amanda1655

I agree with missycari. Reading your post is a bit painful because any one of us could be in your situation. Michigan rejected or waitlisted 92% of their applicants this year. I am sure that UPenn, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, Wisconsin, and all of the other programs which are popular on this board had similar rejection rates. Anything could have been their deciding factor - the perceived tone of your essay, the conversations that you had with faculty members before you submitted your application, how well known your letters of recommendation writers were, really anything. I know the rejection letters sound hollow - we know you could have excelled in our program, this is no reflection on your excellent scholarship, etc.- but I bet if we were on the adcomms they would begin to sound more honest. Rejection isn't a judgement on you. It's the result of hard decisions that professors had to make in a short amount of time. Take misscari's suggestion, use this year to think about whether or not you want to reapply and try to determine how you could improve your app. If you need an SOP read or any advice, I am sure any on this board would be willing to help.

Sorry to hear that, Cornell. Keep in mind how random this whole thing is. People get into Harvard who don't get into lower ranked places. Princeton will take someone that Yale wouldn't. Cornell will reject someone who Columbia loved. It all depends on who is reading your statement.

It is on March 16, 17, and 18. I am not sure about whether waitlisted students attending. I do know that Michigan tries to have an incoming class of 20 and that they accepted 33 students. Right now, my first choice is Michigan so I probably won't be turning down my acceptance.

I know I hate to fly, too. Amtrak from where I'm from would take 34 hours... but it actually sounds fun. I might do it if a friend was coming along. Alone, I don't know. As for cost, isn't Michigan paying?

Cornell and groundball... I guess we'll just have be so innotative and fantastic that we generate interest in our field again. The bonus in my subfield is that it is beginning to change and become more innotative, which is beginning to translate into more interest in the United States but hasn't resulted in more opportunities for grad school... yet. NSGoddess Q and other Michigan acceptees - are you going to the official admit day or going early? I plan to attend the official visit day, even though it means that I have to rearrange some things I had already planned.

I don't want to be a killjoy but I interpreted her statement to be neutral. You are on the list of people to be notified. Of course, my policy right now is to assume nothing, so I may just be overly cautious.

I know how you feel BC08... My writing sample was also light on primary source material, which can be difficult to obtain when you are funding yourself and going to school in the rural mountain west. One of the things that has helped me this application season is to remember that I knew it would be hard going in. I am in a relatively understudied area of British history with few professors at major research universities. I only applied to three universities with professors who focused on my specific subfield. The rest were universities with professors who studied British history with similar thematic interests and who were sympathetic to my plight (Interestly, my best offer so far has come from one of these). Even those who were sympathetic let me know I might have a hard time in committee because of my interests and that if they weren't able to let me in, it wasn't necessarily because of my numbers or abilities. The advantage of studying in an understudied area of British history, though, is that if you do interesting work in grad school you can become a top scholar in your field more quickly.

I plan on taking some language courses this summer but most of the universities I applied to also have reading courses designed to help students pass the exam rather than the develop full proficiency in the language. There are also books designed to develop reading ability in languages.

Cari - The best part is we can spend a semester in Spain eating tamales and sopapillas and dancing with flamenco dancers. As for you, NSGoddessQ, I am sure we can come up with something. Do not fear!

Haha! I have the same plan. I keep thinking of ways that I could incorporate the Basque into my dissertation. Perhaps a comparison between the Irish Literary Revival and the Basque separatists at the turn of the century. Maybe Spanish history will see a renaissance. If so, it can thank the thousands of high school teachers who encouraged their students to take Spanish instead of French or German because Spanish was so much more useful.

I think you'll be fine. I sent Michigan a resume with Wisconsin's name on it. I realized it shortly after I submitted the app and called the grad secretary who fixed it. I was freaking out for weeks but in the end, Michigan still admitted me. The only place where you might have a problem is a place like Princeton where they use your b-day to track your app.

The point is you need to find where you were weak and fix it. Heck, the problem could be you didn't apply to a wide enough variety of schools. I don't know. Each individual candidate will be different. I probably emphasized languages because I know that's where I'm weak. I have 2 years of Spanish, 1 year of German, and 1 semester of French. I could use a bit more French and German, especially since my emphasis is British History. Also, you don't have to e-mail schools having a professor look over your essays isn't a bad idea.

I actually know a few students who did contact the department to see why they weren't admitted (I think Minnesotan did this the first time he applied as well). Some received helpful feedback... insufficient language prep, weak writing skills, etc. Others didn't. It's a grab bag. What's important is finding out where you can improve. Maybe you didn't apply to a wide enough range of schools. Maybe you need to spend a year or two studying a language. The key is to improve your application so you have better results next year. It may sound harsh but if you don't find out where your app was weak, you may setting yourself up for disappointment.

What kind of information is on there? I checked my credit card account, and no new charges but I am worried about my other information. I am half-tempted to download the file to check to see how much information about me, if any, is on there. Now I wish I hadn't applied to Harvard.... I probably won't go there even if accepted and now my information has possibly been hacked.

