finknottle

Well, not adversely at least. You might not be better off than what you were before mailing them, but you aren't any worse off either. Not unless you have been writing absolute drivel to these professors, which I'm sure you haven't been. Most of these guys are extremely busy, and the hard truth is that unless you have off the wall stats and some published results, they might not take your seriously and not invest the time or effort to reply to your mails and reciprocate the interest. You can't do much about it either. Not at this stage at least. So just hope for the best. Besides, from my experience at least, even if you get the cursory reply from them, it doesn't mean much. Like I said, unless you are the golden boy/girl and they are really interested in working with you, most mails will have the disclaimer that they find your interests relevant, but they don't offer admissions personally. There is a committee that decides things and that's that.

I think the trouble started one March when the Hatter murdered 'time' by singing, "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at! Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky." To quote the Hatter, `he(time) won't do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now.'

Penn State's MS CS results are out too.

Should be out in March first/second week from last year's trend. A few might have gone out too. I don't know anyone though.

I'm sure you know the answer to that before hand, which is, 'Not really'. There is no point speculating really. Even if you are on a waiting list, knowing so doesn't change much unless you know the exact rank by which you are waitlisted. That is, the wait-list pool can be huge and you can be anywhere in it.

That sounds really bad. More so because there is nothing that you could have done differently to prevent it. While I wouldn't have the nerve to ask my professors to share the recommendations with me, I feel that it is important that we explicitly ask them if they would write a 'strong' letter. Well, in a sense a letter of recommendation by definition should be a strong one, but since it's such a subjective thing, its best that we clarify things beforehand to avoid such surprises.

You'll have to ask ETS. No point speculating.

Yes that is correct, provided you don't order score reports till August '12. If you order score reports before that, they'll send all the valid scores to the universities (either physically or electronically) and it is possible that the universities will copy them to their internal database. So, even if your scores expire in August, they can still be accessible. So yeah, don't order them till August '12. And check with ETS regarding the specifics. Edit: I assumed that you don't want your old scores to be reported. If it's the other way round, and you want to avoid writing the GRE again and use your old scores, you'll have to write to universities individually to check if it works. If you are planning to apply to a lot of programs, it is safe to assume that you will have to write it again since there will be at least one university that won't accept it. If, however, you are apply to only a few, you can write to them and check. Basically, you'l have to order the scores just before they expire and make sure that they get logged and matched against your application, which is rather difficult to complete by August. Most applications just about open in August or September. All in all, not worth the effort. Write it again.

Any news about the normal (not professional) MS program ?

For UMich, Wolverine -> Students -> New and Prospective Students -> Application Status. If you can't see the link, they probably haven't updated their database for your application yet. How long has it been since you submitted your form? Did you receive a mail from them saying that you can check the status? In any case, Wolverine doesn't have any new information apart from whether or not your transcripts have been received and ticked off by them. If they make a decision, they will notify you anyway. So you aren't losing out on much.

http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/

I mean people can still evaluate your profile/ chances, but you still have a year, and you can do a lot of interesting stuff in that duration. What you do during this year will affect your chances in a non-trivial way, for better or for worse. So don't worry about grad apps. Not yet. Make good use of the year, and you'll get a more accurate assessment when you are actually applying. Worrying about applications so early will only make your life more miserable.

Not all schools send a confirmation mail. Also, just because your bank statement was missing, it doesn't naturally imply that your app wasn't looked at at all. Most schools don't ask for financial documents at the time of applying. I think I saw only one school, Georgia Tech, which did, but after contacting their dept., they said that it wasn't mandatory and won't affect the decision. My point being that the department isn't really concerned with your finances. The grad office on the whole is, but I doubt if they would let that stall the review. In any case, if you have built a good rapport with someone in the admissions dept., you should ask if you can send updated documents. Can't hurt in any way. And if they say yes, it's your call.

Couple of things: 1) I don't know how late your deadlines are. Depending on that, it might not make much of a difference. Your application might already be going through the machinery. 2) Some schools explicitly say that if you send revised documents, they don't replace the older documents. They just get added. If that is the case, someone reading both the documents can find your additions a bit pretentious or desperate. That's the worst case scenario though.

Which term are you applying for? This year's deadlines have passed and its too early to evaluate chances for next year.

Yes, I'm completely in favour of using the forum for discussing pertinent issues or just talking about stuff to release stress. However, by using the same analogy, I can say that this post did the exact opposite. It irked me and induced stress, so to speak. It comes across as trollish and rhetorical. Even a bot can do a better job than this. And this isn't the first time the OP has posted a random four word question which is limited in its scope of getting meaningful responses, and which (s)he wouldn't care to elaborate upon him/herself. C'mon, are a lot of people really going to say that they love sobbing and posting about rejections on Facebook?

I had heard of a funding related case. Dept. was willing to offer admission, but grad school didn't since the applicant had probably mentioned that he can't attend unless funded. Funding related questions tend to be a bit ambiguous in some of these forms. If you fail to distinguish between 'needing' assistance and 'being considered' for assistance, such a problem can arise. After clarifying that he can fund himself, they reversed it.

dingo's kidney

Seriously? After a thread with 11 pages (and counting) on posting acceptances on facebook, another on on rejection? At the risk of getting flamed, I would ask, does facebook dominate everyone's lives so much? And while there can be understandable ambiguity over protocol and etiquette of posting acceptances on facebook, what possible subtleties are we trying to tackle here? If you post about your rejection, one of the three things would happen: 1) It would be ignored. 2) People will feel sorry for you and offer words of encouragement 3) People will make fun of you. Is there another dimension that I have missed?

I'm relying on time-dilation for one of my recommendations to turn in before a hard deadline.

Haha yes. Ailihphilia makes you write songs like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nej4xJe4Tdg

Not at all. You would have a good shot at professional Master's programs. You would have to do better than 70th %ile on the GRE though. Better than 90th %ile at least in the quantitative section. You should also consider writing the CS GRE. Since you don't have a formal degree in CS, the CS GRE in addition to the CS courses that you have taken should help you quite a bit. However, don't choose complimentary recipients for the CS GRE if you aren't confident about your performance. It isn't offered very often, and its not easy to write it again in the same season. Also, if you can get a more stable and recognized development job than coding on a contract basis, that would help a lot too. Professional Master's programs are relatively easier to get in to compared to their conventional counterparts. Keep in mind though that you wouldn't get any financial assistance in a professional program.

Guess what aibohphobia is? Pretty easy to work out.