2021 Applicants

[The Maritime Scholar]

1 minute ago, R Westy said:

Same! I’ve already crossed it off my list in anticipation of a rejection but it’d be nice to be able to make things official. ? 

Yeah! I don't think LA is for me anyways...

[Lighthouse Lana]

Tufts, I know you saw that big typo smack-dab in the middle of my SOP. We both know what happens now. Stop being a jerk and let me join the "no Tufts for me" club.

[OpenBook]

4 minutes ago, Lighthouse Lana said:

Tufts, I know you saw that big typo smack-dab in the middle of my SOP. We both know what happens now. Stop being a jerk and let me join the "no Tufts for me" club.

Not a typo, but before a big interview I was looking for a SoP and saw a professor's name from the wrong school!!  Had a mini heart attack and then realized I was looking at the wrong file lol.  This process is not helping my anxiety!

[brockdenbrown802]

3 hours ago, Lighthouse Lana said:

Tufts, I know you saw that big typo smack-dab in the middle of my SOP. We both know what happens now. Stop being a jerk and let me join the "no Tufts for me" club.

Omg this is me rn too! Lol. solidarity. 

[LtotheOG]

I see two Rutgers-English acceptances on Results. Have all acceptances gone out, you think?

[queenofcarrotflowers]

53 minutes ago, LtotheOG said:

I see two Rutgers-English acceptances on Results. Have all acceptances gone out, you think?

Likely not quite yet, based on the past usually acceptances are contacted directly (usually by their poi) on Friday evening/Saturday morning either by phone or email. after Saturday, however, I’d say you can take it as an implied rejection. Also, Rutgers seem to have a bad habit of updating statuses on the portal for waitlists and rejections without sending out an email (usually early in the following week from when acceptances have gone out). 

[queenofcarrotflowers]

7 hours ago, queenofcarrotflowers said:

Likely not quite yet, based on the past usually acceptances are contacted directly (usually by their poi) on Friday evening/Saturday morning either by phone or email. after Saturday, however, I’d say you can take it as an implied rejection. Also, Rutgers seem to have a bad habit of updating statuses on the portal for waitlists and rejections without sending out an email (usually early in the following week from when acceptances have gone out). 

edit: looks like nobody’s heard back today yet, so there’s a divergence from to previous years. ignore my tea-leaf reading lol?

[Shake829]

4 minutes ago, queenofcarrotflowers said:

edit: looks like nobody’s heard back today yet, so there’s a divergence from to previous years. ignore my tea-leaf reading lol?

There is a chance that just very few acceptances were made. Rutgers is under a hiring freeze due to the pandemic, so I’d imagine they wouldn’t want to dedicate a lot of money into letting the department take a large cohort. 

[LtotheOG]

19 minutes ago, Shake829 said:

There is a chance that just very few acceptances were made. Rutgers is under a hiring freeze due to the pandemic, so I’d imagine they wouldn’t want to dedicate a lot of money into letting the department take a large cohort. 

Can I ask how you know this?
 

If it’s true, this is nothing short of infuriating. Sadly and predictably, applicants weren’t given a clue.

Edited February 20, 2021 by LtotheOG

[queenofcarrotflowers]

14 minutes ago, Shake829 said:

There is a chance that just very few acceptances were made. Rutgers is under a hiring freeze due to the pandemic, so I’d imagine they wouldn’t want to dedicate a lot of money into letting the department take a large cohort. 

thanks sm for the info— I’m going to assume this is the case and take it as an implied rejection for my sanity’s sake. 

[LtotheOG]

2 minutes ago, LtotheOG said:

Can I ask how you know this?

Btw, I’m asking this for my sanity’s sake.

[Shake829]

2 minutes ago, LtotheOG said:

Can I ask, how you know this?
 

If it’s true, this is nothing short of infuriating. Sadly and predictably, applicants weren’t given a clue.

Just Google search, “Rutgers hiring freeze.” I could be wrong about it affecting admissions, and I very much hope that I am. I have no inside information as to whether this affects admissions; I’m just saying that I read about it before, and it could be a reason that there are less acceptances on the admissions page.

