sansao

Tell me about it. I barely slept last night. I awoke to an email at 3am, only to realize that I hadn't turned off all of my social networking notifications. That was the end of sleep for me, and I almost deleted that particular network account, lol.

I posted something similar to someone in another thread, but here's a way to look at your odds that might boost your confidence, or at least be some consolation. Consider the number of schools you're applying to. There are three possible final outcomes (I'm excluding interviews here). So if you take that number and raise it to the third power (fourth power if you want to include interviews), that's how many possible combinations of admissions decisions there are for you. The only bad options are: all waitlists (which may not turn out to be bad), and all rejections. So for me, I applied to four schools, that means there are 64 possible outcomes, and only one of them is awful. These include all possible combinations of rejections, waitlists, and interviews. Of course, if you get a rejection, you have to recalculate with the lower number, and that could be alarming, but imho, it's still better than looking at it as a countdown from 4 to 1. Try it, feel better, drink some coffee, and proceed to the refresh button.

I only applied to four schools. I don't know if it's different in Master's programs, your field, or Canada.. but one of my lor writers, when I announced that I had narrowed my search to 11 schools, and thought that should be sufficient, told me there was no reason to apply to a lot of schools, and that I should cut it down to 3 or 4. But, I'm in geoscience, the US, and applying to PhD programs, so I don't know if that makes a difference or not. Look at it this way, there's 9 possible combinations of admissions decisions for your applications. Only one of those is really total disaster (all rejections), though we hope that three waitlists don't happen either. Good luck!

pelevinfan, guess you posted at the same time as me. That would irk me too. I haven't asked peers at my undergrad institution where they're applying to. I don't want to know if I'm competing with them, and I certainly don't want to know if they got accepted or interviewed at my top choice, at least not until I know where I'm going. refreshrefreshrefreshrefreshrefresh...

I suspect one acceptance will fix this for you. Then you know you're in the clear as far as getting to go somewhere, and you can be happy for them being in the clear too. But as kdok said, their admissions don't have any bearing on your admissions (especially since they're applying to different programs), so there's no reason to be upset. Jealous, maybe... angry, not so much.

1. I am more terrified of rejection than I thought, but I've found ways to pre-emptively deal with it. Working out my plan B, reading rejection posts and articles, and considering each school rejecting me before they have the chance. I'm sure I'll still be disappointed, but a lot of the things that I hadn't considered have now been considered an dealt with. Note: I say this as I unsubscribe from all mailing lists and check my spam mail. 2. Amazingly, despite all of my issues and shortcomings, I am graduating in 3 months. I was losing that accomplishment in the midst of all these applications. It took me 8 years, with 3 years of medical and psych issues causing me to withdraw, two universities, and about 10 doctors to get it sorted out. But I did it, that's a real accomplishment, I need to stop selling myself short because of what may or may not happen in the future. 3. People are amazingly ignorant when it comes to education. 4. Support from strangers is far more encouraging than I expected.

I've been kinda lucky with people I suppose. Obviously I got the, "you'll get in somewhere," (mostly from current grad student friends, strangely). My favorites were from my partner, "So do you know where we're moving yet?" (committment is so fantastic), and from a friend of mine who's generally got no idea about the process whatsoever: "Come on, you know you'll have to decide between all four. The only one that could possibly be up in the air is (insert top program at top school here), and that's just because they're snobs." My parent's have been mercifully silent, just asking occasionally if I've heard anything, and promising not to call me with news of snail mail unless it's a big envelope. They apparently know I want to go cry in private if I get a rejection. I still printed the pamphlet from the other thread for them, though.

That's what I keep telling myself between panic attacks. It doesn't help that it shows my sop was printed yesterday (by someone other than me... yikes), or that I can now access areas that were previously unavailable (finaid portal - though it won't let me actually setup a finaid account yet). Sigh. My head may implode before this process is over.

So, I went to check my application status at a particular university. I had previously had to use my application ID to log in. If I used my "student ID," it said an account had not been set up. Today it let me log in with my "student ID." But there's still no status other than "received." Surely this has some deeper meaning, yes?

A lot of the electronic requests for lors went to my profs' spam accounts, so you probably do want to keep tabs.

