cmjacob1

thank you very much, this is very kind and thoughtful advice. it actually does make me feel better too. i really appreciate that!

well, no. I guess my recommenders might have said negative things, but I have good relationships with them, I can't think of what they would say, unless they didn't think I was ready for doctoral work. it is possible that they might have been bad recs. that's hard for me to think about though!

No, I can't stay at my current program unless I change my entire research proposal. While it's a great place, none of the professors are taking on students in what I'm interested in. It's pretty geographically located and demography specific. Right now I'm looking at independent research grants and think-tank work. Oh, and I'm trying not to have a total melt down. :-)

I contacted the professor that I had been corresponding with and she gave me the bad news. I know they already sent out their acceptances but if you're holding out for a waitlist offer there's probably still hope. I was just told that "the department was unable to support your application this year." I hope others have better luck!

Thanks. It certainly is confusing but I feel like complaining about it makes me seem like I thought I was owed something for having good stats and I guess the reality of it is that I'm not. (even if I really, really, really do want to complain about it) They get to reject and accept whomever they please. But it does make me wonder what they're looking for. It also makes me wonder what on Earth I'm supposed to do now! ha!

Well, I got my rejection from Northwestern today. So far I've been rejected at 8 out of 10 of my schools and I'm expecting rejections from the last two as well. (rejected from Princeton, Stanford, Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA, Columbia, Northwestern and Wisconsin. Expecting formal rejections from Chicago and Yale soon) Northwestern was tough because I had received really excellent feedback from numerous professors, two of which went so far as to say that they were looking forward to me being there for the Fall semester. Receiving a rejection with no explanation after that is very confusing. I certainly wasn't expecting to get in everywhere, but I was expecting to at least get in somewhere! Just for morbid, self-pitying fun, here are my stats: Undergrad GPA in Political Science and Sociology from an Ivy - GPA 3.8 Masters from an Ivy in Sociology - GPA 4.0 GRE Verbal: 750 GRE Quant: 800 GRE Analytical: 6.0 4 years of international development and government funded sociology research 3 peer reviewed publications during grad school over 20 awards, scholarships and research grants during undergrad, grad and post-grad excellent recommendations from professors with ties at most of the universities I applied to contacted people at all schools I applied to and received favorable responses from all I've worked very hard to succeed in academia and I thought I had a really good shot at most of these schools. Maybe I was too arrogant in thinking I would be admitted.