[Shake829]

17 minutes ago, LtotheOG said:

Can I ask how you know this?
 

If it’s true, this is nothing short of infuriating. Sadly and predictably, applicants weren’t given a clue.

Also, in response to your last point, I think most schools who have less funding find out after the applications are in. Quite a few applications were suspended after the deadline, for example. Frustrating? Yes. But I honestly believe that departments do not find out until after the deadline. I’m sure that most programs want to be as transparent as possible, but things are murky with the pandemic. Plus, I could be wrong, so let’s hope for an anomaly year that deviates from their usual timeline!

[Shake829]

44 minutes ago, Shake829 said:

There is a chance that just very few acceptances were made. Rutgers is under a hiring freeze due to the pandemic, so I’d imagine they wouldn’t want to dedicate a lot of money into letting the department take a large cohort. 

Ha, disregard me reading too much into things. It seems that more phone calls did go out!

[LtotheOG]

15 minutes ago, Shake829 said:

Also, in response to your last point, I think most schools who have less funding find out after the applications are in. Quite a few applications were suspended after the deadline, for example. Frustrating? Yes. But I honestly believe that departments do not find out until after the deadline. I’m sure that most programs want to be as transparent as possible, but things are murky with the pandemic. Plus, I could be wrong, so let’s hope for an anomaly year that deviates from their usual timeline!

I’m sorry but I find this more than a bit hard to believe. From my experience, programs had some notion of the funding situation affecting the coming cycle, given that the pandemic had struck much earlier.
The PhD program I was part of last year, suspended admissions for 2021 way ahead due to covid-caused reallocation of funds. While the decision may not universally apply, factors driving it do.

Edited February 20, 2021 by LtotheOG

[Shake829]

11 minutes ago, LtotheOG said:

I’m sorry but I find this more than a bit hard to believe. From my experience, programs had some notion of the funding situation affecting the coming cycle, given that the pandemic had struck much earlier.
The PhD program I was part of last year, suspended admissions for 2021 way ahead due to covid-caused reallocation of funds. While the decision may not universally apply, factors driving it do.

Just curious: do you anticipate a better or worse cycle next year?

[LtotheOG]

That’s a great question, I don’t know the answer to which.

[missmarianne]

8 hours ago, queenofcarrotflowers said:

Likely not quite yet, based on the past usually acceptances are contacted directly (usually by their poi) on Friday evening/Saturday morning either by phone or email. after Saturday, however, I’d say you can take it as an implied rejection. Also, Rutgers seem to have a bad habit of updating statuses on the portal for waitlists and rejections without sending out an email (usually early in the following week from when acceptances have gone out). 

Okay. Actual (ignorant) question for next year when I inevitably have to do this again. Most people do their MA's and PhDs at my school and don't venture elsewhere so I feel like I'm not understanding major components of this process. I'd definitely private message one of you, but I'm keeping this here in case some other confused person needs this information as well later on. 

What are POI email exchanges supposed to look like? The past two years, I've just introduced myself/my work, praised the POIs work (sincerely), and asked about potentially working with me if I were accepted to X university. Ordinarily, the professor emails me back and says "Your work sounds interesting. I'd be happy to work with you if you're accepted" or, if the person knows one of my LORs, they might comment on that as well. That has really been the extent of the exchange for me, though--with Rutgers--I never got a reply back. I had heard, through one of my editors and a grad student I reached out to, that that particular professor was considering retiring soon, so I was not confident about that application going in and I didn't feel comfortable emailing that person a second time. Now I have a few questions.

1. Was I supposed to be carrying on an ongoing email exchange with these professors beyond the introductory/inquiry email and the thank you-for-replying-email? I assumed that I would be disrupting their work if I did that...

2. Did y'all* have other professors reach out to them first to make an introduction? Is that a thing that happens?

3. Did y'all know the people you were going to work with before you emailed them and, if so, how did you meet them?

 

*using y'all because it's gender neutral and I'm from the South. ?

[OpenBook]

12 minutes ago, Shake829 said:

Just curious: do you anticipate a better or worse cycle next year?

