2020 FALL APPLICATION VENTING THREAD

[lkaitlyn]

45 minutes ago, KatThomp said:

I'm so nervous about hearing back I don't have as high of a GPA as other candidates so I had to rely on my GRE and writing sample and other personal achievements and I'm starting to see people get acceptances from the schools I applied to, primarily CU Boulder and Mizzou. Has anyone heard from UT San Antonio yet or have any idea when that might come out?

Thanks ?

GPA is only one part of an application, and I've gathered in years of reading people's posts that your writing sample, personal achievements, etc. are far more important than GPA and GRE (for most schools; as discussed above, Cornell openly uses both as screening tools). I wouldn't count yourself out based on GPA!

[KatThomp]

19 minutes ago, lkaitlyn said:

GPA is only one part of an application, and I've gathered in years of reading people's posts that your writing sample, personal achievements, etc. are far more important than GPA and GRE (for most schools; as discussed above, Cornell openly uses both as screening tools). I wouldn't count yourself out based on GPA!

Thank you! Is it the norm now to send out admissions in waves? It seems like a lot of schools are sending them out to different people at different times. I'm feeling very lost, especially because I've had one year less of undergrad and graduating early puts me at a financial advantage but a huge disadvantage as far as knowledge of and interaction with graduate programs!

[PhD_PLEASE]

On 1/30/2020 at 7:38 PM, lkaitlyn said:

Maybe this is because the site was crashing, but Berkeley people, please post on the results page! Three is a small number, and I need it to hit home that I need to let Berkeley go/accept the implied rejection. (Also, you should be celebrating! ♥️)

Got an email from them last night to check my status (rejected). It was a tough one for me - even more sad to get an automated email that didn't even reference the program I applied for! Good luck to anyone who hasn't heard from UC Berkeley yet.

[lkaitlyn]

Just now, PhD_PLEASE said:

Got an email from them last night to check my status (rejected). It was a tough one for me - even more sad to get an automated email that didn't even reference the program I applied for! Good luck to anyone who hasn't heard from UC Berkeley yet.

I'm with you. It seems like the cohort was pretty small this year, based on how few people posted. After the rejection, I oddly felt a thousand times less stressed about everything else. Hopefully next week brings better news.

Looking at your signature, it looks like you have some amazing choices! I almost applied to UW — their program looks amazing.

[lkaitlyn]

1 hour ago, KatThomp said:

Thank you! Is it the norm now to send out admissions in waves? It seems like a lot of schools are sending them out to different people at different times. I'm feeling very lost, especially because I've had one year less of undergrad and graduating early puts me at a financial advantage but a huge disadvantage as far as knowledge of and interaction with graduate programs!

Some schools do send in waves, or have informal wait lists and wait to reject until they know they filled the cohort, or send acceptances and rejections at different times. You can look at the Results board for a specific school/program and see if there was a pattern in past years to get a sense of which programs do waves of acceptances and which don't. (Sometimes it changes; in past years, UC Irvine did waves, but this year, they notified everyone the same day instead.) And I wouldn't worry about graduating early. I'm a senior and I don't feel like this year has given me any type of advantage in terms of knowing things or interacting with people. Trust me, I think we all feel lost.

[hap317]

Unrelated to applications but... how do I add a signature? I completely failed to figure it out..

[lkaitlyn]

1 hour ago, hap317 said:

Unrelated to applications but... how do I add a signature? I completely failed to figure it out..

It took me a while. Where you see your username in the top right corner of the page, click. Go to "Account Settings." One of the settings you can choose on the left will be "Signature."

Edited February 4, 2020 by lkaitlyn

[vince2020]

3 hours ago, hap317 said:

Unrelated to applications but... how do I add a signature? I completely failed to figure it out..

I was having the same question LOL

2 hours ago, lkaitlyn said:

It took me a while. Where you see your username in the top right corner of the page, click. Go to "Account Settings." One of the settings you can choose on the left will be "Signature."

