Coping with Waiting. Last night, I had a nightmare.

[Waves]

I woke up panicking. I had a dream that they put the names of those accepted in the program on a big electronic scoreboard. Last name and first name initial only. They had my last name but they had my middle name initial. And the assistant director (who I had met with) came up to me and said that my POI gave me another shot. I was confused and then she added, "You know I was really disappointed with your GRE scores. You should defer till next year." Then I woke up.

Just wanted to vent. Ooooh, the agony of waiting. And I put all my eggs in one basket this application round. Why, oh why???

[lab ratta-tat-tat]

I had a dream I got an email that said "What are you a retard?" it had attached files and I had to open them. The first was the comment above with a large red arrow pointing to my GRE scores. the rest was my SOP marked in red.

At the bottom it said "Congratulations, you were the least stupid of the stupid applicants who applied, you are accepted-idiot"

talk about a nightmare

[was1984]

Wow, I thought I was having a hard time coping with waiting.

[BillyPilgrim]

I've had a few strange dreams as well.

Last night I dreamt that a friend introduced me to a mediator between grad school applicants and the grad schools. He informed me with 100% certainty that I was rejected from every school I applied to. After some despair I became skeptical. After inquiring about how he had access to all his information he acknowledged that he only had a list of addresses that the grad school has sent mail to and since my name wasn't on the list he concluded I was rejected. I told him schools communicate via email as well and he admitted to be a fraud. phew. And this guy looked like pre-boxing-career Mickey Rourke.

A few nights ago in my dream my mother informed me that mail was sent to her house for me and she opened it. Delighted, she announced that I got into in northwestern and U of Oregon. I was exicted of course, then very confused becuase I didn't apply to Oregon. I then convined myself that maybe I unknowingly applied to Oregon or just forgot. This led to much happiness across the land.

Edited January 21, 2011 by BillyPilgrim

[wanderlust07]

Wow. In my only dream so far, I was chillin' on my friend and fellow applicant's futon when my first rejection showed up. This was swiftly followed by all my other decisions and we had a rip--off--the--band-aid party, in which I found out all my notices were rejections (I don't think I was paying attention to his--even in my sleep I'm a self-centered jerk). Then I decided the only way to cope with this was with copious amounts of liquor and we were suddenly in my apartment across town, since my friend usually doesn't have alcohol at his place. There we broke open a bottle of Scotch and got shitty.

Then I woke up and was both comforted by the fact that I had not (yet) been universally rejected and disappointed that I did not have the power to magic myself to alcohol whenever I wished....

I probably would be having more if I had more time to sleep, but this seems pretty tame.

[lab ratta-tat-tat]

This thread sure has taken an interesting turn. I like it.

In real life, I had told a colleague I was having bad dreams and they said "Wait until you area graduate student, then see what kind of nightmares you have". They also told me that they have been worrying about their projects a lot lately and taking melatonin to help them sleep.

Lets hope grad school is not a living nightmare....

[Bison_PhD]

I had a dream I got an email that said "What are you a retard?" it had attached files and I had to open them. The first was the comment above with a large red arrow pointing to my GRE scores. the rest was my SOP marked in red.

At the bottom it said "Congratulations, you were the least stupid of the stupid applicants who applied, you are accepted-idiot"

At this point, that would be a good dream. You can call me whatever you want, as long as you accept me.

[katerific]

Wednesday night: I had a dream that I checked the website for my top choice and saw that they not only posted decisions, but commentary! Faculty members wrote a one-sentence review of the application and its components (although I didn't know who said what). On another part of the site, they put up a page of names of people accepted, rejected, and "other cases." Oh, their names and THEIR PICTURES. There were more accepted than anything else, and I was in the "other cases" category. Turns out, they listed 7 people there, and that was "the bottom three" category. We were the worst of the accepted, but only 3 of the 7 would actually make it. We had to duke it out intellectually for the spots!

Thursday: In this dream, another professor from another university who I don't even know told me that I wasn't a good fit for any of the labs I applied for. W-what?

This is not looking so good. Crossing my fingers for better dreams about like puppies and rainbows and acceptance letters...

[katemiddleton]

So my nightmare ended being kind of a good dream. I was sitting in on the ad com meeting of my number one school (guess what it is?) and the professor who I most want to work with, the other professor who I want to work with, and a grad student from my current university are all looking at my statement of purpose, and reading it with a red marker in hand. So the conversation goes like this:

Grad Student: "wrong, wrong wrong!" (as she crosses out lines on my SOP) "Where did she find this information, the internet?"

POI#1: "Yes, but it's ok, we'll still take her, I like her"

Me: crying in a corner, mortified.

dubadeedubadee that's all folks!

Alex

Edited January 23, 2011 by georgetownhopeful

[hopelesslypostmodern]

I'm currently reading Goethe's Faust for a German class. Well, a couple nights ago (after I had a brief interview with one of my schools earlier that day), I had a dream/nightmare that I was in grad school. Faust and/or Mephistopheles was a professor in my program.

Perhaps drinking Arbor Mist that night was a bad plan...

[closetgeek]

Last semester, a few weeks before I took my GRE, I became incredibly obsessed with watching Dexter. I watched every episode in probably two months. Anyways, I had a bad habit of watching it late at night, which typically led to me having nightmares. Well one night, while studying my GRE vocab flashcards, I decided a good break would be to watch an episode of Dexter..Bad idea.