I've thought about this a lot on the yield side of things.  I knew many people who said they were taking a year off because of the pandemic, and therefore there will be more applicants for next year.  However, many programs have reported an uptick in applications.  Is that because, like me, people saw this as their opportunity to apply to more schools due to the lack of GREs?  I was able to apply to 18 schools as a low-income student because I had been saving up for this, and the lack of GRE freed up a ton of money for me.  I imagine other people are in a similar boat.  So I wonder if most people who could apply did, and therefore next year will be less impacted, or if we'll just keep seeing insane increases.

[mashatheicebear]

9 minutes ago, Shake829 said:

Just curious: do you anticipate a better or worse cycle next year?

I think there are a couple of factors that will affect the process for next year...

The primary factor will be funding. Fallout from the pandemic is going to be rough and may seriously impact funding, or, it may not. (I spoke to someone at one university about this. It is very much a "wait and see" situation for departments right now and they don't really have a sense of what is going to happen.)

The secondary factor is the number of programs accepting applications. This year, I found that about half the programs I wanted to apply to had suspended applications. I imagine others had a similar experience. The suspensions ended up funneling a large group of applicants into a smaller number of programs. Many of those programs, in turn, accepted smaller cohorts due to funding concerns. So, we had a really big supply and demand problem this year. Consequently, however, a lot of folks may opt to apply again next year, which may inflate the size of next year's applicant pool.

It is my sense that next year will be better in some ways, and the same in others. The competition may be equally fierce, but there will be more opportunity to apply to programs that are the best possible fit for each applicant. Also, having gone through this cycle, should you choose to apply again, you will be going in with both perspective and experience that will serve you well and enable you to really tailor your applications for each program, next time around. That said, I think the cycle itself may be about the same next year, but may turn out better for those who applied this year and were disappointed.

[OpenBook]

11 minutes ago, missmarianne said:

Okay. Actual (ignorant) question for next year when I inevitably have to do this again. Most people do their MA's and PhDs at my school and don't venture elsewhere so I feel like I'm not understanding major components of this process. I'd definitely private message one of you, but I'm keeping this here in case some other confused person needs this information as well later on. 

What are POI email exchanges supposed to look like? The past two years, I've just introduced myself/my work, praised the POIs work (sincerely), and asked about potentially working with me if I were accepted to X university. Ordinarily, the professor emails me back and says "Your work sounds interesting. I'd be happy to work with you if you're accepted" or, if the person knows one of my LORs, they might comment on that as well. That has really been the extent of the exchange for me, though--with Rutgers--I never got a reply back. I had heard, through one of my editors and a grad student I reached out to, that that particular professor was considering retiring soon, so I was not confident about that application going in and I didn't feel comfortable emailing that person a second time. Now I have a few questions.

1. Was I supposed to be carrying on an ongoing email exchange with these professors beyond the introductory/inquiry email and the thank you-for-replying-email? I assumed that I would be disrupting their work if I did that...

2. Did y'all* have other professors reach out to them first to make an introduction? Is that a thing that happens?

3. Did y'all know the people you were going to work with before you emailed them and, if so, how did you meet them?

 

*using y'all because it's gender neutral and I'm from the South. ?

As a straight-to-PhD graduating undergrad here, I'll chime in to say that I only contacted one PoI, at my top school, over the summer.  She never got back to me, so I never reached out to anyone else (I was rejected from that same school).  I did mention, in detail, specific PoIs in all of my SoPs, but nothing more than that.

Edited February 20, 2021 by 1 Pint of Ricotta

[queenofcarrotflowers]

8 minutes ago, missmarianne said:

Okay. Actual (ignorant) question for next year when I inevitably have to do this again. Most people do their MA's and PhDs at my school and don't venture elsewhere so I feel like I'm not understanding major components of this process. I'd definitely private message one of you, but I'm keeping this here in case some other confused person needs this information as well later on. 

