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Potent drug

brand new

Oh gosh. It seems like my SO and my parents have told EVERYBODY that I'm applying to PhD programs. Way to increase the pressure tenfold, guys.

Congrats!!! You're on fire.

Thanks for doing that so I didn't have to. As you said, some fees are all the more prohibitively expensive for applicants from certain countries, in proportion to their annual income in dollars. I'm really glad not to be faced by that particular challenge.

Oh gosh, I just had my first real fake out moment. Email from one of my programs with the subject: "Thank you for applying for admission to Fake Out Department" Thought it was a generic rejection email, but nope, it was a link to an applicant survey to "improve the admission process." The irony!

UPenn doesn't do interviews and apparently sends out notifications after the first week of Feb, so things seem to be on track for now?

It's really stressful waiting, but there's no need to panic if you know that your schools don't send out notifications at this time (according to the Results survey). The other schools I've applied to won't send out notifications for at least two weeks, so I'm trying not to think about them. Also, it's not over until April 15!

AHHHH congratulations!! Now you're definitely going somewhere!!

I would visit schools that I'm genuinely considering attending. You might really click with POIs at one place, and discover deal breakers at another. The scheduling does sound a bit nightmareish though. Two days seems enough to recuperate (to me) if the flight isn't too long. You could start preparing for the interview now so that you just have to refresh your memory during those two days. How many schools do you have yet to hear from? Do you rank them higher than the ones you've already gotten into?

Yeah, one of my letter writers said she's sure I'll have multiple acceptances to choose from, and that kind of expectation just adds to my anxiety. I'm not monitoring the application sites. One of mine changed from "submitted" to "complete and ready for review" once they added my transcripts and GRE to the file (within a couple of days). The others just say submitted.

Right click the app, go into Options, and set "Check interval". You can also select "advanced" and further specify which alerts you'd like. It's definitely helped me stop checking the board or clicking the app to manually refresh.

I have this too! And in the dream, I'm stunned and dismayed that I either willfully chose to neglect an entire class or totally forgot it existed -- but it's always too late to do anything about it!

I actually set Page Monitor to perform checks regularly in the background, and to display an alert and play a sound if there's anything new. Might help?

Oh gosh. Maybe it's a good sign that they want to see it? Did you get a personalized email or a website notification?

Thanks guys!! I'm super excited. No idea how many people they're interviewing.

OMG I just got an interview invite from my top choice.

Just a note that commuting from St George to UTM every day will suck, and be expensive -- you'll have to take the subway, then the GO train, and then a bus. Or just a super long subway ride and one or two buses. But yeah, living downtown is a LOT nicer than out in Mississauga (but I'm not a fan of the suburbs).

Thanks for this! Hopefully it'll save me a few shreds of sanity!

Last year, Cornell sent out interviews TOMORROW.

What's the point of applying to schools that you have no intention of attending? I applied to one school for my master's, and luckily, that worked out for me and I got in. That approach isn't advisable for PhD programs since they're more selective, but there's not much you can do if you're geographically constrained. See how it goes and be prepared to reapply next year if need be.

Toronto seems to make the most sense for you. It may not be as exciting as London, but it's a nice city. The schools are of roughly the same caliber, I'd say. The UofT degree is professional, which suits you since you're not looking to go into academia, and plus, it's close to both your girlfriend and DC/Buffalo for potential networking. If you go to UCL, it seems you might have to argue that your skills (and knowledge acquired on a different continent) are transferable.

Switched from the mobile version to the full site just so I could upvote you.

Sorry to hear that, Autumn. But it's great that the first two responses from schools have both been interview invites, and it'll serve as good practice for the next one. When's your next interview?

Nice!! Congrats!!