nl03

Thanks for the input Well, it seems most PhD's seem to say the Ed.D. is not valuable, but I will say you do see plenty of Ed.D.'s teaching in colleges of Education It's unfortunate that it just seems like PhD-lite, like the exact same classes minus a few statistics courses or whatever. I would consider myself less interested in theory, and more interested in practice

well, that was actually just kind of a funny thought, but i just deleted it because you are right it did sound ridiculous. But in reality, there is one more PhD program that I am waiting to hear from that might have some good funding. In reality it is really just down to this school and one other, and I am leaning towards this school. However, after all of this, I have had to really take a look at the "backup" option. Let's keep this in perspective though guys: This program has not made me an offer. We've gotten all the way to "unofficial", but I actually have no idea how this will play out in the next few days. As I've learned in this situation, nothing is official until they make you the offer, and I thought in return nothing is official until I click accept. Like, for example, what if during all of this time, in which by the way I would have jumped at the chance to accept, another option kicks in a bigger scholarship for a PhD? In my opinion (and if you disagree, please be kind), the time that me and this program are figuring our business out, both they and I are still considering other options. I consider this like dating: They wanted to breakup with me for some confusion, during which time I would have agreed to marriage. I got them to reconsider the breakup, which they are doing. But no one has actually proposed yet, so both parties can still look around. If they are sure they want me to marry them, they need to hurry up and propose. They can't expect me to sit around on a Saturday night and wait by the phone. If that makes sense to anyone else but TXTiger, maybe you're right and I do need to consider if this will come back to haunt me in the future in my field

i'm in education, have lots of experience as a teacher, but planning to exit the classroom eventually. Right now my goal would be to work with new teachers in some capacity, at the university level or at some other alternative certification program would be great, but I feel that desire could change one day. The only thing that I cannot envision myself being interested in right now is research. It looks like I'm going to have two good offers in Curriculum and Instruction. I've already got one offer a Ph.D. at a University close to home, US News ranking in the top 120 School of Educations, unranked for Curriculum and Instruction. Benefits are it is cheap and I can do it full time. Disadvantage is that it is not a big name by any means it seems. The other offer looks like it will probably come, it is an Ed.D in the same subject at a University on the East Coast, top 30 education schools and Curriculum and Instruction program is ranked in the top 20 in the subfield. Advantages are a nice city, and prestige. Disadvantages are it is an Ed.D. not a Ph.D., and it is more expensive, and since I will be doing the part time option for the first year I will need to get a job. I need to work in the state for a year to become a resident, then i can redesignate and get the in state tuition and possibly do the full time option (there is a full time option). In my research online about PhD vs. EdD I am actually quite surprised at some of the bad rep an EdD gets. If I had to choose just straight out, I would probably go with the more prestigious PhD. However, if an EdD is truly for a practitioner as opposed to a researcher, that is more what I am interested in. But I don't want to graduate and put in the work, and then discover that some doors are closed to me because of the limitations of an EdD. On the other other hand, I also don't want doors closed for me because my university wasn't prestigious enough. Any advice would be great

Well, they've already decided to review it again, with the correct documents. So at this point, they may decide to reject because of hard feelings about the last few days. I don't feel there is any way to avoid that, as I had to argue my case to even be reconsidered. ANDS! You are definitely going against the grain compared to other posters' opinions about the situation but that is perfectly OK and I appreciate it. However, I feel my case is extremely defensible. If the deadline had passed and I had never attempted to reach out to the program, then I would probably have no defense besides "this shouldn't be such a big deal." However, and this is key, I was informed that my application passed and was being recommended before the deadline to change it had passed. At that point it was considered by me to have been adequate for admission, and really, once you get that information, what reason would you have to go back and try to alter anything? I might have reviewed again and caught my mistake, or I might not have thought about it again. Because it can be argued that I COULD have used that time to change it before being informed of its acceptance, I feel the people involved should (and thankfully did) give me the benefit of the doubt. In all of the other applications that I have done for other schools, there is someone that looks over your application in the first stage and contacts you if you are missing something important, and I made the reasonable assumption that that was what was going on here. Common mistakes happen. Documents get posted wrong, sometimes they fail to upload at all, addresses are typed in wrong, etc. But I do accept your point, that it wouldn't have happened had I uploaded the right document. It is a valuable lesson for me in the future to read everything twice including what ended up uploaded. But I also see a valuable lesson in this, is to not give up easily and try to think of a clear level headed approach to arguing your case. The original message was just "I have done all I can to argue your case. Your application has been cancelled...Good luck for 2013!" Had I accepted that at face value I wouldn't have discovered that sometimes you can change people's minds through logic and a level headed approach. Had I exploded like I felt like doing, I doubt they would have reconsidered.

