telemaque

Nice! That has to be good news... On the topic of lost/missing application components, I had this same experience a couple weeks ago and as nice as technology is - and I truly do appreciate being able to submit stuff online and pay app fees online and such - there is something to be said for how this worked when I applied to college, i.e. putting transcripts/printed essays/sealed letters of recommendations/etc in a big envelope and sending it in myself. At least I was more confident that everything had gotten there...now I keep freaking out about whether all of my schools really have all of the rec letters/transcripts/etc.

Congrats!!!

Seriously? Not the second week of February maybe??

I was thinking the same thing...still strange.

Um. Does anyone want to discuss why there's a Michigan Middle Eastern history interview on the results board...when Michigan wasn't accepting applications this year?

Currently: Hitler's Foreign Workers (Ulrich Herbert) and A Civil Action (forget the author...made into a movie with John Travolta, children get leukemia, John Travolta sues big corporations, big corporations bankrupt John Travolta). Also articles on slavery in early America for one of my classes. Needless to say, it's a pretty dismal reading list at the moment.

This is kind of off topic, but I thought installing something like Lion on my macbook would at least keep me off gradcafe for a solid amount of hours this weekend. Does anyone have any thoughts about whether it's worth the $30? Specifically, I've read complaints about battery life decreasing precipitously and stuff randomly crashing, etc. I'm clearly not a computer person (I'm in history), so I would love any more informed opinions about this. I got my current Macbook Pro in mid 2010 and it's version 10.6.8 I believe, if that matters. Thank you sooo much tech-literate people!

I'd actually love to know how this works in general when faculty are on leave during the admissions process...

Yeah, seriously, congrats to whoever got into WashU - wasn't their app due a week or two ago? Must have been an incredibly strong candidate!

True story.

Somehow I am still nervous. I'm flying home next Friday afternoon...there will most likely be some violations of airplane mode during that flight.

Agreed on all counts! Two acceptances at this point is awesome, this probably is the calm before the (hopefully extremely pleasant, rewarding, and beneficent) storm, and this thread is going to be crazy long.

Awww. Yeah...my classmates are more used to law school rolling admissions and started asking me if I'd gotten in anywhere in early December. I kept telling them I hadn't even submitted all my applications yet, and then they'd ask me the next day...

One of my professors saw me in the hall today and told me to stop by any time as "things start unfolding"...and I said something about how I would be content with another couple of weeks without any unfolding. But I guess this thing has to start sometime!

Aren't things happening way earlier than they did last year?

Yes, congrats to the Duke acceptance! Does anyone know if Duke usually sends out all acceptances at once?

YAYYYY congrats!!!! That's amazing and must be SUCH a relief!

And congrats!!

I think in past years Yale has referred PhD applicants to the various area studies MA programs in late January, so it doesn't seem out of the ordinary/connected to the interviews necessarily.

Congrats!!!

Being neurotic? Right here, me! I have to say, though, my apartment is spotless as a result of all this worrying. Although isn't this week kind of early to be hearing given the pattern from last year?

omg agreed.

This is anecdotal, and I'm sure someone will have firsthand advice, but one of my close friends lived there her first year of a PhD at Penn and wasn't impressed. She didn't think it was godawful, but definitely wasn't impressed and thought that for the money, you could do better in the neighborhood surrounding Penn. She ended up moving the next year (or actually, maybe after only a semester) to an apartment in Center City. When I was considering moving to Philly a few years ago to attend Penn, she wholeheartedly recommended that I live in Center City/Rittenhouse, or at least not in grad housing. That being said, I generally think that if you don't have time to check out the non-Penn housing options before you arrive, it might not be a bad idea. Oh, and I actually think the area around Penn is pretty nice...it doesn't have the big city feel of Center City, but it's certainly not a bad area and there are restaurants/coffee shops/shopping/pretty much everything you'd need. I'm a huge Philly fan

I haven't been getting them at any regular interval, so I wouldn't worry about it...maybe there's some sort of stochastic element to which applicants get the update email on which particular day?

I'm in another field (history) but wanted to just chime in re: the weekly Duke "updates"...which aren't so much updates as they are likely to give me cardiac incidents. Ahhhh.