efficient biped

my friend just got a rejection email. down go the dominoes.

The first half of April??? This is ridiculous! I guess they're really pushing for that April 15th deadline, too. I feel bad for anyone relying on NSF decisions to make their choices on which programs to go to. I think of all years, this would be the worst timing for it since funding for so many PhD programs have been cut to the point where students faculty particularly wanted couldn't even be offered support. That dominoes down to folks who are on waitlists waiting for offered people to back out of their spot. I'm not in that boat, thankfully, but still. I feel their pain.

Maybe all the waiting is just a ruse. Maybe they really ARE too "busy" doing something else... http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-sci ... 2009-04-07

Thinking about this is giving me gas... HAHAHA. i kid. But no, really. I'm glad I'm not the only one sharing in all this anxiety. :| it's only a couple more days... i hope they don't wait until April 14th, or something evil like that.

Got home today after a long night of catching up with people... and also after multiple pitchers of Sangria... to find a GW Hominid Paleobiology small envelope on the dining table. It was a standardized rejection letter with a scribbled personal message from my prospective adviser saying that though they couldn't offer me a spot, to keep in touch. Gotta say, it's TOTALLY okay. As long as we all make it on the radars of our respective anthro rock-stars, we're all going to eventually work with them and become oober successful in our respective fields of study. It may be the pitchers of Sangria talking, but if you're driven enough, it'll all work out! Keep your heads up guys, it's gonna happen eventually. The universe isn't against us.

I chatted with the faculty on the phone in early feb and was at NYCEP's Darwin Conference so I spent some time chatting with a couple of the GW profs and grad students at the bar. It doesn't really make a difference to me now since I've already accepted an offer from my top choice program, but I was curious nonetheless. They've taken so long to make their offers so I was just wondering.

:? I wonder who it was that has heard from Homind Paleobio at GW. At least they've finally made their decisions. Amen to that.

CUNY NYCEP: I don't know if this would pertain to all the different universities in the NYCEP program, but I was chatting with one of the profs last Thursday and at that point they hadn't made a decision yet (but were supposedly meant to meet soon and finalize). I'm assuming they're going to do so sometime this week. NYU Anthropology: I don't know if each subdiscipline has a different schedule, but I was definitely (or at least only) referring to the Phys Anth faculty. I'm assuming they also still are waiting to hear from their first picks so they can definitively say something to their waitlisted candidates.

My friends in the program told me. I'm surprised they haven't finalized decisions already. It sounds so late compared to the previous years. Good luck!

Did he actually concretely say whether or not you made the cut? As far as NYU is concerned, they are now just waiting to hear from the students they offered admission to. They accepted 5 and have spots for 4 from what I was told.

Has anyone heard anything concrete from GW Hominid Paleobiology or NYU Anthropology? I know they were still meeting with students over the weekend at the NYCEP Darwin conference and were set to meet again this week. NYCEP (at least a couple of folks) are still deciding and are set to meet soon to finalize offers.