Ahem... "The Waiting" - Tom Petty. Too obvious?

I'm trying to stay positive: "I remedied the situation as soon as I knew about it," etc. If you strip out the withdrawals, and just look at my completed courses, I have a decent GPA with a broad scientific background and a year of research. I'm hoping that they at least consider it in this context, in addition to evaluating the overall situation. Plus, there's no reason to view it as a blemish, the adcoms can do that, but I'm trying to maintain a personal distance from judging myself on it. It's something that was handed to me, not something I chose. Plan B, yeah... I'm scared about that too. It's something I can do to get by, but not something I really want to do. And it doesn't have anything to do with fear of the real world, I waited 7 years before I went to college, so I'm familiar with what that entails. For me at least, it's all about getting the education I want, self-optimization, and having a better life than I did before I went to college. On that note, I'm off to class, which means three hours of not refreshing my email. Damn.

I know how you feel. I don't want to have to run out of class to have a breakdown. But hey, you've still got quite a few applications in, so I wouldn't think about crying yet, though I know if you invested a lot of research into the location, that just makes it worse. Crossing fingers for you.

Reading up certainly wouldn't hurt. I know when I was corresponding with faculty at my POIs, I asked for (and read) literature from every single one who replied to my inquiries. The application process was almost the equivalent of an extra course on account of it, but it did help me figure out which faculty and programs I felt were best suited to me. I guess at this point, speculation is exactly that. But I'd still be speculating instead of sleeping.

Haha, tell me about it. Although I think I can safely replace "could" in that statement "will most certainly." It would be nice if I could focus on other things, like actually graduating. ...(or ANY other things, for that matter)

I'd be optimistic if I had an interview situation like that. If nothing else, because it's not a rejection. Also, if they're asking about faculty you'd like to work with, that could be a very good sign. This could also be par for the course for your POI, though, so you might not want to read something between the lines that isn't necessarily there. Still, if I got such an invite, I'd probably be all dizzy and butterflied inside. Also, I think Kitkat made some very good points, and would take all of those opportunities as well. Good luck!

@hope4fall2012: Thanks for the support. I didn't think the end of January would ever get here (and I was hoping I'd have an admit from somewhere when it did), but here we go with the neruotic page refreshes, I guess... @coffeeplease: Oh yes, I addressed both issues in the application, and yeah, I've been maintaining the mental health situation since I got the diagnosis. Really, it explained a lot about my life in general, and the treatment thus far has been amazing. I guess I'm one of those rare situations where the medication works the way it's supposed to. Of course, my university psychiatrist is awesome, and that helps too. I guess mostly I'm afraid that life situations that were out of my control, or at least unknown to me at the time, will sabotage my chances. I have a plan B, but it's not nearly as enticing as pursuing a field I'm passionate about.

It's now February 2nd, and the silence is more deafening than ever. One would think that being an older student should help with patience and nerves. Apparently not. I can't believe that something as simple as leap year has increased my anxiety to this point. "You mean I have to wait through 29 days in February? That's so the opposite of fair." Of course, looking through all the decisions on the Grad Cafe that have already come in for 2012 (even for the schools to which I applied) is not helping. "You mean they already started admitting? What about me? Is the timeline for 2011 applicable for 2012? Help. Me. H E L P." Haha. Is anyone else rather mortified by the lack of a decsion in January? (yes, I know how ridiculous this probably is). I completed all of my applications in November, though my lors took a while - in some cases beyond the deadline - to arrive. This must have meant that I've been rejected from all the schools, right? Here's a question: I have a fair GPA (3.40), really solid recommendations, 4-5 of them for each school, in fact. My GREs were not so hot, but not really sub-par either, and my statements (having re-read them about 10 times now) were actually pretty strong. I have internships and a year of undergrad research under my belt. I should be a shoe-in somewhere, yes? Here's my fatal flaw, so to speak. I was an undiagnosed bipolar wreck. So I have a lot - like 3 years worth - of Ws (withdrawals) on my transcripts. Am I totally screwed? I reiterate: H E L P. Applied: 4 Admitted 0/4 Waitlisted 0/4 Rejected 0/4