2020 Applicants

[Indecisive Poet]

Just received an unexpected offer letter from UConn – wanted to share that decisions are still going out from them in case anyone else assumed a rejection.

Edited February 14, 2020 by Indecisive Poet

[Rrandle101]

I know some people including myself still have nothing in their UCLA portal and wanted to share some comments one of my profs had about it. I told him what was up and said that I suspected someone was going through and manually updating them and that within a few days mine would just be a rejection but he suggested that some schools have an 'internal waitlist' where they won't tell you that you're on it but they have you on the hook just in case (isn't that fun?). Not sure if that's the case but it is something that happens apparently.

[jm6394]

5 minutes ago, Rrandle101 said:

I know some people including myself still have nothing in their UCLA portal and wanted to share some comments one of my profs had about it. I told him what was up and said that I suspected someone was going through and manually updating them and that within a few days mine would just be a rejection but he suggested that some schools have an 'internal waitlist' where they won't tell you that you're on it but they have you on the hook just in case (isn't that fun?). Not sure if that's the case but it is something that happens apparently.

This is actually my own personal conspiracy theory about a ton of schools lol because I assume many of us sit in “idk” piles as acceptances, rejections and waitlist notifications go out. 

[karamazov]

@urbanfarmer @The Hoosier Oxonian @caffeinated applicant Thank you so much for the input! I think I'll try to attend the scheduled visit dates if at all possible, then. I'll talk to each of my professors about it and hopefully they'll all be willing to work with me about the missed class time. 

[caffeinated applicant]

24 minutes ago, Rrandle101 said:

I know some people including myself still have nothing in their UCLA portal and wanted to share some comments one of my profs had about it. I told him what was up and said that I suspected someone was going through and manually updating them and that within a few days mine would just be a rejection but he suggested that some schools have an 'internal waitlist' where they won't tell you that you're on it but they have you on the hook just in case (isn't that fun?). Not sure if that's the case but it is something that happens apparently.

This is definitely a thing, aka invisible waitlist or unofficial waitlist. Not everywhere does this, but some programs/schools do, and it appears to be more common in some fields than others. As the saying goes, it's not a rejection until it's a rejection... 

Personally I find it extremely annoying since it seems like it would hold up the process for everyone more than just announcing the waitlist, especially if the program holds their rejections until they've created the full cohort (and thus can reject everyone on the invisible list). I suppose the utility is to prevent students from knowing that they've been accepted not in the first round, so that the school can look like they were interested in you from the start? This utility seems limited in the age of GradCafe, especially if the internal waitlist students miss a prospective students event, but that's my best guess. 

[StormChild]

On ‎2‎/‎12‎/‎2020 at 12:53 PM, THEWICKEDWITCHOFTHEEASTBRO said:

This made me finally sign up and join the conversation! I had an interview 10 days ago with one and did not hear anything back from them yet. You can imagine the anguish I've been living for more than a week now. Otherwise, I heard nothing. Absolutely nothing from all of the eight I applied to. It is soul-crushing.

Was Notre Dame 10 days ago? That seems like ND's timeline. 

[meghan_sparkle]

.

Edited February 14, 2020 by meghan_sparkle

[digital_lime]

I was waitlisted at Buffalo!!! I know it's not as cool as a straight-up acceptance, but just the fact that the admissions committee thought my application was good enough to waitlist is really, really exciting!!

It is so good to hear something that isn't a straight-up rejection!

[Rrandle101]

8 minutes ago, digital_lime said:

I was waitlisted at Buffalo!!! I know it's not as cool as a straight-up acceptance, but just the fact that the admissions committee thought my application was good enough to waitlist is really, really exciting!!

It is so good to hear something that isn't a straight-up rejection!

Out of reactions but congrats! What area are you in if you don't mind me asking? I was accepted there and will be talking to my POI next week but unless it goes very well I see myself turning down this offer.

[merry night wanderer]

Because apparently I'm using this thing for goddamn therapy: after literally a night spent trying to get myself to come to terms with the fact my partner and I might continue to be long-distance for god knows how long (we've already been very long distance for 5 years, and none of the cities that were options for me are promising for him in terms of a job), I got into Johns Hopkins, which is the city where he's living right now. This is not going to be the deciding factor - I'd be happy and honored to go to any school I applied to, and thankfully he and I are very much on the same page of suffering some of this to make our dreams come true, and he might need to move anyway given that he needs to pursue his work as well, but goddamn, it is so nice to have an actual option. Lots of solidarity to everyone in a similar position. It sucks.

