Queen of Kale

I once had a professor enthusiastically respond to a letter request, make me follow him around like a puppy dog for about ten weeks to get it, and when he finally wrote the letter it was (literally) a sentence long. He handed it to me, open, with an envelope and was like, "I'm sure I could say more great things about you but they'll get the drift and I'm really busy right now." Then he started talking about how awesome he was while standing in front of the door to his office for like 45 minutes. So, he cost me a few months, wrote a terrible letter ignored that he wrote a terrible letter, and kept me from eating lunch that day. Also, I'm taking another class with him this semester and I can tell her thinks he's never met me before. Anyway, I just thanked him for the letter and recycled it on my way out of his office and found an emergency letter writer instead. You just never know.

I brought a local (to me) coffee for the whole lab group but somehow it ended up being the only lab in the world without a coffee maker. In any case, I don't think you can be too kind. Although, maybe a dozen roses would be overkill.

I think in some fields you can't really have a safety school because there are so few schools in your teeny tiny little specialty. I know, for what I want to do there are maybe the schools in the US and maybe another 10-15 globally. While they're not all tied by rank, the rank becomes meaningless because it is such a tight knit community and each school is funded enough to support what can be a costly type of lab. Instead, each school may have slightly different parameters or weighting standards when eyeing up potential candidates. I think in a small field like this, networking, personal contact, and the random element (so-and-so wants to diversify in this way, so-and-so is looking for this specific lab skill) trumps rank in determining which school will accept you. For this reason, when I decided to add a "safety school" or what I've come to think of as a "wild card" school - I had to choose one where I would do something entirely different, more likely for a Masters and not a PhD, with the idea that if the universe decided I shouldn't do Thing A - I would do Thing B and see if a few years later I missed Thing A at which point I'd give it another shot. Edited to add: incidentally my safety school is the only school I have yet to hear from, I'm guessing they could sense that I had to force the fit in my SOP

unorthodox lifestyle

I'm all about the Ben & Jerry's "Milk and Cookies" ice cream. By the pint.

I think every department has a different time table. I'm not in EE so I can't give good advice about the wait you might have. I'm sorry!

doll house

I was notified by e-mail only, and my status online still reads "in review" despite being accepted almost a month ago.

running joke

I don't have anything really valuable to add, except to say: "Dear Brown, I will shovel your snow in exchange for an answer" and also, Happy Mardi Gras everybody!

second base

CONGRATS ROCKBENDER!!!

endangered habitats

I've never been down-voted before - I feel publicly shamed! Anyway, I really was kidding, just trying to find the humor in what I know to be a stressful situation. But as I said - it can only be good news so congratulations are in order and I hope I didn't offend anyone.

drum machine

paint chip

Me too. It was motivation by fear. Without a "fall back" I was squeezing that last drop of effort out of my fried-up little brain.

environmental studies

Well, the truth is, I have no idea how common this is for a performing arts department. For science it's par for the course, but maybe not in the arts. But either way, its neutral to good news, at least you can without a doubt assume it's not bad news. Unless, they're luring you there to kidnap you and sell you into white slavery. I keeed, keeed!

lightweight champion

I've had three programs reimburse me up to $500 of travel spending - two post-acceptance and one pre-acceptance. For the post-acceptance instances my travel allowances were not indicative of my final financial package, ie; the travel stipend was the same but the offers significantly different. From my experience, t's great to have, take them up on the offer, but don't try to read too much into it as far as what your final financial support will be.

Thanks RafAkd, I'm keeping my fingers tightly crossed for you!

support garment

Accepted to UMich and UMN this week! Booked flights to visit UT and WashU (for interview) - it's all happening so fast. Good luck to everyone else, you guys stay on my mind, it's been good to know there are other people going through this crazy process.