Sigaba, Well, my frame of mind is actually the same. There are two sides to me right now, what I will say to the people at the school and what I will say when I discuss it with others who have no connection with the school. The first side will remain calm, thankful and humble about the situation. The second side is the same as it was from the beginning. I feel like this whole situation has been extremely unnecessary and a result originally of carelessness on my part and others who viewed my application. However, because of a variety of factors, something that could have taken seconds to fix resulted in a letter indicating my disqualification. This would understandably make anyone edgy. However, if your concern is that I will have an inappropriate frame of mind when dealing with the program, i can put your fears to rest. The first 12 hours after I got the original disqualification was me at my angriest. Now i've sort of just settled into a feeling of unhappiness about it, which I can easily put aside when dealing with my program. In the end I am actually very grateful that some people stepped up to the plate and lobbied on my behalf. Thanks for the concern though

OK, so the Director of Student Affairs that I was communicating with lobbied on my behalf to get the Graduate School to agree that my application could be reviewed with the correct transcripts attached. The Program Coordinator that originally accepted my application will internally review it on Monday with the faculty, and then we will proceed from there. I am happy, but I am also worried about negative backlash from the faculty. In my arguments on my behalf I did have to basically say that the faculty told me my application was being recommended before the deadline, causing me to believe there were no problems with it and that it made it past the faculty without being noticed. I tried really hard at that time to not get too accusatory of them, but without the argument that someone in the faculty should have told me before it got this far I really did not have much to argue. I guess the faculty can either look at this as something to be embarrassed about, that there own carelessness caused them to miss something and possibly cost me an acceptance, or they can look at it in a bitter way and feel offended that I put some degree of blame on them about it. If it is the first, I don't see a problem getting accepted, but if it is the second they might reject me on second viewing out of pure spite. I went ahead and emailed all parties involved and thanked them for the reconsideration and effort on my behalf. Hopefully this will play out in my favor

I guess I have learned a lot about how this program works too Your application is first reviewed by the faculty of the program. They decide who they want to be in the program and make a recommendation. They probably do this up to the point that the deadline occurs. Their assessment is based entirely on the application and rec letters received and self reported GRE and GPA Once the deadline occurs, they make the recommendation to the School of Ed or Grad school who then looks through the apps and matches it with GRE and transcripts. Once it makes it through there, I think it goes to the Dean for final approval. Nowhere in this whole situation until the end did someone notice that the document that should have been my transcript was actually a diploma How inefficient. I think the very first evaluators should be able to find any problems with the applications that could lead to disqualification and if the deadline has not passed they should let you know that something is wrong. In my case I believe they just had no idea something was missing, for whatever reason they didn't look at my transcript before recommending me to the program Any program where you can be vetoed at any step without knowing that you will be vetoed and without being given a chance to rectify the situation is dangerous. I hope they will come around and let me have my shot

Well, on my end I was really losing it in the first hour. I got absolutely no sleep last night (I'm on the other side of the world right now) as I was stressing and calling and forwarding emails. Remaining calm about it is tough. When I finally talked to the Director on the phone, there was a moment when i was about to lose it, when she said that I could have checked my application but I didn't, at that point I was starting to boil because she ignored that I just had a brain fart and this could have been handled anytime in the last 3 months. But what I did was breathe, and then just say, "You know you are right, I can't really defend myself on that, I don't know what happened, but it was just incompetence on my part. But I don't understand why this is the first that I am hearing of it, after it is too late for me to do anything about it and when it would have just taken moments to correct. And I am just hoping that I won't lose this amazing opportunity because of a silly error. I'm hoping that you will be willing to consider this one of those 'extreme' circumstances that can be reconsidered." Believe it or not, i think that was the turning point in her tone, when I just said that I was wrong. Her whole attitude changed just a little. In my mind I am still freaking out, but it does help me that I did get accepted to a PhD program in the same subject from a much lower ranked school that is near my family in Texas. So i do have a cheap fall back in the top 120 education schools. But this is the one I wanted.

