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Is no news bad news?


mckenna81

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I just saw on the results list that one of my programs (UW Madison for theatre) notified someone of acceptance via the website on Feb 2. It's now Feb 11 and my status is still listed as "pending" on the website. Do you think this means my chances of getting in are slim to none? That's what I'm thinking, but I'm wondering if I'm overthinking this.

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not necessarily. no news also means no bad news. i have noticed (in my field at least) that some schools notify and invite a bunch of people for interview at a certain time, and do that again for another group at another time. i've decided that accepting, rejecting, interviewing, wait listing, etc can all be explained using the chaos theory - no regular pattern, and the pattern is not going to repeat itself but you can feel that there is some sort of correlation, yet there isn't one. spooky!

but hey, no news = glass is half full. right?

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It really depends on how your department does acceptances. In my field, some adcomms meet and select who they are admitting and send out those admits and only those admits. Some programs have rolling admissions and keep sending out admits for a while. So without knowing which system your program is using it's hard to say if it's bad news or if you should still have hope. Perhaps you can search the results board for results from last year from your program to see if there are admits reported at different times. That might give you an idea, but they may not necessarily follow the same pattern as last year.

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If you haven't been rejected yet you probably made it past the first step, assuming they don't send all the rejections at the very end. You probably haven't been thrown out with the people who have incomplete applications, low GPA's, low test scores, or research interests that don't align with the department.

I have one rejection so far. It was so quick, I have to assume I didn't make it past the first step for some reason. They only had my application for two weeks.

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If you haven't been rejected yet you probably made it past the first step, assuming they don't send all the rejections at the very end. You probably haven't been thrown out with the people who have incomplete applications, low GPA's, low test scores, or research interests that don't align with the department.

I have one rejection so far. It was so quick, I have to assume I didn't make it past the first step for some reason. They only had my application for two weeks.

That's a good way of looking at it. I'm hopeful that I will at least get a somewhat thorough review, as my research interests are so closely matched with a professor there (and there aren't that many of us in this particular area of theatre).

I have one rejection as well, and I know I didn't make it past the initial review. I'm a much better fit for Madison, though, so I'm trying to stay optimistic.

I should add - my GPA is good (4.0 in my MA, 3.8 in my BA), I have two publications and two conference presentations, but my GREs are not stellar (88% verbal, 55% quant, and a really shitty writing score that I'm hoping my statement and writing sample will counter).

Edited by mckenna81
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Hey guys, what's your opinion on this email from a POI:

"I am sorry I didn't get to meet you at SPSP! We should have set up a time to touch base there - it is such a mad house, that is the only way to make sure you get to see someone. We have invited a small number of our top choices for a visit. Unlike some departments, we don't invite all of the people we are considering, just a small number. We did have an extremely competitive group of applicants this year. However, no decisions have been made and you are still among the narrowed down list of students I am considering. Best, "

I mean, obviously this is good(ish) news, but what's your take on it?

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Hey guys, what's your opinion on this email from a POI:

"I am sorry I didn't get to meet you at SPSP! We should have set up a time to touch base there - it is such a mad house, that is the only way to make sure you get to see someone. We have invited a small number of our top choices for a visit. Unlike some departments, we don't invite all of the people we are considering, just a small number. We did have an extremely competitive group of applicants this year. However, no decisions have been made and you are still among the narrowed down list of students I am considering. Best, "

I mean, obviously this is good(ish) news, but what's your take on it?

I don't know if we can read more into it than what the prof said. It's obviously good news and it seems that you're in contention with a select few. All the best!

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It means that you're still in the process IMHO.

I got my first rejection the last Friday but I know that some people got rejected from this program like a month ago.

I personally think, that I made through some preliminary rounds and got rejected because of a substantial reason and not GPA/GMAT.

So you are still in the race

Good Luck

Edited by troy.princess
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