CooCooCachoo

I'm transcribing, which is awfully boring and time-consuming, so I keep refreshing as well. The lack of news is rivaling transcription in tediousness.

I think they are doing it per subfield. You are theory, right? I was notified on Tuesday that my application was forwarded to the adcom. My subfield is IR.

Cornell: $22,900 per annum (5 years) $4,830 per summer (4 years) Health insurance Three years of TA-ships (max. 15 hrs. per week) Just looked at the rates for campus housing, which suggests that rent could gobble up roughly 40% of the annual stipend.

Thanks guys! Much appreciated, and I hope (more) good news is coming your way soon too.

I would argue that for a constructivist approach to IR, Cornell ranks as one of the best schools as well (P. Katzenstein & Evangelista).

The drought has ended! Cornell acceptance. Pretty dauntingly exciting to know that I'll be in the US within half a year.

My aunt thought the university I am currently doing a Master's degree at - the one with all those spires, and the carnage that ends up on Inspector Morse's plate - was a building in London. No kidding.

My family has no background whatsoever in academia. My sister - the only one in my direct family to have completed some form of tertiary education (akin to a polytechnic, not at uni) - didn't even know what a PhD was.

Watch RuPaul's Drag Race. Impossible not to make you laugh (and cringe, hm).

Got to love the clairvoyant who predicted to be accepted into the Univ of Texas - Dallas on the 17th of this month. If he/she would be so kind as to make some prognoses for my admissions as well, I'd be much obliged. Oh and even if today seems to be a wasted day for me, tomorrow strikes me as the most appropriate day for universities to declare their love for and to me. I'll even accept letters unaccompanied by roses, heart-shaped boxes and teddy bears. Thanks.

Many congrats! I concur. The deafening silence keeps being perpetuated. If only I could be this triumphant in my never-ending story:

I'm fully expecting a rejection from Princeton, but I do hope to hear soon. Quite disconcerted about some Berkeley and Minnesota acceptances having gone out, yet having no news whatsoever on my front. Someone mentioned earlier that they might have dreamt or hallucinated that they actually applied; I am more worried I have been academically blacklisted, ha.

Is anyone else confused about Berkeley? Only two reports on the survey, plus on or two others on the board it seems. And then someone reporting that they will release their decisions only at the end of the month. Really not sure what to make of all of this.

Haven't had the luxury of having any results coming in, so didn't realize that that's how it works. Thanks. Still funny though that people can't be bothered to select an appropriate spelling.

Someone seems to be so upset that he/she keeps reposting the rejection. Unless a bunch of people have collectively decided to change the spelling to "Massaachusett".

Moi. Not holding my breath either for today. Could be an agonizing few more weeks. Time to grab the bottle in despair.

I second brent09's comments. Your response to my post seems to suggest that I think GRE performance should be the sole criterion. The need for standardized tests seems pretty incontrovertible to me - there is simply not the capacity to scrutinize all applications in detail, so the number needs to be whittled down - and the GRE is, to my knowledge, the best way to do this. After an initial selection, the scores should no longer matter and those elements that you mention take center stage.

But surely it's a much better measure than TOEFL, which tests extremely basic language skills that PhD students should far surpass. For the current GRE you also don't need to remember words to the same extent as under the old format. Of course the test will disadvantage some whose English is excellent (such as yourself), as much as it misrepresents the language skills of other test-takers as more advanced, but on average I would venture that the GRE can accurately estimate people's level of English relative to that of their peers. I'm really sorry that your score does not speak to your ability, but I can't think of a better means of assessment.

Apart from the anomalous Berkeley admission, I am also struggling through a dry notification spell.

I am highly skeptical about the GRE as a measuring rod in general, but, as a non-native speaker I feel that I should be held to the same language standards as any other applicant. If you are not sufficiently conversant in English to master the vocabulary that the GRE assesses, or lack the comprehensive reading skills that it tests, you have no business pursuing an academic career in English in my opinion. What constitutes 'sufficient' and 'lack' is of course subject to debate - and I'm pretty gung-ho against rigorous cut-off points - but I don't find the components of the verbal test to be problematic an sich. I do take issue with the analytical writing part though, which seems to me a complete waste of time and detrimental to participants' concentration and confidence for the remainder of the GRE.

A Berkeley acceptance just popped up. Congrats to whoever got it. Someone please pass me the tranquilizers. Grazie.

NEW DAY. Bring it.

Congrats on the Vanderbilt acceptance! At the risk of being cyberslapped, I detest American Football, or any American sport really. Tennis all the way <3.

Let's hope those Duke rejections aren't setting the tone for this week. Chin up, guys and gals.

Notification, singular. Either it is fake (seems the likeliest option) or they have only allowed in a handful of students (or even one?) and are waiting with admitting the others. The status of my application, in any case, has not changed from submitted. Anyways, a new week of agony and anticipation is coming up. Best of luck to all those of us who are still stuck in perfect limbo.