Edited February 14, 2020 by merry night wanderer

[Indecisive Poet]

1 minute ago, merry night wanderer said:

Because apparently I'm using this thing for goddamn therapy: after literally a night spent trying to get myself to come to terms with the fact my partner and I might continue to be long-distance for god knows how long (we've already been very long distance for 5 years, and none of the cities that are options for me right now are promising for him in terms of a job), I got into Johns Hopkins, which is the city where he's living right now. This is not going to be the deciding factor - I'd be happy and honored to go to any school I applied to, and thankfully he and I are very much on the same page of suffering some of this to make our dreams come true, and he might need to move anyway given that he needs to pursue his work as well, but goddamn, it is so nice to have an actual option. Lots of solidarity to everyone in a similar position. It sucks.

I'm so happy for you, genuinely. As someone also going through an is-it-possible-for-us-to-do-this-and-also-live-together crisis, I know how tough this situation is. Yay!!!!

Edited February 14, 2020 by Indecisive Poet

[Indecisive Poet]

In other news, I just learned that I majorly messed up my funding chances at Oxford and Cambridge: I didn't tick a box to be considered for a scholarship that I am actually eligible for at Oxford, and I applied to colleges at both universities that don't offer full-funding. This was just plain stupid of me. I am sending desperate emails to try to fix this and I am still eligible for one other funding source at Cambridge, but damn. Oxbridge is looking like the only option for my partner and I (he has been shut out from his American programs) and it would be so incredibly heart-wrenching to have to turn down offers and re-apply next year because of my stupid mistakes (especially because things are looking really positive for me at Cambridge right now, pending funding). Ugh!!!!!!!!

Edited February 14, 2020 by Indecisive Poet

[digital_lime]

9 minutes ago, Rrandle101 said:

Out of reactions but congrats! What area are you in if you don't mind me asking? I was accepted there and will be talking to my POI next week but unless it goes very well I see myself turning down this offer.

Late 19th c/Early 20th c America. I may be something of an odd applicant out in that I'm not specifically interested in either the center for psychoanalysis or the poetics program (although I'm jazzed at the idea of working with some of the people in those)

[Wimsey]

I'm making some chocolate cake and raspberry sauce, because if I have to endure admissions uncertainty on Valentine's Day, I might as well do it while eating good food.

[merry night wanderer]

I am 100% rooting for you two to be an English power team, @Indecisive Poet! There's a lot of drama yet to come. I hope it falls in your favor!

[meghan_sparkle]

5 minutes ago, Indecisive Poet said:

In other news, I just learned that I majorly messed up my funding chances at Oxford and Cambridge: I didn't tick a box to be considered for a scholarship that I am actually eligible for at Oxford, and I applied to colleges at both universities that don't offer full-funding. This was just plain stupid of me. I am sending desperate emails to try to fix this and I am still eligible for one other funding source at Cambridge, but damn. Oxbridge is looking like the only option for my partner and I (he has been shut out from his American programs) and it would be so incredibly heart-wrenching to have to turn down offers and re-apply next year because of my stupid mistakes (especially because things are looking really positive for me at Cambridge right now, pending funding). Ugh!!!!!!!!

This really hurts my heart to read, and I know it's unlikely that advice from an internet stranger will affect your decision: but please, please don't forsake the incredible funded PhD options you have in the US because your partner got shut out/has a ND waitlist. It's none of my business at all so please ignore me if this out of turn, but it's hard to forget what you said in an earlier post about you making sure you applied to multiple schools in the vicinity of places your partner was applying, but it seems this wasn't something they did for you. Your career is just as important as your relationship, and there's no guarantee you'd have the same offers next year if you reapplied. (I say this as someone who stayed in Oxford in large part for a long-term relationship! I don't regret it because it worked out for me, even though the relationship ultimately didn't, but it's scary to look back and realized how much I would have turned down for that person. Regardless of what the opportunity turned out to be.) Is it not an option for your partner to move with you and reapply next cycle? Why is it you that would have to turn down your offers and reapply?

Again--sorry to ask tough questions and be impertinent; you are under no obligation to answer them or pay attention at all to me, and I don't want to add weight to your dilemma. I just couldn't not speak up, because you seem like a lovely person who has gotten into programs you only get accepted to when you're terrifyingly smart and formidable.

[timespentreading]

2 minutes ago, Wimsey said:

I'm making some chocolate cake and raspberry sauce, because if I have to endure admissions uncertainty on Valentine's Day, I might as well do it while eating good food.

YES! Someone brought donuts in to the office, so my frantic page-refreshes are now fueled by excess sugar! All the UConn acceptances on the board make me fairly sure it's a rejection for me. Still a bunch of programs pending, but I haven't heard from any this week. 

[THEWICKEDWITCHOFTHEEASTBRO]

1 hour ago, StormChild said:

Was Notre Dame 10 days ago? That seems like ND's timeline. 