My undergraduate advisor was very helpful... he suggested professors I should work with, warned about certain people who students had difficulty with in the past, e-mailed people nearer to my specific field to ask for suggestions, read my personal statement who knows how many times, and gave me advice after the acceptances and rejections started coming in. My advice for you: Wait for all of the acceptances and rejections to come in. If you don't get in anywhere, take a breath and don't think about them for a while. If you decide that you would still like to go, try to find a master's program with a late application date. Maybe one in April? Apply there. OR, get a job (if you don't already have one), contact the schools you applied to and find out why you were rejected, and then reapply next year when you can make better informed application choices. Remember the graduate schools are a bit random in who they admit and decline. I went into this knowing I would have an uphill battle despite my test scores, GPA, SOP, and writing sample being good because I came from a liberal arts college no one had heard of. My professor said my application would have to be good enough to make people overcome their initial reaction of "where in the crap is that?" when they saw where I had attended college. In spite of that, I have been admitted to Wisconsin and Michigan and the adcomm at Yale took enough interest in my application to move to their MA program after they decided they would be unable to offer me a spot in the PhD program. Illinois just said no. Who could have predicted that I would get into two top ten programs and be rejected from one in the 20 - 30 range? No one. My point: the rejections are not a reflection of you. They mean that this year, the particular adcomms who looked at your file were more interested in other candidates. Next year, it might be different, especially if you improve your application. DON'T give up on the applications you have remaining. You never know who will be interested in which candidate and why.

I won't be answering Michigan until I visit Wisconsin on April 5 and 6, but the professor who called me urged me to let them know as soon as possible whether I would be rejecting or accepting their offer so that they can move to a waitlist if necessary. Most schools keep a few students (or a lot of students on a waitlist) just in case an usually high number of students decline their offer.

Michigan received 400 applicants... accepted 33... at least 4 of those post on gradcafe. I think that speaks pretty well for the quality of applicant on here. And well for those who haven't received an acceptance yet.

Explain your situation to them. I think it's legitimate and the person who may ultimately get your funding if you decline will thank you.

No change here.... the professor who called me said that we should be receiving an e-mail message on Wednesday or Thursday with all of the information. The professors we want to study with should also be contacting us around the same time. And, then that will be followed by a mailing late this week/early next week with all of the information in hard copy. On a side note, I made a comment about how I heard that Ann Arbor was a nice town, and the professor paused for a moment and said, "Umm... not right now. Maybe in the summer." Then he started talking about how it was a company town (the company being UMich) and it was nice because there was nothing to distract you from your studies. Not exactly a stunning recommendation for Ann Arbor. Oh well, Michigan and Wisconsin were my two top choices and remain so.

Early Modern/Modern British History.

Wow! 10:00 p.m.?! I didn't call them because it was 9:00 p.m. Michigan time when I finally got home. Guess I shouldn't have cared. My calls came at 1:30 and 2:15 PST. I'll call 'em tomorrow.

Oh no! I missed two phone calls from Ann Arbor, MI and there's no phone message attached to either. I don't know anyone from MI, so it's either the University or a telemarketer. I am too nervous to call it back, so I guess I'll just wait until tomorrow.

Don't fret... the original poster did say MSU specifically but then other people, not all of them, in the thread made the mistake of referring to MSU as Michigan. I am not too worried about Wolverine Access. I wish they would just stop worrying about whether the V in Vegas is capitalized and let me know what their decision is. I understood what they were talking about when they had Lasvegas. I also knew what they meant with the dozen other things they corrected. Why can't they have the gremlin type in admission decisions instead?

I think the Michigan thread is actually about Michigan State. It's rather confusing because within the thread the posters use the terms Michigan and Michigan State interchangeably, which they're not. At least in sports, UMich is called Michigan. I have a theory, though, that there is a gremlin who lives on the site and changes small details to drive applicants crazy. He only changes small things like capital letters on schools, deleting words like "the" from college's names, and slightly changing the name of the program you applied to. Seriously, though, who got the short stick of editing Wolverine Access to check for small errors? And, why have they had to do it at least six different times? I wouldn't worry too much about Harvard. ONE person has heard. They just send out official notices through the mail, and we don't know where the person lives. If he lives in Boston, it could be a few days before anyone in California or the Northwest hears. As far as NYU goes, someone posted that they had spoken with the graduate school secretary who told them that the interview notices have went out. BUT, so far no one on gradcafe, livejournal, or applycorner has received one. The secretary also said that not receiving is not a rejection, nor is receiving an acceptance. Some people have even suggested that if you are applying to a field with a joint program, like Irish history, Middle Eastern languages, etc. you won't receive one at all.

It was by mail. I was going to write that but I was at work and my boss walked in, forcing me to quickly finish what I was typing as he walked over. It surprised me who finally signed them.... she had always been quite punctual in the past when I had a question. I'm not too hurt. The letter was very nice - mentioned how they knew that I would have done very well in their program but the exponential growth of applications in recent years has forced them to change how they consider applications. Basically the same thing that Johns Hopkins said. I think the reason that it hurt less is that Wisconsin has already said yes, and I think I would actually take a Yale MA over an Illinois PhD.