Jakrabite

Good stuff. Like the assertiveness. Thanks for the post.

I agree the relative meanness of the original comment is debatable. Though it's a wee bit evil to kick somebody who's down already, propriety is hardly a cut and dry thing. In my area of expertise applying to safety schools is a no-no. I was applying to a bunch of safety schools originally but my professors dissuaded me saying its hard to get a job after graduating from so called 'safeties'. Seeing that I have no admits as of now and am still waiting on quite a few schools, I can't really comment on the judiciousness of the strategy. Evil or not, guys go easy on the snooping and ganging up on a singular poster. Flame wars are infantile. Best of luck BigCheese and Astaroth.

No point bugging people at this stage. Even though the admit didnt work out, atleast your relationship with the professor might be useful later. Take the KO with dignity.

you receive an acceptance letter ending in "....NOT!"

rape.pillage.plunder.repeat.

Sucks even more if your parents are over achievers. Plus my mom is a prof..so can't even pull the ol' you don't understand what I'm going through routine. Totally agree with the second part though. Sometimes I feel like I'm pretending to be an adult. Seriously some of my other relatives believe academia is non competitive and that any imbecile can make it to grad school..which in retrospect explains why they have such confidence in me .

Chin up brotha. As a fellow international applicant, I know how it feels. In any case its not the end of the world either way.

One of my recommendation providers told me that the ad coms rarely dwell too much on applications. It's hardly the case that they're losing sleep thinking about whether on not to admit a particular student. Also, in most cases the clincher might be something totally out of your control. I went to a top ten graduate school in my field and since the chair of the ad com was chinese, of late their policy is heavily sino centric. So no point over analyzing the process.

I thought you were lifting it. lol .

Yeah. I finally called 3 of my remaining 7 apps. One told me to check back on March 15th. Others told me that no decision had been made yet and that I'd have to wait till April to hear from them, which sounds decisively negative. I thought brobama was bringing hope?!

I hate that condescending "It'll be all right"/water under the bridge bullshit. I'm seriously screwed if I don't get accepted anywhere and probably will effectively end up wasting a period of my life recovering from this situation. I guess it was a gamble to begin with, but perhaps I hadn't sized up the odds the right way. I have enough misery in my life to begin with and this admission situation is not helping. On a daily basis I'm trying the whole 'be here now' routine. I don't know if it'll help me stay cool till april though. Where's some heroin when you need it.

That's the only thing stopping me from calling and asking about my status right away. It's the only card I feel I have as an applicant, and I don't want to lay this solitary solace on the table too soon. Though if I don't hear anything by this Friday, I'll probably give it a shot.

I have the same plan. I'm sooooo tempted to send a mail across. But I'll wait another week at the least. It appears some uni's notify Intl applicants at a later date or so says my latest self pacification mantra.

I was freaking out before. But now I have come to terms with it. I am keeping myself busy and the weird thoughts take care of themselves.

Yeah I remember that happening before. It was a funny day though, when I looked out the window.. pigs were flying and the headlines said that hell had frozen over as well.

I will sulk for a few months. Try snagging some research job. Try to get laid after the academic screwing that I've received till now. Did I mention sulking already?

Hit a couple of buckets at the golf range. Read incessantly. Other such wanking of an indeterminate nature.

I don't have any logic to support this, but I personally wouldn't visit before getting an admit. This way atleast if I get a reject, I won't have to worry that I may have pissed them off by visiting. Plus, it sets a poor precedent for the department. I'm guessing they don't encourage people to storm the gates before an invite.

My parents are very supportive. My mother is a Professor herself. I know they won't rip on me if I don't get any admits. But at the same time, I would feel like I let them down. Sucks to be in this zero admit position this time of February.

Same here. I hate it when people keep bugging me with the admit stuff. I had a vague feeling this might be coming and tried to keep applying on the down low but people can ferret it outta you eventually. I'd rather have no conversation than put up with fake commiserations. I'm not on facebook in anycase. So hiding should be easy. Yeah most people think getting into PhD programs is f-ing easy. I dont want to be the person who corrects them.

With zero admits till now, I'll admit this line of thinking is tempting but its still lame. Reductionism at its worst.

Yesterday I got an email from Penn State because I had pressed some button mistakenly on the app status page and they had sent me my password. I got totally friggin psyched because the sender was Penn State Graduate Application Status. Momma I cant take no more shocks anymore.

Haha.. sifar...shunya..zilch..nada.

I knew CMU was coming but the burusque letter didnt mend my ego much.

Haha.. What I meant was that in my case I keep waiting for acceptances that never come along. Rejects are arriving in abundance like rednecks at a Dolly Parton concert.