echlori

Due to time zones, I only saw the acceptance email in the morning over breakfast. I waited for a while before telling anyone else just to make sure I didn't get a retraction email again
 
By lunchtime, it was clear that no retraction email was coming so I told my colleagues.

University Of Maryland Materials Science And Engineering, PhD (F14) Rejected via E-mail on 14 Mar 2014 ♦ I 14 Mar 2014

contacted a professor, he let me apply but then no news from him anymore sigh~



"He let me apply?"
I imagined a professor dressed up like Gandalf yelling YOU SHALL NOT APPLY

Luck of all kinds:
happening to email the right people during undergrad happening to get rejected from what would have ended up being dead-end jobs people willing to collaborate after little more than a cold email paper getting rejected at a smaller conference that led to revisions and eventually it getting accepted to a bigger conference] deciding to pursue a position in a lab unrelated to my major... that would lead to an REU position in something I want to continue doing doing an REU that didn't lead to a paper but got me inspired to start a side project a side project that I spent a few weeks hacking out in the summer turning into an accepted 1st author paper at a top conference over the course of a year person x at z school happens to know one of my letter writers etc etc etc etc etc Sure, I could say that getting papers accepted was what worked most strongly in my favor, but that's misleading and obscures the bigger picture. In a lot of cases it was a lot of blind luck and winging it. My overall strategy over the last three years of undergrad was little more than to just have something cooking at all times, be it a side project or something in the lab.

Spoken like a true college student! "Horrific," hah!
 
You will probably be working every summer for the rest of your life, so here's what you should do:
 
Throw a huge college graduation party Invite all of your extended family Your extended family will likely give you money because they don't know what else to give you Use that money to buy a ticket to a country you've never been to and reserve a cheap hostel Have fun Did this the summer after college and don't regret a thing. I can't believe how many people rush into working. 

Honestly, I find the pre-revocation acceptance responses more cringey and sad. "I can't believe I got into my top choice with only 140 Quant and a 2.5 GPA! Wow!" (Not a direct quote cos I just feel too bad.)
 
My heart is hurting for all of them. I can't even imagine having to go through that.

Well, if I had my acceptance revoked, I'd say some pretty cringe-worthy things too. That's just messed up.

All of these responses from CMU who got their admission revoked are so cringeworthy!

Pursue YOUR goals- don't sacrifice or compromise your dreams to lessen the distance between two hearts.  If it's meant to be, you will find a way to strengthen yourselves and each other as you support each other's educational endeavors.  I'm not dating, but actually married, and will be moving away from my husband.  His job does not allow him to move/follow me and he will pursue his graduate education at another school in a few years.  I suppose it's comforting to have the certainty that "he'll be there," but I can relate to the tension nevertheless.

Well, I started translating the application fees into bottles of wine and the resulting number makes me sad and WANT the hypothetical wine. And then one I heard recently: "If I wanted to pay so much to be rejected, I would have just paid for an online dating service."

I don't see what a lawsuit would accomplish either. Would be a nice gesture if CMU could refund the admission fee though :x

Was in the same boat last year. Rejected from all the universities I had applied to. Was really confused and in a bad place mentally. Took sometime for me to accept reality and move on to work with the opportunities I had. Just tried reaching out to every prof I thought was working in my field of interest and asked them if I they had opportunities in their labs, either paid or unpaid. Accumulated a years worth of research experience like this. Luckily it was in a place very close to my POI so I could contact him as well and get work in his lab. I have the feeling that this year's applications will also probably end up being rejects. But I'm not too worried this time, since I have been through the same experience before. It has taught me a lot of things and brought me a lot closer to where I want to be. Just stay patient and keep trying to work in the field of your interest so you don't lose your edge.

I don't see what a lawsuit would accomplish either. Would be a nice gesture if CMU could refund the admission fee though :x

I don't see what a lawsuit would accomplish either. Would be a nice gesture if CMU could refund the admission fee though :x

The best way to find work is to network. The hardest thing for me after my MS in math was trying to find a work. It can be long and arduous.
 