My dream started off with me in the basement of my childhood house, which always scared me because those creepy hopping spiders would sometimes pop up down there. Anyways, I was in our weight room, and my dad was there, trying to murder me! But here's the kicker: The only way to stop him from lunging towards me was to give (correct) definitions of the vocab words he was holding in his hand! ..one of the most traumatizing dreams ever .. even worse than the time I dreamed my dad was a lawnmower..but that, my friends, is a whole 'nother story.

[Irishlibra]

Ironically, I read this post and that very night I had a two-part nightmare where one of my schools "never received my application" and another school had rejected me by sending my denial letter with my personal statement having highlighted the portions they thought were either redundant, ambiguous, irrelevant, or just plain stupid. I really need to get grad school out of my head. It's pathetic how it now haunts me day AND night.

[aem88]

I thought I'd share, since when I first read this thread I thought, "Geez, I have not had a single dream about the app process." Until last night...

So I'm waiting on my top choice, had a phone interview a couple weeks ago, and should hear back this week (if I get accepted) according to the results boards. It's pretty much the only place I want to go. Needless to say, I'm a anxiety riddled mess and have been having trouble sleeping and concentrating.

Last night I dreamed that I received a really glossy brochure in the mail that said I was accepted! Also accepted was my best friend (dream best friend, not anyone I know in real life). And we then magically were transported to the faculty where they told us both how awesome our apps were. I woke up feeling excited and then immediately disappointed that the whole thing was not real.

I went back to sleep and immediately had the next dream:

I dreamed that I was back at my parent's home, which is strange because I live several states away. I received a very curt email saying that I was rejected and also managed (in a weird dream way) to get a copy of my file. It had a torn note on it and all I could read was "...please keep in mind that..." I started crying and debated whether or not I should email the admissions committee and beg them to reconsider.

And then I woke up feeling horrible and depressed.

I can't believe my subconscious is even an anxious mess.

[Langoustine]

This thread is awesome! I had a dream last night that I got two emails saying I had been invited to the interview weekends! One school gave out the names of the other people who would be going too and there were 8 of us...then I woke up, checked my email and nothing...

[mscongeniality1]

Weird...I must be the only person that had a good dream about admits...dreamed one of my top schools admitted me and then said they were sending me to Australia for vacation. Bizarre but hey, ridicule free.

[neshmi]

I had a dream last week that my POI set up a conference call with himself, the department chair (who happened to be Severus Snape from Harry Potter) and me. In the end Snape didn't want to let me in unless I bribed him with $0.13. I refused. Seemed like a lot in the dream. The freaky part is, that very same day this POI e-mailed me to setup a call for that afternoon. Fortunately there was no involvement of Snape or the real department chair.

[NadaJ]

I was looking for this post this morning--thanks for bumping it back up...

Last night, I dreamt that I was accepted. I received a handwritten letter in the mail from my POI and scribbled calculations that told me how much I would receive. Then I met up with husband and we talked about what we'd have to do to move, while drinking a beer at an outside table in a restaurant. It was a pretty awesome dream. And so different from my usual rejection-filled daytime anxieties.

[neshmi]

Sounds like a fun dream!

[history_PhD]

I had a dream that I got a big envelope from Stanford. When I opened it, the only thing inside was a flyer. I was incredibly angry and woke up immediately after. As soon as I awoke, I realized that I didn't even apply to Stanford!

[Arianna]

Meh that doesn't sound so bad... my dream last night? The apocalypse.... but 1960's horror B-movie style. Don't ask ahahahahaha.

[newms]

I had a dream that I got a big envelope from Stanford. When I opened it, the only thing inside was a flyer. I was incredibly angry and woke up immediately after. As soon as I awoke, I realized that I didn't even apply to Stanford!

Sounds like Stanford is your dream school

Edited February 3, 2011 by newms

[Old Man & the C(S)]

Talk about the power of persuasion, I read this post before bed and...

My background is in printing. I was given dozens of acceptance letters to collate. There were fifteen or twenty pieces in each, including some sort of personalized RSVP card. I kept digging and digging, finding all of the pieces of mine, except of course the actual admission letter.

[Boat Meadow]

Dream? Who can even sleep?

Now I know why people apply to many many schools - so hopefully they hear from someone.

I applied to 1 - of course, it's the one that will probably wait until June to let anyone know.

I know - it's crazy, but it is a perfect fit. If I don't get in there will still be more schools to apply to next year!

[qbtacoma]

Last night I dreamed that I was all of a sudden really anxious about hearing back from schools. It was weird; in my waking life I have yet to enter the stage of anxiety that many folks here already have, but dream self was pretty upset about it all.

[jaxzwolf]

I don't ever remember dreaming about grad school applications last year, and I hadn't this year, until last night. It was a weird mix of Grad Cafe and acceptances, rejections, where the "vote this post up or down" button at the bottom of each post on the forum was actually a admit/reject button, where the plus sign was an acceptance and the minus a rejection. I was watching the screen in real time and it said I'd received three acceptances.

This afternoon I received a rejection letter from one of those three schools. Crap-- I hope my dreams aren't some kind of backward prescient, where I was actually foreseeing my rejections. My thinking overall, though? I need to spend less time on Grad Cafe.