So I applied for a doctorate program in education to a great school. I finished my electronic application two months early. I started contact with the Program Coordinator who told me my application was very strong and the faculty was recommending me and I had a first year adviser ready to take me. The only problem now was getting admitted by the Graduate School and School of Ed. This was 2 weeks before the deadline of changing anything in the application. I got another "unofficial" acceptance 36 hours ago. Then 12 hours ago I got an email saying that the Dean of Students has rejected my application because I uploaded the wrong document. I uploaded a diploma instead of a transcript, so my application is disqualified. After I got over the initial shock and started calling anyone who would talk to me in the School of Ed or Graduate Admissions office I finally got ahold of a lady who is the Director of Student Affairs. I took all the blame for uploading the wrong document, but asked why the program told me everything was correct about my application after reviewing it. My main argument was at that point, I still could have changed the app because the deadline had not passed yet, but being informed that my application was accepted, I thought there was nothing wrong with it. Clearly if i had been told otherwise I would have done something about it. I sent this Director my transcripts. I forwarded her the proof of the many times I tried to contact the office over the last few months but got no response from anyone. I showed that the only response I received was from the Coordinator saying my application was being accepted and that this date was before the deadline passed. At first I think she was hesitant to accept my argument, but then she sort of came around and said "that is a good question" as to why no one informed me about this before I could do nothing about it. She sent me an email saying she understands my argument, and she is trying to figure out how to resolve this problem and she needs to hear from every party involved. I made sure to tell her I am not trying to assign blame. It was clearly my error, but why was it not addressed during the three months after I turned in my application until now? I think this is just a case of an error that made it through every evaluator until the final guy had a look at it. And in the end the only one that will suffer is me. Does anyone have any insight as to how this will play out? Thanks for any advice during my FREAKOUT

Thanks for the advice guys! It really helps to communicate with people that know what I'm talking about, i'm the only one of my friends going through this process I think I won't contact anyone until the time period passes that I should hear from them I think in my mind i'm just searching for 100% acceptance, which I know will not come until it comes It would just suck to be let down after coming so close I definitely won't lose my temper with this. The closest I came to saying something wrong was when I called the grad admissions lady and when she couldn't find my name on anything, I asked, "You can't find MY name or no one's name has been submitted?" She kind of gave a little surprised sound, i guess at the fact I was being so forward, but then said no one's name has been submitted. I think less person to person contact is best right now, because I feel really desperate and nervous about it Thanks for the advice guys

I got accepted into this school for a PHD in Curriculum and Instruction Their school of education is ranked maybe #120 according to the US News website about grad schools It is a cheap price, close to my family, and exactly what I want to study I'm still holding out to see if I get accepted into the Ed.D. program for Curriculum and Instruction at UNC Chapel Hill I'm having my doubts about getting accepted to UNC, but right now I really hope I get it because it is higher ranked, but more expensive. Worried that UNT will be my only choice. UNT seems like a much smaller university, and I guess I worry that getting my PHD from a university that is less well known and not as highly ranked will somehow cost me opportunities in the future (my goal is to work with new teachers at the university level). I guess little things about UNT make me feel like it is not as prestigious, like my recommenders didn't have to sign up for one of those databases, and I don't even have to make a formal YES or NO, just register for classes now that I've been accepted. I realize these are just surface level concerns, but I'd be lying if I said they didn't make me feel concerned in some ways Maybe I'm just obsessing over ridiculous things Advice appreciated, about big universities vs. smaller ones, higher ranked vs. lower ranked, or just if you have experience with UNT

I fully realize there is almost nothing I can do but wait, but like many others, I'm just freaking out I have gotten accepted to three programs total for education related PhD or EdD, rejected by a very prestigious one the one I really want is pretty prestigious, but they don't seem very good about responding to questions through email I got an email from the head professor of the program I want to join, and she told me that the faculty made a recommendation for my admission and that one of the professors wants to be my first year advisor, but that the Grad school and School of Education must make the approval. That will take a few weeks. That was a little more than three weeks ago. I have exchanged several more emails with this professor and talked on the phone with her once as well to talk about funding options, and she repeated that the program really wants me. The deadline for the application was two weeks ago, and someone in the grad admissions office I called said that it should take 2-3 weeks after the deadline to know the results. When I told her that I had talked to a professor and was accepted by the faculty, she looked up my name but didn't find anything about me I contacted the professor through email last friday and asked about the admission notification and when it should arrive, she said she would follow up with someone on her end on Monday, but never got back to me I guess logically I already know that this is not a full acceptance and I can't be certain I am in until I get the notification. And that it is a very good sign and probably rarely ever happens that the program and faculty accept you but then you are vetoed higher than them. Actually, that is what the professor and grad admissions lady told me as well. But the emotional side of me is still freaking out. I took the GRE twice and the first time three years ago was a bad score, i didn't study at all, but this last time I did phenomenally. I'm just finding all these ways that I could have cost myself admission Any words of advice or comfort would be nice. thanks