Applications for September 2021

[Paulyo83]

I've just applied to Purdue's PhD program in Educational Studies with a concentration in higher education. 

Wish me luck!

Where have you applied or where are you applying to?

 

[Cheeseman]

Hello, 

I've applied to UBoston, Columbia TC, NYU, CU Boulder, UPitt, Ohio State, CU Denver UBuffalo, and URochester. I hope we get this thread movin' an groovin. 

Best of luck with Purdue!

[optimisticSW]

YES! Good luck!

I applied to higher ed programs: UCLA (HEOC), UCI (epsc), USC (UEP). 

[foxfire123]

Thanks for starting this post!

Definitely feel like we could use more information and camaraderie on the Education forum. We have a post each year for HGSE, Penn GSE, Stanford, and TC, but not the other schools. 

I’m also applying with a higher ed specialization. This is my second time applying for a doctoral program, so my confidence is down a lot, especially with COVID-19 being a huge variable. I’m trying to keep my hopes up though, since I’m a more traditional candidate for a Ed PhD (I applied for a different but related field last year). Hopefully I’ll get at least a couple of interview offers! 

Best of luck to all of us! :)

[art229]

Hey y'all! It feels SO good to find other Ed folks  

I applied to: Stanford (SHIPS - history of ed), UIUC - (EPOL - history of ed) 

Will be applying to: UW-Seattle (Social/Cultural foundations) 

This is my first time applying to PhD programs so I'm pretty nervous especially because I am only applying to 3 schools, but whatever happens happens haha. Anyone else applying to these places? always happy to connect! 

[femstudies]

This is my second round of applying for doctoral programs as well! I applied to UNC Greensboro's Ph.D. in Educational Studies with a foundation in Cultural Foundations. 

 

Good luck to everyone - looking forward to seeing how things go for all of us!

[Paulyo83]

I also applied to Albany. Good luck to those who applied to tons of places.

Last year, I applied and was accepted to an EdD program at U.Toronto. I ended up not starting though, as my circumstances changed!

Good luck to everyone! :)

[Paulyo83]

On 11/29/2020 at 4:23 PM, Cheeseman said:

Hello, 

I've applied to UBoston, Columbia TC, NYU, CU Boulder, UPitt, Ohio State, CU Denver UBuffalo, and URochester. I hope we get this thread movin' an groovin. 

Best of luck with Purdue!

That's a lot! I hope you get in somewhere. I'm sure you will :) I applied to Albany's program in C&I, as it's mostly online and Albany punches above its weight in that area. Good luck!

[meowamour]

On 12/8/2020 at 2:18 AM, foxfire123 said:

Thanks for starting this post!

Definitely feel like we could use more information and camaraderie on the Education forum. We have a post each year for HGSE, Penn GSE, Stanford, and TC, but not the other schools. 

I’m also applying with a higher ed specialization. This is my second time applying for a doctoral program, so my confidence is down a lot, especially with COVID-19 being a huge variable. I’m trying to keep my hopes up though, since I’m a more traditional candidate for a Ed PhD (I applied for a different but related field last year). Hopefully I’ll get at least a couple of interview offers! 

Best of luck to all of us!

This is my second time around too applying.  Hopefully it goes well! 

[foxfire123]

2 hours ago, meowamour said:

This is my second time around too applying.  Hopefully it goes well! 

Seriously. COVID seems to have hit the non-STEM fields really hard though. I mean, I think it's a huge statement that some big name schools like Harvard and Johns Hopkins aren't taking any doctoral students this year. 

I thought I would feel less nervous this year since I've already experienced what it feels like to receive all rejections, but I'm still here starting from mid-December, so I guess I was wrong ?‍♀️

Do you think you were able to improve things about your application this year? 

[meowamour]

Just now, foxfire123 said:

Seriously. COVID seems to have hit the non-STEM fields really hard though. I mean, I think it's a huge statement that some big name schools like Harvard and Johns Hopkins aren't taking any doctoral students this year. 

I thought I would feel less nervous this year since I've already experienced what it feels like to receive all rejections, but I'm still here starting from mid-December, so I guess I was wrong ?‍♀️

Do you think you were able to improve things about your application this year? 

