mv0027

Rejections first? Woah!

You don't mean that. I mean, isn't the reason we are all checking obsessively is because we know good news travels faster than bad news? when was last year's first rejection sent out? For sanity's sake, it is probably better to think of that as the start of the season!

Nah. From my experiences, PhD cohorts are fully of a bunch of random weirdos (like us!). I'm actually worried about lack of diversity in most these programs and hope mine (if I get in!) ends up being diverse. I'm currently live in DC and am bummed about likely having to move to a less diverse city.

I agree it will not matter much. I honestly think it is just cooler to do it in LaTex. If I was on an adcom, I would notice

Wow. Latex for the SOP. That is fancy. Didn't think to do that since there I had no formulas or references. Would have been a nice, sublet, touch though.

There is a certain amount of beauty in simplicity. Also, what is better than "hey, prof busy-pants, here is the link?" The auto-generate e-mail was only their recommended language. You could change it. If I get into MIT, I'm gonna go CrA-cRA!!! Their program seems boss.

At the end of the day, none of us can do anything that will change the amount of time it will take to hear back. Just the physics of it. Frankly, this outlet helps me a lot. It allows me to indulge in conversations and thoughts that would otherwise drive my friends, special friend, family, etc. crazy. Misery loves company.

I went back and forth on how much to judge a school for its application process. Much of it is institutional, but I couldn't help but judge. Having said that, MIT, in my opinion, had by far the best application. It is very simple, open, straight-forward, and flexible. Felt very open-source and I appreciate it. I can still log on and change my SOP! By far the worst experience was most of the UCs letter recommendations. Again though, that is likely institutional.

Most offensive thing I've ever read on this forum.

Hmm...maybe I'm getting in with the wrong crowd. I want to be the professor of the people! I'll teach you how to brew a good ole American IPA!!!!!

psh...if you are gonna bribe them, at least come up with something better than that!

I dunno. It was meant more tongue and cheek though. If I don't hear back from a school (like ever), I'll ask for my money back. In my book, paying the fees earns my application to right to be given fair consideration and a response.

I wouldn't get that nervous unless your entire application is marked as incomplete. If it is marked as complete, that means there look at it and you told them your GREs scores in the app. Worst case it is an administrative error you have to deal with. If it is still marked as incomplete, well, I'd ask for your money back. Yeah. The department code thing is annoying. I sent all my scores to the main university (even for schools that said use the department code) and all them received the scores pretty quickly.

Yes. I even sent Berkeley the wrong SOP (ha!). I e-mailed them and they correct it though. The staff was very helpful!

Post naked pictures of myself all over this forum...

Ha. I got TWO calls from unknown numbers yesterday and i totally freaked out. I failed to answer both and did not get a v-mail. I think they were just tele-pest, but I was hanging out with a bunch of friends and several of them commented on me seeming out of it for like 10 minutes after the calls. Emotions....blah.

I did my undergrad at UNT. Denton is probably the coolest town in all of north texas (admittedly, not the coolest area). The school and city are on the up too. Congrats.

I don't think that is true for pol sci, though it could be trending that way. For real quant heavy programs, they think that older candidates come with bad habits that are hard to break. Econ programs also don't want people that can think, they want people that can come up with new ways to calculate old elasticities. Again, I think pol sci is moving that way, but is balanced out by that fact that most younger candidates have no earthy idea what they are actually interested in / don't understand what it means to do a PhD. They tend to think it is just an extension of their undergrad. When I did my masters, I knew several PhD that dropped out after a year or two because they were totally blind sided by what, in my opinion, was exactly what they signed up for. I think this comes out in the SOP. I'm 28 and my work experience is way more impressive than my academic experience. I'm counting on this helping my application significantly.

I take great comfort when there is no mention a school I applied to. If I started seeing people talking about schools I applied on here, I'd probably start losing it... Only thing worse than a girl telling you no to dance is seeing her go with someone else. Maybe I should stop hanging out behind the gymnasium on Saturday nights...

At that point, I think there are few things you can say to change why they are calling. Would be fun to think of things you could say that might mess up an acceptance call

I plan to quit my job and hike the appalachian trail. I've already convinced myself I am not going to get in anywhere and, thanks to my back-up plan, I'm ok with it / excited!!!

Coolio. I was able to convince my mind there is no chance I would hear in the first half of January. I plan to start watching my phone and e-mail closely next week and then obsessively after that

Statements like this blow my mind. I mean, even if you had some type of inside info, I would believe it for one school, but four schools? I dunno. Maybe I'm totally clueless...

I had multiple issues with LORs. Everytime I reach out to the schools, they would just say have them e-mail directly to XYZ. I'm not sure if that will hurt my applications, but that happened at 3 schools for me! Eventually the applications were switched to "submitted" so it seams they do not mind upload it themselves. If it hasn't been resolved yet, I would just tell your recommender to e-mail the school directly.

Soo...as expected kinda freaking out about my odds. Anyone has insights on Canadian schools? I was born there, would love to go back. Do they like/dislike/do not care about American students? I'm considering apply. I'm telling myself it is easier to get into Canadian schools. Am I wrong? Wishful thinking?