OctaviaButlerfan

I have now gotten 3 total e-mails titled "Important information about your Duke Application!!!!!!!!!"
 
Ok, there are no exclamation points, but that is how I read it anyway.

If you want to enter a whole new stage of crazy, you can devote hours upon hours to searching for your programs in the Results Search. That way, you can see how early your programs have notified their applicants in the past. However, I do issue a warning: the Results Search is a blackhole of time, sanity, and time. 

How long one waits really depends upon the kind of program and the internal processes of the department.  But here are some very rough (and in no way scientific) guidelines.
 
Rejections that are done administratively (e.g. you did not meet minimum requirements) => FASTEST (as early as January).
Acceptances for the very top candidates => FASTER (typically in late February/early March)
Acceptances for the good candidates => FAST (typically in March)
Rejections that are done after considering applications by faculty => SLOW (typically late March to April)
Acceptances for the waiting list and marginal candidates => SLOWER (typically first two weeks of April)
Rejections for everyone else => SLOWEST (early April to never)
 
I got my acceptance in late February, the day after my interview with the faculty.  However, I would not take this as being in any way typical.

First, In order for sciences to have a productive existence, a community has to have certain values, goals, social organization, philosophical outlooks (the scientific method itself is a matter of epistemology), an understanding of the histories of these things, etc. Secondly, sciences are tools that will only do good when wielded by good, intelligent, life-loving human beings. Do you know who is involved in debating and understanding these matters that allow science to thrive and thrive in healthy way? You’re welcome.

Hi, all:
 
Today, I received an email from a program that asked me to pass along my official GRE scores ASAP. At first, I was afraid I'd just forgotten to submit them.  Later, I checked the university's website and was able to confirm that the department requires only the unofficial GREs until offering admission.

Now, here is the part where you chime in and tell me whether or not this seems significant to you. Feel free to be frank! This is the fun part of the game -- what do you say?
 
Am I fool to believe that this might somehow be a significant email?  Am I foolish to think that they maybe are interested in me because (1) they didn't throw away my application; (2) the department took the time to follow up with me about what most think is a pretty small part of the app; and (3) their damn website says they can't offer admission without the official scores but they're otherwise cool without 'em??
 
Phew -- well, what do you say?

------
 
Other folks, have you had anything similar happen? Do you want to know whether or not other gradcaf-ers think that something is meaningless or not? Let's GO. I think we could all use another distraction

What I learned:
 
ummm
 
well

Congratssssssss!!!!!!!!!! This is excellent news!!!!! WOW!!!! You're going to be great! Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

I don't envy any of you right now. Last year around this time, I started to get into a fevered habit of constantly refreshing my e-mail, the forum, and the results board ALL DAY. I probably did it a total of 90,000 times. I will never be able to reclaim the sanity I lost between January 5th-February 8th.

Enjoy.

"The hard part was getting the brain OUT."

None of my committees are counting eggs until... You know.

Wow, that's so fancy and impressive. (I realize that will read as sarcasm, which it is most certainly not.) Sometimes I forget I'm in such an unprecise field, and that really we make a lot of things up. This is so much more neat and tidy than anything I ever do.

Establishing Operation: Anxiety due to low-grade experiential neurosis (we don't know the outcome of something; we can't predict, can't prepare, not really)

Stimulus: ... Probably a chain of SR responses, actually, but we'll call the stimulus the existence of these forums/site, just for the sake of argument.

Response (class): Logging in, refreshing a page, writing a post, reading a post, watching the results page.

Consequence: reading other people talking about things you think about, finding information that relates to your situation, talking to other people, bonding over similar circumstances.

Reinforcement happens; positive reinforcement (new, novel, social interaction! UBER-REINFORCER WARNING LABEL GOES HERE) /and/ negative reinforcement (escape aversive stimuli such as... feeling alone in the process [social belongingness = uber-reinforcer too] *and* probably avoidance [who cares about doing those pesky dishes?]).

As a consequence of the reinforcement, response rates rise, leading to further reinforcement, leading to higher and higher response rates.

So it's basically Facebook... on crack. I'm freakin' surprised an applied bx analyst hasn't taken this as a tremendous opportunity to look at group activity from a behavioral standpoint. A whole group of people with high response rates, all basically on variable ratio schedules of reinforcement? And all pure, timestamped data? At least I know what I can do if my PhD plans don't go through. XD

My subconscious is out to get me because I have had this dream twice since submitting applications. One time, I dreamt that Purdue emailed me early because they LOVED ME SO MUCH. I knew it couldn't be real, so IN MY DREAM, I woke up, checked my email, and the emailed acceptance was still there! Since I thought I had "woken up," I believed that the email was real.
 
Then, I woke up. In real life. Checked my email, and there was NOTHING. This has happened twice, now. My brain is out to get me...
 
[insert .gif of person with crazy eyes darting from left to right. (Seriously, I have no idea where ya'll find these amazing .gifs all the time)]

Do you use PPTs during discussion or while you lecture? The prof I'm TAing for right now does, and he color-codes his slides. If the background is green, students are free to ask questions related to that or the previous material. If the backgroud color is e.g. yellow, it means don't interrupt. And so forth. Of course he explains the system to the class at the beginning of the semester/at the point when it becomes necessary to do so.

That doesn't help deal with the "unrelated tangents" problem, but it might keep them more manageable time-wise, and thus be fairer to the rest of the class as well as still giving your enthusiastic but needing a little help student a legit chance to engage.

The prof has also remarked that he started getting more questions in general once he implemented the color-coded slides. Apparently students felt like he was giving them "permission" to ask questions, even though ostensibly the floor had always been open for them. So there's that as well!

Hello! As someone who is in a WMST/FEMST/GNDST Ph.D program and hearing everything about the trajectory of the field, I would say that certificates and minors are carrying less weight the more that holding an actual interdisiciplinary Ph.D in WMST/FEMST/GNDST is becoming a thing. I'd say that if you did something else interdisciplinary like American Studies or African American Studies that it would help you get a gender studies-type job a lot better than would something more traditional like English. Conversely, if you want to be hired as an English professor, don't get a Ph.D in gender studies Hope this helps!