No. It's UMass. On Monday it will two weeks since. I'm tired of waiting so I am thinking of emailing then and asking them.

[Rrandle101]

10 minutes ago, Wimsey said:

I'm making some chocolate cake and raspberry sauce, because if I have to endure admissions uncertainty on Valentine's Day, I might as well do it while eating good food.

I feel this so hard. My boyfriend and I are making (at the expense of sounding like a Southern stereotype)  biscuits tonight so I can stress-eat my problems away on V-Day

[onerepublic96]

26 minutes ago, merry night wanderer said:

Because apparently I'm using this thing for goddamn therapy: after literally a night spent trying to get myself to come to terms with the fact my partner and I might continue to be long-distance for god knows how long (we've already been very long distance for 5 years, and none of the cities that were options for me are promising for him in terms of a job), I got into Johns Hopkins, which is the city where he's living right now. This is not going to be the deciding factor - I'd be happy and honored to go to any school I applied to, and thankfully he and I are very much on the same page of suffering some of this to make our dreams come true, and he might need to move anyway given that he needs to pursue his work as well, but goddamn, it is so nice to have an actual option. Lots of solidarity to everyone in a similar position. It sucks.

Oh my god congratulations! Hopkins was my undergrad institution, so seeing your post made me all warm and fuzzy inside. It’s a wonderful department with very friendly, helpful, and supportive academic and admin staff. I would have definitely applied if only it had been a good fit. Huge congrats, again! ?

[Indecisive Poet]

On 2/14/2020 at 12:27 PM, meghan_sparkle said:

This really hurts my heart to read, and I know it's unlikely that advice from an internet stranger will affect your decision: but please, please don't forsake the incredible funded PhD options you have in the US because your partner got shut out/has a ND waitlist. It's none of my business at all so please ignore me if this out of turn, but it's hard to forget what you said in an earlier post about you making sure you applied to multiple schools in the vicinity of places your partner was applying, but it seems this wasn't something they did for you. Your career is just as important as your relationship, and there's no guarantee you'd have the same offers next year if you reapplied. (I say this as someone who stayed in Oxford in large part for a long-term relationship! I don't regret it because it worked out for me, even though the relationship ultimately didn't, but it's scary to look back and realized how much I would have turned down for that person. Regardless of what the opportunity turned out to be.) Is it not an option for your partner to move with you and reapply next cycle? Why is it you that would have to turn down your offers and reapply?

Again--sorry to ask tough questions and be impertinent; you are under no obligation to answer them or pay attention at all to me, and I don't want to add weight to your dilemma. I just couldn't not speak up, because you seem like a lovely person who has gotten into programs you only get accepted to when you're terrifyingly smart and formidable.

This is so kind and thoughtful of you – no apologies needed! But I do want to make clear that this has been a team effort between my partner and I that we have thought about carefully. He applied to multiple programs in every location we applied to, too. The only difference between us is that he has been unlucky and I have been a little luckier (and it really is just luck – he is a fantastic applicant and a brilliant person whose work astounds me, so these results have been a shock to both of us). He has now been rejected or implicitly rejected from 6 programs that overlapped with locations I applied to.

I'm sure you can imagine that he and I have talked about our situation every day since he started receiving bad news, and him coming to Chicago with me and re-applying next year is a very real possibility that he's happy to do if it ends up being the best option for us. But, by the same token, it's only fair that I also consider the possibility of staying in England with him and re-applying next year, if that's what ends up making the most sense for us. Neither of us have offers from Oxbridge yet, nor can we necessarily expect them, so it's all up in the air. One or the other of us giving up offers and re-applying is an absolute last resort – I guess I'm just manically trying to plan for all outcomes because I've never been a level-headed "let's just wait and see what actually ends up happening" type of person.

[timespentreading]

@Rrandle101 I just received a waitlist notification from Buffalo, too. Do you mind sharing your area of interest?

[Rrandle101]

1 minute ago, timespentreading said:

@Rrandle101 I just received a waitlist notification from Buffalo, too. Do you mind sharing your area of interest?

Of course not! I'm a medievalist with an emphasis on classical reception

[Indecisive Poet]

4 minutes ago, Rrandle101 said:

Of course not! I'm a medievalist with an emphasis on classical reception

Out of curiosity – have you read John Williams' Stoner? It's one of my favorite books of all time, about a medievalist with an emphasis on classical reception (sounds dry but is totally not!)

[Rrandle101]

Just now, Indecisive Poet said:

Out of curiosity – have you read John Williams' Stoner? It's one of my favorite books of all time, about a medievalist with an emphasis on classical reception (sounds dry but is totally not!)

I have not but that sounds fascinating (to me at least lol). I'll see if I can get it from my library and do some reading over Spring Break