What are POI email exchanges supposed to look like? The past two years, I've just introduced myself/my work, praised the POIs work (sincerely), and asked about potentially working with me if I were accepted to X university. Ordinarily, the professor emails me back and says "Your work sounds interesting. I'd be happy to work with you if you're accepted" or, if the person knows one of my LORs, they might comment on that as well. That has really been the extent of the exchange for me, though--with Rutgers--I never got a reply back. I had heard, through one of my editors and a grad student I reached out to, that that particular professor was considering retiring soon, so I was not confident about that application going in and I didn't feel comfortable emailing that person a second time. Now I have a few questions.

1. Was I supposed to be carrying on an ongoing email exchange with these professors beyond the introductory/inquiry email and the thank you-for-replying-email? I assumed that I would be disrupting their work if I did that...

2. Did y'all* have other professors reach out to them first to make an introduction? Is that a thing that happens?

3. Did y'all know the people you were going to work with before you emailed them and, if so, how did you meet them?

 

*using y'all because it's gender neutral and I'm from the South. ?

Leaving this to someone more qualified to answer (shutout pending, decided not to reach out to any POIs, I don't think #2 is a thing but, again, am super underqualified to answer that) 

[Shake829]

5 minutes ago, 1 Pint of Ricotta said:

I've thought about this a lot on the yield side of things.  I knew many people who said they were taking a year off because of the pandemic, and therefore there will be more applicants for next year.  However, many programs have reported an uptick in applications.  Is that because, like me, people saw this as their opportunity to apply to more schools due to the lack of GREs?  I was able to apply to 18 schools as a low-income student because I had been saving up for this, and the lack of GRE freed up a ton of money for me.  I imagine other people are in a similar boat.  So I wonder if most people who could apply did, and therefore next year will be less impacted, or if we'll just keep seeing insane increases.

I also applied assuming that less people would be applying this time around. For me, I thought that, with the pandemic, less people would be willing to spend money on the crapshoot that is the admissions process. 
 

I remember reading that the uptick in applications actually correlated with the loss of employment. Prior to the pandemic, people may have had aspirations for graduate work but were not able to move due to employment and other factors. Now, the stipend provided is more valuable and people are willing to take a chance for 5-6 years of guaranteed payment. 

[LtotheOG]

44 minutes ago, Shake829 said:

Just curious: do you anticipate a better or worse cycle next year?

This should be made an entire thread out of.

Edited February 20, 2021 by LtotheOG

[Shake829]

19 minutes ago, missmarianne said:

Okay. Actual (ignorant) question for next year when I inevitably have to do this again. Most people do their MA's and PhDs at my school and don't venture elsewhere so I feel like I'm not understanding major components of this process. I'd definitely private message one of you, but I'm keeping this here in case some other confused person needs this information as well later on. 

What are POI email exchanges supposed to look like? The past two years, I've just introduced myself/my work, praised the POIs work (sincerely), and asked about potentially working with me if I were accepted to X university. Ordinarily, the professor emails me back and says "Your work sounds interesting. I'd be happy to work with you if you're accepted" or, if the person knows one of my LORs, they might comment on that as well. That has really been the extent of the exchange for me, though--with Rutgers--I never got a reply back. I had heard, through one of my editors and a grad student I reached out to, that that particular professor was considering retiring soon, so I was not confident about that application going in and I didn't feel comfortable emailing that person a second time. Now I have a few questions.

1. Was I supposed to be carrying on an ongoing email exchange with these professors beyond the introductory/inquiry email and the thank you-for-replying-email? I assumed that I would be disrupting their work if I did that...

2. Did y'all* have other professors reach out to them first to make an introduction? Is that a thing that happens?

3. Did y'all know the people you were going to work with before you emailed them and, if so, how did you meet them?

 

*using y'all because it's gender neutral and I'm from the South. ?

When applying, I had a former professor help me. She advised me to not reach out to potential POIs (unless I had specific questions about the program). She said the naming of POIs should be in the SoP. But she also advised not to tailor it towards only one professor, because that doesn’t show that you are a good fit for the department; it shows that you are a good fit for that specific person (I hadn’t thought of it like that before she made the point). She said that a good fit meant articulating why a number of different professors could work with me. 

That was her advice, but it’s not the same for everyone. Reach out to whoever is writing your letter of recommendation and ask for their advice.