 Thanks! 

[2ms1234]

I'm so frustrated I haven't heard back from any of the schools I applied to yet! I'm seeing all of these other schools I almost applied for send out admissions and now i'm regretting not applying to more schools! It looks like the earliest I may hear back is next week or the week after ? 

 

 

On another note... is anyone else a Fulbright scholar (or something similar)? I'm currently doing my ETA year and I'm wondering if this means literally anything to committees? 

Edited February 5, 2020 by 2ms1234

[CeXra]

1 hour ago, 2ms1234 said:

I'm so frustrated I haven't heard back from any of the schools I applied to yet! I'm seeing all of these other schools I almost applied for send out admissions and now i'm regretting not applying to more schools! It looks like the earliest I may hear back is next week or the week after ? 

 

 

On another note... is anyone else a Fulbright scholar (or something similar)? I'm currently doing my ETA year and I'm wondering if this means literally anything to committees? 

Not a full bright scholar so can't help with your question. But I have a question... What schools did you apply to? I'm wondering cause I too applied to schools that haven't announced anything. I only heard back from Rutgers and was admitted but waiting on funding. Also, maybe checking the previous years on the result can give you ETA on when/how you should hear from your schools.  

[2ms1234]

55 minutes ago, CeXra said:

Not a full bright scholar so can't help with your question. But I have a question... What schools did you apply to? I'm wondering cause I too applied to schools that haven't announced anything. I only heard back from Rutgers and was admitted but waiting on funding. Also, maybe checking the previous years on the result can give you ETA on when/how you should hear from your schools.  

I applied to Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, Brown and University of Maryland and Duke for Public Policy!

[hap317]

13 hours ago, lkaitlyn said:

It took me a while. Where you see your username in the top right corner of the page, click. Go to "Account Settings." One of the settings you can choose on the left will be "Signature."

Ooo thank you!!

[philosocly]

Hi everyone, I am a newcomer here, and happy to join the thread! I saw some results posted on the board as well as your signatures about the rejection from UCLA and waitlist from UNC at Chapel Hill. I applied to both but heard nothing from them. I checked both portals but saw no updates at all; also tried to check decision status of UCLA on https://appstatus.grad.ucla.edu/account/AppStatus.aspx but saw "your login attempt was not successful" (I put in all information correctly though...).

I am wondering if anyone is in the same situation...and is it too early now to email these departments to inquire about the decision? So anxious waiting for them

Thanks!!

[Brian Jiang]

1 hour ago, philosocly said:

Hi everyone, I am a newcomer here, and happy to join the thread! I saw some results posted on the board as well as your signatures about the rejection from UCLA and waitlist from UNC at Chapel Hill. I applied to both but heard nothing from them. I checked both portals but saw no updates at all; also tried to check decision status of UCLA on https://appstatus.grad.ucla.edu/account/AppStatus.aspx but saw "your login attempt was not successful" (I put in all information correctly though...).

I am wondering if anyone is in the same situation...and is it too early now to email these departments to inquire about the decision? So anxious waiting for them

Thanks!!

Have you tried "Retrieve Password"? The system also kept showing that my password is incorrect while I put the correct one until I tried retrieving my password and input the notified password by system email. (Although there are no decisions for me).

[DeadAccount]

20 hours ago, Sosci3 said:

I haven’t heard anything yet, I figured we would hear by today as well. Fingers crossed. 

From the past few years results it looks like they usually send most acceptances on a Monday or Tuesday, then rejections on Wednesday and later. But since no one has even posted about an acceptance from Duke I wonder if it'll be next week before decisions come out...hmm...

[philosocly]

47 minutes ago, Brian Jiang said:

Have you tried "Retrieve Password"? The system also kept showing that my password is incorrect while I put the correct one until I tried retrieving my password and input the notified password by system email. (Although there are no decisions for me).