Try to find a meetup around your area. If you are in a large city, there should be tons of groups. This is a great way to get to know what's out there. It is pretty common to find employers for startups at these events.
 
Socialize and talk to friends of friends (and then their friends and theirs also) and try to get your name out there. You'd be surprised how effective this method is in reality. It's a huge world out there with companies you've never heard of employing hundreds of people. 
 
Try to reach out to recruiters via linkedin (recruiters/headhunters make money finding YOU). Start thinking of big businesses with a new perspective. Example, target is not just a grocery/department store. Target has many career opportunities from finance to IT to math or strategy to planning. Almost any large company you can think of hire quants for many many many purposes. Explore everything you can (websites have career opportunities, career builder, indeed etc).
 
You sound me a few years ago. I went and worked for 1.5 years at a tech firm (someone knew someone got me an interview) and then came back to a PhD program. I felt like I wasn't challenged enough at work and just couldn't relate to people.
 
If and when you do get an interview, make yourself relatable. If they say well do you have any experience of leading a team. Talk about something that's remotely relevant like physics lab group leader or something. At the end of the day most employers are looking for people that seem well adjusted and would be easy to train on the job.
 
MOST IMPORTANTLY: convince yourself that you aren't in a rut even if you do stay in school. Things are always better when you look at them from a far. For me, I got bored and annoyed working my job in 7 months, and couldn't wait to go back to school. 
 
Businesses are geared towards profits, in general, so you'll get thrown under the bus if it means more money. So, fight one battle at a time. Get a job/internship somewhere first and get your foot in the "door" (wherever the hell it's going).
 
Hope this helps.

I think it's important for you to do what makes you happy. I just want to say that from a stranger's point of view, your definition of an ethical company sounds kind of arbitrary and it also sounds like you are saying all academic jobs are ethical. I feel that for most big organizations, if you look deep enough, you can find something that will not jive with your own moral code.
 
Also, your title kind of implies that academic jobs are ethical but this is not always true either. For example, many universities invest in these unethical companies you mention, and thus your pay and research funding comes from these places. Is this acceptable to you, or is it disconnected enough that it does not bother you? I'm not just stating these questions to mess with you--I think these are important questions to answer when on the job hunt. It's important to know which practices are against your moral code enough that you won't work with them and which are disconnected enough that you'll still be happy. Maybe you have already thought about this though.
 
(Personally, my answer is that as long as what I do does not directly hurt people, it's okay with me. For example, I won't do research on a weapon. However, if my work on some other goal somehow becomes useful in building a weapon, then that is not against my personal moral code. I am using a weapon as an example of something that is against my moral code but there are others, such as knowingly taking advantage of people etc.)
 
As for suggestions, I don't know any specific organizations. What about working for a non-profit that is well aligned with your worldviews? If you like teaching, what about working for a "education technology" company (i.e. one of those companies that create online question databases for instructors like "Mastering Physics"). In Canada, many science graduates with a MSc will work as some kind of education or science director for museums and other public education type work. Just a few examples!

It seems like you and person A will never converge

This may hurt my reputation but after yet another self-entitled post by an international student (see Harvard rejection on results page. Off the top of my head I have also seen comments about one's international GPA being superior to U.S. undergrads because A- is an average grade in the U.S.--blanket statement and totally false!--and one not being excited about a Yale Ph.D. offer because they "expected" to get in.), I am just curious... do they/you (international students) really expect that they/you will just come in and steamroll the domestic applicants? I don't know if they/you think that we are just a bunch of obese idiots here in the states, but that kind of egotism is nauseating and ignorant. 

Co-sign, mittsmitten895. effhorses definitely sounds like an impressive candiate.
 
I thought my own profile was relatively unimpressive compared to most people's (my undergrad GPA is undoubtedly lower than a lot of applicants), so i was hoping that this would not discourage people from posting their stats... though obviously, there are problems with trying to gather data like this to begin with. I would not be surpirsed if UF is the only school I am admitted to. Haha.

