff... I get them out and look at them whenever I feel like I'm in another dimension...when I feel like I'm not really sure if I applied to grad school, much less gotten any replies back from said grad schools.... The Twilight Zone!!! Maybe I'm just masochistic?

I hope that I will get in to one school.... But I am really afraid that I am on the waiting list at most of my schools now. Ack! I thought I would get in to at least 3! Now I'm hoping for at least 1. But at least I have job interviews coming up....

Perhaps instead of tolerance - "open-minded-ness". Though they teach "tolerance" when they really want the latter. Just look at neo-racism - people pretend to be "tolerant" but don't actually keep their minds open to new ideas... I don't mind parents telling their kids that they can "do anything". They can (i've seen it done) - you just have you work your ass off at it. So perhaps parents should add that caveat... I am kinda iffy about the whole "I'm bad at math" or "i'm bad a science" thing. I think if you have the right environmental stimuli - wonderful professors who actually teach, teachers who focus on girls in math/sciences when they are being driven away by the stereotypes of society trying to push us towards english or social studies - you can do well in math or science. I am really not convinced that enough of that math and science ability is given by genes. That said - I think intelligence is more broad than just math or science intelligence. I agree with Sternberg's theory of triarchic intelligence - general intelligence(not the same as the little "g" one) is made up of: analytic intelligence, creative intelligence and practical intelligence. But as for the good grades for effort - I think that's a bunch of bull. Even in undergrad (there is nothing more annoying to me than people saying "Oh, that's so undergrad!" or "That is such an undergraduate analysis!" - Excuse me, I'm reading graduate textbooks for my gen ed classes. pissoff) there is so much variation in different schools that the GRE test had to be created(either that or they just want our money ). So whiny undergrads who do nothing but drink and party telling their professors that they want a better grade?? You gotta be kidding me. In college, kiddies, we use the scientific method - "effort" is a very subjective concept. One cannot give it a completely objective score. Therefore, the professors will grade your multiple choice or written work(read: subjective, haha) in an objective way. Thus, reducing your successes(and failures) in life to a number from 1 to 100.

Well, I probably should have applied for more backups - my backups didn't do very well for me.... I wish I was back at that stage where I was looking up which schools to apply to.... but wait - then i'd have to go through all this again. :| maybe not. :wink:

There aren't many I/O psychology results in the search, but those of last year were pretty late, notification-wise...There's even one after the April 15th deadline!! So I guess its gonna be a long wait ahead.... STILL!!

Okay.... I was patient for a week. Shouldn't I know something (good?!?) by now??? :roll: I don't want to have to be patient for another week!!

I work at the Registrar's Office at my school and I've run into this problem. So many of them just sit and play on the computers all day long - at least I get my work done first! Heck yeah they are!!! Jeez! The freshman and sophomores this year are completely awful!!! hahaha.... anyways, I would prefer to be rejected by email, then by paper - and it doesn't have to be difficult - a tier-based mass email is just fine... weekly emails/paper mailings to rejects or something...

I think, theoretically, this year's decisions should be later than those of the last few years.... Why? 1) more applicants than last year 2) less funding than last year (so they have to be more careful with it) So i'm not expecting my applications to come until a week or two after they usually do (though there's not very much data from I/O programs from last year - at least the ones I am applying to)

I talked to some reps from Minn. at a grad school fair - they pretty much flat out told me not to bother applying. Do you really want to go to a school that seems full of themselves?

Yikes. Well, judging from my experience as someone whose family doesn't understand why I would want a PhD, I think just as much as being afraid of intellectuals, or not liking intellectuals, its also a factor of the "teachings" of the working class person - the American Dream and all that ...*ahem*... stuff. Working class individuals sometimes don't understand how you can get a good job without being an "apprentice" or something like a secretary and working your way up the business ladder. My dad immigrated when he was 4 with his parents from post-WWII Germany while my mom also had a hard time of it and neither of them graduated from college. We all will start at the bottom of our professional fields when we graduate, but we will have worked our way up to a different ladder through grad school. And yes - mom, dad, aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather - I will be able to get a job once I graduate even though I'm not a NURSE or DOCTOR. ( I hope :wink: ) for heavens sake.

Are cats easy to care for? Assuming I would get one that was already house broken. I've never had any pets before, but would like to have one perhaps in grad school... Though my first choice would be a dog, i've heard they are much much more expensive than cats? ..maybe I should get a cat that barks....

I stopped watching it after all the heroes lost their powers in the last season. I mean, these people are special because they have superpowers. It's just like a bad sitcom if you take their powers away!! I also didn't like the repetition in powers - I mean, how many people can draw the future? :roll: Think of something else that's creative! Is the third season any better than the second?

Anything my Neil Diamond.... or Chicago. I can't just choose 4 lines!!! hmm... maybe Journey - "Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard Their shadows searching in the night Streetlight people, living just to find emotion Hiding, somewhere in the night" I have to say that I prefer "any way you want it" to the above quoted "Don't Stop Believing". After a while, songs played too much just get annoying to me. ("I knew i loved you", "sweet home alabama", etc.) kudos to the verses auf deutsch! Sehr gut! (If you're looking for german music - try "Die Prinzen" - they're pretty funny and easy to understand if you're just beginning to learn the language )

If anyone should understand how broke college/grad students are, it's professors! Jeez. Grad school requires an HUGE investment of time and energy and funds - don't ask for applicants to waste their money ahead of time. Though I can maybe see the Univ. of Minn. asking for students to do this. They get so many applicants, they have to narrow it down somehow. :roll: