amanda1655

I would just be happy if I would stop getting e-mails saying I was missing things I thought were in. Barring that, your idea sounds fantastic!

What surprised me when I was contacting professors was how different their responses were, even within the same university! At one school, I e-mailed one professor and received no response. I decided to e-mail a different professor and received a very positive response within hours saying that he thought the school would be a fantastic place for me to pursue my studies. My undergraduate advisor explained the situation to me this way. As a professor, you sometimes receive e-mails that interest you and that you kind-of want to respond to but you are busy and they get lost in your inbox. I think that may have been what happened with the first faculty member I e-mailed. That said, I had the same general attitude as you. Several of the professors that I e-mailed said that they didn't feel like the department could support my interests. I tried to view their candor in a positive way. After all, they were saving me time and money. If they didn't think that I fit with the program, it was unlikely I would be admited.

I am also applying to Illinois and WUSTL. I have spoken with one of the professors there and a few graduate students whom she put me in contact with. What exactly do you want to know about the program? I can't give you much more information about the competitiveness than they offer on the website. The average GRE score is in the 80%, and they don't mention the average GPA. The professor that I spoke to was extremely welcoming and even mentioned possibilities for my dissertation committee. This was before I mentioned any of my statistics or much more than what I wanted to study. The graduate student with I spoke said that she was extremely happy with the department and its collegial environment. She also mentioned that she felt like she was able to maintain a balance between school and her personal life. She also spoke highly of the other students. Overall, I have really liked the feel that I have gotten from the department and would probably choose it over some of the higher ranked schools to which I applied.

So I know that this is a little early to worry about this ...the earliest admission response that anyone posted last year from the schools I applied to is over a month away... but I was wondering how the admissions phone calls work. Do they generally call during business hours? If they don't get a hold of someone, do they leave a message or send an e-mail? I work during the day and there is a significant time difference between the schools I am applied to and me, so it is highly unlikely that I would actually receive their phone calls.

My professor said something similar but for totally different reasons. He said that because the volume of applications is so high that even second tier schools can be choosy. Also, professors will pick students with lower scores who match their interests or whose application excites them in some way over students with higher scores with unexciting projects. When I was applying, however, I still tried to pick some lower tier schools. When I e-mailed professors, though, I had interesting replies. It was the professors at the top-rated institutions who were interested in my project and encouraged me to apply, sending me multiple e-mails and the names of their grad students. The ones at the second and third-tier universities said that they didn't feel that their university had the resources to support my research. As a result, I ended up with a list that includes mostly top 10 schools and a few from the second tier. That makes me very, very nervous.

It was explained this way to me by a professor... Raw numbers will get the admissions committee to look seriously at your application, but they in no way ensure that you are accepted. After you have above a 3.75ish and a 90% GRE score (for top tier schools), it comes to down to intangible things like fit, quality of your statement of purpose and writing sample, and whether the professor reading your file saw something in your file that made them connect with you and want to fight for you. Although no one has ever said it directly, I'd guess that it may also have something to do with politics. If the professor that you want to work with is a dynamo in the department, they may have an easier time getting their students accepted than someone who has just been hired by the department or whose publication record isn't as stellar. The school may also choose not to accept someone because they already have enough graduate students in one area and need to admit people to fill up other spots. One of my friends wasn't admitted to a top ten school (her first choice) because the professor she wanted to work with was on sabbatical, so she had no one to fight for her. She met him later at a conference and he went back to his department and asked why she hadn't been admitted. That's when he and she found out what had happened. It's stuff like that that makes me worry.

I am applying British History and the Empire to Princeton, Yale, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Boston College, Harvard, and NYU. I have all but two applications submitted. What I don't understand is why the application deadlines begin on Dec. 1st but it takes the departments until late February/early March to respond.

I feel your pain... the program to which I am applied at Princeton has an 8% acceptance rate. What in the hell does that mean for my chances?! I have a 3.94 undergraduate GPA, a 4.0 in my master's, and I scored in 95% percentile on the Verbal portion of the GRE. I have good letters of recommendation, a good Statement of Purpose, and an honor's thesis to use as a writing sample, and I still feel as though I have a snowball's chance in you-know-where of being admitted. February and March are a very long ways away.