Thank you for your information! I could log in after retrieving password but no decision, either.

[Sosci3]

1 hour ago, SocAnth_Lou said:

From the past few years results it looks like they usually send most acceptances on a Monday or Tuesday, then rejections on Wednesday and later. But since no one has even posted about an acceptance from Duke I wonder if it'll be next week before decisions come out...hmm...

Interesting. So maybe I can delay my panic until next week. This delay could mean that they have a lot of strong applicants this year, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I don’t think they would send rejections before acceptances, so we’re safe this week. Maybe we’ll get some good news early next week. 

[DeadAccount]

Just now, Sosci3 said:

Interesting. So maybe I can delay my panic until next week. This delay could mean that they have a lot of strong applicants this year, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I don’t think they would send rejections before acceptances, so we’re safe this week. Maybe we’ll get some good news early next week. 

Hopefully! I'm waiting on another decision that may come late next week or early the following. I'm so sick of waiting. Maybe next week will be a good one for both of us! 

[KatThomp]

Anyone else still waiting to hear back from all their schools? I haven't heard a PEEP from a single school and I'm starting to get jittery. 

[passere]

22 minutes ago, KatThomp said:

Anyone else still waiting to hear back from all their schools? I haven't heard a PEEP from a single school and I'm starting to get jittery. 

Not quite as bad, but I’ve heard from 1/7. I haven’t even seen the others pop up with other admits or anything. 

[soc2310]

23 minutes ago, KatThomp said:

Anyone else still waiting to hear back from all their schools? I haven't heard a PEEP from a single school and I'm starting to get jittery. 

Same here, 7 applications and nothing yet! I think next week will be a big one, I'm expecting most of them to come out then...

[CeXra]

11 hours ago, 2ms1234 said:

I applied to Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, Brown and University of Maryland and Duke for Public Policy!

That's cool. I heard back from one school, so I am happy about that. I'm waiting to hear from UMCP as well and UMass Amherst for sociology. I'm low key worried because someone just posted that they got an email acceptance from UMass for soc (the person was an international student, so maybe they are still trickling out emails from I to A). So I hope there is still hope for me in the upcoming days... Also MSU for crim. 

And yeah I agree with one of the posters, I think we will hear a lot back next week from schools. So praying for us all. 

Edited February 5, 2020 by CeXra

[lkaitlyn]

2 hours ago, soc2310 said:

Same here, 7 applications and nothing yet! I think next week will be a big one, I'm expecting most of them to come out then...

Based on history, next week should have Cornell (the rest of the decisions), UMich, Northwestern, Stanford, Harvard (acceptances), and some others. So yes, big week for many people! Yikes.

[oldmanapplicant]

2 hours ago, KatThomp said:

Anyone else still waiting to hear back from all their schools? I haven't heard a PEEP from a single school and I'm starting to get jittery. 

Same here. No emails or Grad Cafe results for five programs.

[AgumonIsAPokemon]

Been through this application cycle three times (2017, 2018, 2019). This is my fourth time and hopefully the last time. One piece of advice I could give is: keep yourself occupied. The daily routine (possibly hourly) of refreshing my email/gradcafe never felt invigorating, at least for me. It mostly consisted of anxiety. 

During my previous three attempts, which were all unsuccessful (got into a masters course in 2017 though), the waiting game never did any good to me. I only applied to approx 4 schools each cycle but waiting is still waiting. Luckily, having applied to 11 schools this year, I have been pretty busy with work during the day. Hence, pretty successful in distancing myself from the waiting game (also, I currently live in East Asia so the time zone difference does help me). I do still check gradcafe say about 2 to 3 times a day, but keeping myself occupied with other things does alleviate the anxiety caused from the application process. When I am not working, I would go read a book, watch a movie, or improve on my cooking skills (still a terrible chef, but I am trying!). 

The waiting game will inevitably be somewhat stressful but do stay healthy folks. ?