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Hi all! I am sure I am not alone when it comes to feeling super anxious about waiting to hear back from schools after pressing that submit button. I know there is a Venting Thread, but I thought it would be nice to have a specific forum where people can talk about their worries while they wait. So, I am going to first talk about what I am worried about and then talk about what I am excited about if I get accepted in grad school. Worries: I feel like I don't have enough research experience under my belt, especially since I haven't done any research in the fields that I want do pursue my graduate degree in. My GRE scores are mediocre, so that scares me as well. I think the fact that I am taking a gap year and I am not currently doing anything "resume/cv worthy" right now will make me look lazy to the admission committees. I am also worried about paying for moving to grad school. I really hope I can get a retail job next year so I can start saving money for that. Also, I want to pay off my loans during grad school, even though I know I can defer them while in school. I just am tired of my interest accumulating. Excitement: Even though grad school will have plenty of hellish moments where I probably won't get enough sleep and be able to make meals for myself, I am ready to be back in school again. Despite the homework and stressful tests, I oddly like taking classes. I am even more excited to take graduate-level classes because I feel like I will be able to focus more on learning and less on getting an A on every single assignment. After doing that in undergrad and pretty much destroying my mental health, I am never going back to putting myself through that again. I am also ready to move to a new place and explore the area. Additionally, I can't wait to start researching something I am interested in. I am nervous that I might find out that I might not like it, but at least it will still be interesting enough that I can do it for 5-7 years. So, go ahead and just type away your worries about waiting, grad school, and anything else. Also, talk about what your excited about when it comes to grad school. I feel like doing both will make you feel slightly better.

I'm applying to a variety of American programs in the lower range of PGR top 50 (and some unranked schools): Syracuse, Boston, Baylor, New Mexico, St. Louis, etc, plus all the top Canadian programs. My stats are: Undergraduate GPA: 3.92, M.A. GPA: 3.9. I have 8 peer-reviewed conference presentations from across Canada, the USA, and Singapore, and two peer-reviewed publications. I won a SSHRC CGS M.A. Award (top Canadian federal award), and I can read German. I'm told that my sample and letters are really strong (coming from full professors at a top-5 Canadian M.A. program). But I haven't been able to score well on the GRE. I got 5.5. AW (98th percentile), 161 (88th Percentile Verbal), and a terrible 144 (18th Percentile) quantitative score. Will my quantitative score sink my application? What will happen to me!?

I joined to post this thought: Maybe I am much, much weaker of a person than I initially thought, but this app season has literally made me miserable. I am angry, depressed, hostile, prone to illness, and above all, very bitter. I hear birds chirping and I want to chop down their tree. Part of it is that I have been rejected from schools I thought I had a chance of getting into, and another part is that I am still waiting on answers. It feels like the rest of the world knows what they're going to do in the Fall, yet my plans have been demolished and/or are being toyed with by late responses. At the beginning of this process, I had a "whatever happens, happens!" attitude. Now I am purely depressed about the whole thing. Hopefully the next two weeks brings some good news. Thanks for listening and allowing me to vent, gradcafe!