2017 Applicant

This exact thing happened to me. It turned out soon meant "two weeks and a day" in that case. However, in situations like this I think "soon" mostly means "we promise it's coming, please don't forget about us!" If this delay is affecting your decision-making I don't think it would hurt to send them an email letting them know, and they would probably do their best to expedite getting that information to you. Otherwise, they are probably already moving things along as quickly as they reasonably can. I think in both your case and mine, the professor probably contacted us as soon as they could say we were "for sure" in because they were excited, and everyone likes to pass on good news. So think of that as the silver lining. I think it's a nice personal touch, better than getting an automated notification that your decision is available online.

That doesn't sound like your fault at all, especially if she said she would call you at that time. Really unfortunate. I had arranged a phone conversation (not an interview, but a chat with a professor) far in advance. We didn't exchange emails at all during the days leading up to the conversation, but she emailed me the morning of to confirm I was still available, and I replied saying yes. Seems like your interviewer could have done something similar, especially if she needed to make special arrangements.

Yes, I did realize this when I found it. However, I read the entire thing and I don't think this is really problematic. For example, they mention that most of the responses they got about the analytic writing section were neutral or negative - that it was way too subjective (in terms of graders looking for very specific things, instead of considering the essays holistically) to be of any use. This was a qualitative study and I don't believe they made any attempt to falsify the information they obtained in interviews. That's why I think it's ok to take the quote I mentioned at face value, and assume there is at least one faculty member out there that has this impression of his school's contest. I could have been more descriptive in my first email. The kind of university-wide fellowships I'm thinking about (and which this article seems to examine exclusively) are ones in which there are no department quotas and it is not the choice of individual graduate program directors who gets the awards. From what I've read, it is fairly common to have university-wide fellowships where 1) departments nominate "top" candidates to a central graduate school committee and 2) the graduate school committee uses some criteria to select a few winners from all of the nominees. So there is no guarantee that any given department will have a student who gets an award. I'm asking because I was nominated for one, and got curious about how candidates from different disciplines would be compared if not for a standardized test. And I don't doubt that the GRE is not the sole criterion for such contests, but I would not be surprised to find out that it truly was one of the most important factors.

@forgetful26 Thanks! I thought there might be a good chance of the mean age being older than most programs, since (like you mentioned) a lot of the programs I looked at mentioned experience as being a positive. Not all of them did though, and in fact I talked to two graduates of the program I'm likely to attend and they both jumped in right after doing BS/BA work. It's nice to have a concrete statistic to go on.

I'll be starting a PhD in Education this fall, six years after I graduated from college. How common is this in the field of education? Will I likely be in a cohort with a lot of 21-year olds, or will I have a decent amount of peers closer to my age?

I'm glad to hear that she'll have a loving home in either case. It sounds like you care for her a lot more than your first post implied, which is great. I can't specifically answer this question, since I've never had a dog in school (I want to adopt one, but I don't think I'd be able to give it enough attention right now). However, if your program is ok with you bringing her in every now and then, it sounds like you should still be able to do all of those things. In fact, I think grad school would be more flexible in terms of visiting her during the day than a full-time job would be. I think your ability to take her to social events like happy hour will depend on how much free time you have based on your workload. And that's a completely separate question from anything dog related. I would ask students in the programs you're considering. I bet it will work out, though - after all, some people have kids in grad school.

This whole post makes me sad. It's questionable to get a dog when you know your near future is up in the air and you might not be able to take care of it, but to have a dog and then wonder if it's going to make you miserable? I wish you put more thought into this before you adopted the puppy. I hope if you choose not to keep the dog, then you actively look for a good home for it.

Does anyone know anything about the selection process for university-wide fellowships, or has anyone been selected for one and had some light shed on how they were chosen? I read a paper on the use of the GRE in this process (found here) and I'm mostly interested in this quotation: "To tell the truth, it is basically a GRE competition." (Referring to the final selection of fellows by a grad school committee.) How true is this in general? I know selection will vary from school to school (the study above was only conducted across 9 schools), but I wonder if the GRE plays more of a role in the outcome than a lot of schools care to admit. P.S. - Sorry for the spam in this forum resulting from yesterday's "blackout."

Lol. It seems to me that lots of these posts mention not missing being around "20 somethings." Am I missing something, or aren't graduate students mostly people aged 20 through 29? Is it odd for people to go right from undergrad to grad school?

True, peer reviews can be biased too. But I should have mentioned that the peers doing the evaluations at my future school are "Senior TA's." Part of their job is to train other TA's, form teaching assignments, and plan these evaluations. I get the impression they're less biased than having every graduate student sit in on a classmate's recitation, as they have a reputation and job to keep. Also, they are probably more isolated form the people being evaluated (younger grads) since they seem to be ones on their way out. Breakfast, I've had some professors use midterm evaluations. I think they would be great for improving the class in areas that really matter. Unfortunately, I don't think they will improve final ratings. First off, the final forms are more anonymous. The teacher never reads the comment sheets directly, and even if he or she did it would be well after the class was over. Midterm evaluations go directly in the professor's hands, and so lots of kids don't have the courage to say what they would normally. I have had fellow undergrads tell me how they're going to rip a professor apart on evaluations, not even halfway through the term! Forget confronting the professor about the issue while you have time to change things. Instead, take satisfaction in (trying) putting a stain on his reputation. These are the kind of juvenile attitudes that go into student evaluations. As for grades factoring in to the evaluation, I don't see how that could be done while retaining anonymity. My undergrad institution would have us self-report the grade we expected to receive (never realized why until now). However, the kids who are likely to tear up a proficient TA are exactly the kind who expect to receive an A for minimal effort. So no help there. My goal is to be as outgoing of a TA as I can. I feel like my field (math) is easier not to lose favor with students, because there's very little subjectivity involved in grading or answering questions. But hearing horror stories about bitter undergrads has got me scared. I'm holding extra review sessions, making study guides, anything I can to appeal to the mercy of these kids.

Ouch, this sounds like a nightmare. If it's a required class for the university, I'm surprised that you're not being congratulated on getting "good" averages. At the school I'm going to, they also have peer and professor evaluations of TA's. This seems like a better measurement, as professors and other grad students don't have a chip on their shoulder that they would so love to pass on to the person that has been trying to help them pass all along. I think someone else in another thread posted an article about how useless student evaluations are - I tend to agree.