havoks

I won't say which school, but I visited a school in Canada and spoke with several of the graduate students there. More than half of them attended that school for their undergrad and that was the reason I was so reluctant to go to that school; it wasn't a "top-tier" school to begin with, and the students seemed delusional about the reputation their department had. E.g., "I stayed [here] because the program is the best in Canada ... You also get a lot of experience on the way to your PhD. You need to write a master's thesis... even if it doesn't work out most of the time, no other schools give you that experience." I was speaking to students that were in their 1st to 5th years. This made me realize two few things: their students are poorly informed/trained, and I would have to be working with them. Thankfully, I got a MUCH better offer a few days later... but it seems like, for that school, "academic inbreeding" was creating some issues ("closed-mindedness"). I would not have wanted to graduate from a school with a reputation for matriculating mostly their own UGs for their grad programs. Regarding the student saying that they stayed with their UG school because they have the best program in Canada... when I was discussing schools with my professors/mentors, they gave me advice on which schools had great programs that they recommended I try applying to. They listed schools that I would have never thought of myself. When I brought up "that school" one of the professors said bluntly "why the hell would you want to go there?" Honestly not sure how this all fits with the conversation here but thought I'd share anyways.

I applied to 9 programs, and so far got rejected from 6. When the rejections were coming in, my only offer was from a "backup school" and I had lost hope that any of my preferred schools would be interested in me. However, I ended up receiving an offer to one of my top choices, which apparently only extended offers to 20 out of over 300 applicants. I still haven't heard from the third school, but I am not holding my breath. My credentials are certainly not as good as yours: 3.6 GPA (my last 2 years was 3.8); no publishable research, although I had a variety of research and teaching experience; and 1320 GRE (Q: 750, V: 570, A: 3.5). I believe it ultimately came down to research fit and my POI's desire to have my skills in his lab. In my personal statement, I really sold the fact that I had a major interest in software and programming; I found out that my POI's lab is currently undertaking several projects that would benefit from having an in-house programmer. This was definitely a boon when coupled with our compatible research interests. Like others have said, most likely you were overlooked because of your GRE score. If not, maybe your statement did not express your research goals clearly, or it really came down to your goals not being compatible with the programs/POIs you applied to.

I ended up emailing my POIs to ask about the status of my application and 3 out of 4 said my application was no longer being considered/pursued. One of them said "you are still being considered. In fact, let's have a chat soon"

I received a phone call from a potential supervisor saying they were interested in taking me on as a student (they weren't my original POI). However, they basically wanted me to let them know this weekend if I was interested in going to their school, even though if I received an offer I would have until April to accept. I took this to mean that they won't bother sending me an official offer if there's a chance of me rejecting it. I wouldn't mind going to this school, but it definitely isn't one of my top choices. I'm thinking I could say I'll go, and then reject the offer if need be, but that's in poor taste. On the other hand, I'm afraid that if I'm honest and say I'd like to make a decision after hearing from other schools, they might not even send me an offer. Any advice or thoughts?