Kind of. I really worked hard to make my statement of purpose well written. I feel that last time around I didn’t do that as much. Also, I took some grad classes over the spring and summer. How about you??

[foxfire123]

19 hours ago, meowamour said:

Kind of. I really worked hard to make my statement of purpose well written. I feel that last time around I didn’t do that as much. Also, I took some grad classes over the spring and summer. How about you??

Similar. I didn't take any grad classes because I have a master's, but I think I worked much harder on my SOP this cycle. I also tried to reach out to PIs more actively this time around. I did it quite late in the process, though; I was waiting for the election results to decide if I was really going to apply haha.  

Everyone I've talked to recommended that I submit at least 10 applications (because of COVID and because I definitely don't want to do this a third time) but I just couldn't do it with a full-time job. Also, apps are suuuuper expensive. I managed to turn in eight applications, but I think that was about the limit for me, both mentally and financially. 

We'll all just have to see, I guess. Hopefully all of us get at least a couple of interview offers in January!

(If anyone has some good tips on how to stay distracted in the meantime, let me know.) 

[meowamour]

3 hours ago, foxfire123 said:

Similar. I didn't take any grad classes because I have a master's, but I think I worked much harder on my SOP this cycle. I also tried to reach out to PIs more actively this time around. I did it quite late in the process, though; I was waiting for the election results to decide if I was really going to apply haha.  

Everyone I've talked to recommended that I submit at least 10 applications (because of COVID and because I definitely don't want to do this a third time) but I just couldn't do it with a full-time job. Also, apps are suuuuper expensive. I managed to turn in eight applications, but I think that was about the limit for me, both mentally and financially. 

We'll all just have to see, I guess. Hopefully all of us get at least a couple of interview offers in January!

(If anyone has some good tips on how to stay distracted in the meantime, let me know.) 

I would love some distraction tips! Haha. Last time around I applied to 20 programs because I could at the time. Didn’t get into any of them. This time my advisor told me to narrow it down to 5, so that is what I did. I also have a masters, two actually. I thought that would be a good thing, but apparently not. I hope we all get interviews in January too! I don’t want to do this again.   Did you hear back from the PIs that you reached out to?

[foxfire123]

3 hours ago, meowamour said:

I would love some distraction tips!

Oh god. I was saving The Queen's Gambit for post-app season, but I blew through in like two days. So you and I are in the same boat. I had a whole bunch of books I also wanted to read, but after having read like 50+ papers from different professors, my brain requires less stimulation for at least the holiday season  ?

3 hours ago, meowamour said:

Did you hear back from the PIs that you reached out to?

A few. 

But when I reached out to the staff members asking for email protocols for their schools, some specified that it was not necessary/advantageous to find a faculty sponsor because the admissions team is responsible for the preliminary matching. I took this to mean that the professors wouldn't reply even if I emailed them. 

I reached out to one professor per program for schools that either explicitly or implicitly encouraged communication with POI but did not hear back from all of them. I had an informal Zoom call with one professor, but they are just very generous with their time and do that for every potential candidate. From my understanding, it's a professor-by-professor situation in most scenarios, so I'm trying not to be too discouraged if I didn't hear back.  

In fact, that made me want to ask, has anyone been in contact with POI from either USC or UC Irvine? I've looked through previous years' posts, too, but the information isn't as abundant for the education forum  

Edited December 18, 2020 by foxfire123

[kudrinskaya]

On 12/16/2020 at 11:44 PM, foxfire123 said:

some big name schools like Harvard and Johns Hopkins aren't taking any doctoral students this year. 

I was wondering how you found that out, as I applied to the Johns Hopkins PhD program; were they just taking applications with no intent to admit anyone?

[foxfire123]

7 hours ago, kudrinskaya said:

On 12/17/2020 at 2:44 PM, foxfire123 said:

 

I was wondering how you found that out, as I applied to the Johns Hopkins PhD program; were they just taking applications with no intent to admit anyone?

I read it on a master list on the “gradadmissions” subreddit. I guess I didn’t read the list carefully because I wasn’t applying to JHU, but it seems from here that it’s a lot of master’s programs and grad certification programs: https://education.jhu.edu/academics/academic-catalog/suspended-programs/

Sorry for the panic I may have caused you! Definitely didn’t mean to do that to a fellow applicant  Happy new year though!!