What a ridiculous statement to make!  You have a small window into the admissions process and suddenly you can make a better decision than a whole committee of experienced Harvard faculty members did with a lot more information than what you see here?!  It sounds like sour grapes on your part, and you should wonder if your entitled personality is holding you back from attaining the success you "deserve."
 
P.S. You're screwing up our already-skewed sample by discouraging certain types of profiles from reporting.  I hope you're not interested in survey research.

I'm sorry but you really do not deserve to go to Harvard.

This will probably just be ignored again but yes, the UMich grad chair told me that they are done with acceptances.

This is my second time. I did a bit better than last time but not good enough I guess. Do I do this again next year?
I'm 35. Single. And I fear I have put my life on hold for what appears to be a club that does not seem to want to let me in.
Sweet.

What really frustrates me about the PhD application process is the amount of information us as applicants have. For example, what candidates do the schools actually want? Who are making the admissions decisions? How are we filtered? Do they read every reference letter carefully? What about our statement of purpose? How important are advanced math courses, what about research experience? etc etc.
 
We have very little to base our knowledge of graduate applications/graduate programs on. Just a website, and some FAQs (which are usually useless) and forums and discussions with our professors. How do we know if a professor is going to write us a good letter? Sometimes older professors who have not written letters in a while do not know the difference between a strong and a lukewarm letter. For example one of my letter writers asked me who my other letter writers were and I said Professor A and Professor B. She said: "Oh don't use Professor A, I have read his letters before and they are very uninformative." If not for this warning, I would never have known. I would have used Professor A's letter and it could have potentially ruined my chances at many top schools. In which case I would apply again next year and may STILL use Professor A.
 
There is such a lack of information, it's really quite frustrating and scary.
 
However at the same time I understand the admissions committee have the same problem. They don't understand the transcripts of international students, they don't know what type of student we are, reference letters can be uninformative, etc etc...

I'm writing up a review of the weekend because that's the topic I most wanted to see a few weeks ago.  Based on conversations with other interviewees, I was not alone in that desire.
 
How I got invited:  I received a personalized email mid-morning on January 10 inviting me to the Open House weekend.  I contacted the designated travel agency within an hour and the flights were finalized quickly.  Then I stumbled around in a daze for the weekend intermittently panicking before I pulled myself together and started preparing.  
 
General advice:  Re-read your statement of purpose, think about what your letter-writers may have written about you, etc.  Basically, know yourself and know what they know about you.  You will be asked a million times why you want a biostatistics PhD, so have a coherent answer that also happens to be true.  Prior to applying, I had put a lot of thought into why Harvard was a good fit, who I might want to work with, and (vague) possible dissertation topics with each potential advisor.  It is not guaranteed, but I ended up interviewing with every person I identified in my SOP (plus a few others).  Even if we did not cover it in the interview, it helped ME to know that I had read their most recent papers, knew the titles of current grants (check NIH RePORTER), and could articulate how my previous experience and background might fit into their research plans.  The department has a relaxed atmosphere and is much, much friendlier than I expected, but you still need to do your homework.
 
Weekend structure:
Thursday
I arrived Thursday afternoon/evening and hung out in the hotel room with my roommate. Our interview schedule was released via email some time Thursday evening. (This is not the department being tricky.  It became clear on Friday that nailing down faculty schedules is an administrative nightmare.)  My hotel had terrible internet, so I did minimal research on the 2 interviewers not in my SOP.
 
Friday
This is a full day!  Current students take you to campus, so don't worry about how to get there.  Be prepared for 25-minute walks in the cold to and from campus.  Once at HSPH, you'll get an overview of the department and PhD program followed by some short research talks.  Lunch is served, and interviews commence in the afternoon.  Mine were mostly very informal conversations, but they are a lot like speed dating and you will get exactly zero time in between to reflect on what just happened.  My 3 SOP interviewers had obviously read my whole application, while the others likely skimmed it (at most).  No one grilled me on whether I could handle the coursework or tested me on statistical concepts.  However, I had prepared a way to clearly explain what relevant research I had done before, and that definitely came in handy again and again.  Have an answer to "What are your career goals?" that shows both self-awareness and flexibility.  Figure out ahead of time what you think you need to learn about the department to make a decision.  For the informal conversations, you'll need to gently steer the conversation so that you get answers you want.  Have an unending supply of questions for the inevitable awkward moments.  After the interviews, you'll stop at the hotel and head to dinner with current PhD students.  This is your chance to ask about qualifying exams, get some info on good mentors, assess if the stipend is livable, etc.  We headed out to a bar with current students afterwards.  (Don't get drunk -- even if it doesn't make it back to the admissions committee, it's not the right way to make a good impression on future classmates.  Talking about your rough Friday night at Saturday brunch is also a bad idea.  While I'm sure the faculty have all been there and done that, it shows that you can't separate your personal and professional lives.)
 
Saturday
The brunch is your last opportunity for faculty interaction, but you will probably be too exhausted to make the most of it.  Spend some time beforehand assessing what questions you could still need answered.  Almost everyone else will be out of them, and asking questions about the program can help smooth over the distracted "Ahhh! I have so much to think about!" silences.  Afterwards, I explored Boston until my flight left Saturday night.  If I had to do it again, I would choose to stay until Sunday.
 
Costs:  I paid for taxis to and from the airport, but that will be reimbursed.  Hotel was pre-paid by the department.  Other than the taxis, Saturday afternoon snacks and activities were my only out-of-pocket expenses.  My biggest financial burden was purchasing appropriate clothes.
 
What people wore:  On Friday, there were only a few people in suits.  For the most part, women wore sweaters/button-ups and dress pants and men wore dress shirts and slacks.  Pick a professional outfit that is also comfortable and warm.  The "tour" portion was entirely indoors but included lots of stairs, so wear high heels only if you can manage multiple flights of stairs in them.  A few people changed into nice jeans for Friday dinner, but most people stayed about the same level of dressiness.  Saturday brunch is more relaxed, but most of the applicants were still not wearing jeans. 
 
"Am I going to get in?":  I have no idea.  If you've been invited to the Open House, this is the question you want me to answer the most, but I can't answer it (even for myself).  The department initially said the interview weekend would have 15-20 students, but 22 interviewees were there.  So at least this year, it seems like they underestimated interest in the program.  If they still have 5-10 (?) international students to add, you can see how 15-18 spots might fill up quickly.  You do have a chance, though!  Far fewer people had the superstar Ivy League pedigrees I expected, and no one gets invited just because of a 4.0 GPA or great GRE scores.  Every single interviewee got picked out of that application pile for a reason.  Figure out what your reason is (try asking your recommendation writers if you can't identify yours), and see where it takes you.
 

I didn't say my childhood justifies my negativity. What I'm trying to say is that my negativity isn't a choice. I am in constant pain. I can try all I like to be positive, it doesn't work. I do not know how to manufacture feelings, if you do I'd be interested to learn how. 
 
If it's not a contest, why are you telling me what happened to you? Why do you think I would care? It seems like you're saying that your difficult childhood justifies your unkindness to me. It doesn't. You say you don't like it when people assume they've had the hardest life. I did not say that I've had the hardest life possible--those are words you put into my mouth. And yet you make it sound like you've had the hardest life, and that justifies your jackassery. 
 
You're known to come off as an asshole? Maybe it's becaue you are an asshole... just a thought worth considering.
 
I never said everyone in my program hates me. A couple of professors and one student--the other students and the other professors have been fine to me.
 
Get the help I need? Um, I've been trying to do that since I was a teenager with absolutely no luck. Should I just put my life on hold forever?
 
Seriously... I regret posting here. You know how I said that seeking help always comes back to bite me? I guess this is yet another example of it. I was only asking for help. Like it or not, you made me feel worse. There is no good outcome here. Do you really enjoy doing this to people?