[kudrinskaya]

9 hours ago, foxfire123 said:

I read it on a master list on the “gradadmissions” subreddit. I guess I didn’t read the list carefully because I wasn’t applying to JHU, but it seems from here that it’s a lot of master’s programs and grad certification programs: https://education.jhu.edu/academics/academic-catalog/suspended-programs/

Sorry for the panic I may have caused you! Definitely didn’t mean to do that to a fellow applicant  Happy new year though!!

Thanks for clarifying. It might have been a case that earlier in the process they were not going to accept new applications and then changed course. Either way your original point still stands - JHU and others not offering certain programs is significant. I didn't really panic too much, don't worry.  Cheers and happy new year!

[chai time]

Not applying to PhD (yet), but I just submitted all my master's applications! I've applied to International Education at TC, NYU, and George Washington, and Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship at HGSE. On one hand it was freeing to submit after working on applications since mid-October, but now I have nothing to redirect my energy to. I'm currently trying to learn to draw and am reading a lot of children's novels. Very very low-effort, while feeling a little more satisfying than watching Netflix.

[dancewmoonlight]

On 11/27/2020 at 1:08 PM, Paulyo83 said:

Where have you applied or where are you applying to?

I applied to the Education PhD program at University of Manitoba, as well as the English PhD program at Northeastern University. I'm a university writing instructor, so both apply. It's been a month and a half since I submitted the UM and a month since the NEU app. Waiting is so hard!

[optimisticSW]

I just saw a post that someone has an interview with UCI's program. You in here? How'd it go? 

 

[foxfire123]

On 1/8/2021 at 3:21 AM, optimisticSW said:

I just saw a post that someone has an interview with UCI's program. You in here? How'd it go? 

 

I'd also like to know if they're in here. GradCafe is such a ghost town this year. I'm seeing posts slooooowly appear, but nowhere near what past years have been like. Most of the schools I've applied to should have started sending out interview invites. 

I'm wondering if it's because there are actually fewer applicants who use GradCafe this cycle (i.e. I just didn't get an invite) or because COVID is slowing down the admissions cycle. Either way, the January anxiety is all too familiar and still unwelcome! 

[sunnyside]

Hi folks. Another anxiously waiting candidate. I'm just waiting for UCI (EPSC)... Every day feels so long. Anyone heard back from UCI yet? 

[optimisticSW]

1 hour ago, sunnyside said:

Hi folks. Another anxiously waiting candidate. I'm just waiting for UCI (EPSC)... Every day feels so long. Anyone heard back from UCI yet? 

The results page has a posting that says one person had an interview with them. Hopefully they come here to check in. I read that their program has rolling review of applications, so maybe they're working their way through? That's me trying to be optimistic because both UCI and USC say they require interviews for all admitted students; UCLA doesn't require an interview for acceptance.  Where'd you apply?

[sunnyside]

18 minutes ago, optimisticSW said:

The results page has a posting that says one person had an interview with them. Hopefully they come here to check in. I read that their program has rolling review of applications, so maybe they're working their way through? That's me trying to be optimistic because both UCI and USC say they require interviews for all admitted students; UCLA doesn't require an interview for acceptance.  Where'd you apply?

Applied to uci & ucla. I heard uci's interview is in jan so hoping to hear back soon ? 

Edited January 12, 2021 by sunnyside

[foxfire123]

Just now, sunnyside said:

I saw that post that someone got an email today and it got me more anxious lol. Wish everyone sent out emails at the same time for interview requests 

SAME. Once the initial offer is posted, I feel the window slowly closing for me to get mine. 

For UCI, though, their "priority" deadline full funding consideration is December 1, and the final deadline is February 1. I'm sure they're going through the priority applications now. 

I spoke with a few staff and faculty during the application process, and they all seemed to agree that the pandemic may delay the application review process since it's the first time they've had to do a bulk of it online. Also, winter and spring terms either just began or are about to begin, and there's general political unrest on top of everything. It's helped my anxiety to know that professors probably have more pressing priorities at the moment.