0% Confidence of Acceptance

[wintergirl]

Like others of you have said, I'm at the halfway mark with no positive results and have been battling some serious February can't-get-out-of-bed-can't-work-Netflix-addict blues. But today for some reason I feel like it's a good day for an acceptance. Where's this brief spark of positivity coming from? I have no idea. But My First Acceptance, c'mon down!

Pulling for everyone else in this sucky sucky situation. After working so hard on apps (and GREs, and GPAs/classes, and theses, and conference presentations, and publications, etc etc etc) it truly hurts to feel like "they don't like me, they really really don't like me!"

Let's all focus on that one tiny spark of positivity still left--whatever it may be. Hang in there, peeps!! <3

[the international]

Thank you for this bespeckled- I'm with you! It's not over til it's over!

And even if we don't get it this time, we can comfort in knowing that amazing minds before us also had a rough time in getting accepted. Derrida for example!

[stylechallenge10]

Bespeckled, that's a great attitude! Like I've been telling friends that have been applying, it really does only take one acceptance.

[wreckofthehope]

Hey guys - at this point last year, I had no offers and about 4 rejections and was feeling pretty crappy about my general prospects. On the 23rd I got a fully funded offer and then the waitlists started rolling in. Don't give up hope too fast, it's seriously early in the season yet!

[Jbarks]

Thanks, wreckofthehope! I still have a lot of schools that have yet to notify, so I shall try to remain positive.

[Katy85]

Hey guys - at this point last year, I had no offers and about 4 rejections and was feeling pretty crappy about my general prospects. On the 23rd I got a fully funded offer and then the waitlists started rolling in. Don't give up hope too fast, it's seriously early in the season yet!

Thank you! I (and I'm assuming a lot of other rejectees) needed this.

[obrera]

"So many tears I've cried

So much pain inside

But baby it ain't over 'til it's over

So many years we've tried

To keep our love alive

But baby it ain't over 'til it's over"

-Lenny Kravitz on grad school

[Silent_G]

Sorry to rain on this parade of hope, but I just can't work up any confidence today. I have two official rejections, three implied, and I'm not holding out much hope for the last. The implicit rejection from my top choice hurts the most. I'm absolutely positive that I won't be getting in this year, and it's sent me into a deeper depression than I could have imagined. I cried myself to sleep last night, then woke myself up coughing (I'm terribly ill), so I'm sure this mixture of sleep deprivation and sickness isn't helping. I just worked so hard for this. I know we all did, but it sucks to have spent so much time and money and effort and have nothing to show for it.

[the international]

I think the problem lies with the term 'implicit rejection'.

Look at this, from the board yesterday:

Yale Graduate School Of Arts And Sciences Department Of Political Science (IR), PhD (F12) Accepted via E-mail on 20 Feb 2012 ♦ A 21 Feb 2012

• email from POI said to expect 5 years full funding. Total shock because others on gradcafe had been contacted for an interview over the past couple weeks and I wasn't. Moral of the story: Be careful with assumptions.
  

We should be realistic, but not so determinedly negative.

[Heather Hoffman]

For me, it was not too bad in the moment of getting rejected, but at school today it hit me incredibly hard. I haven't told the other students in my cohort yet, and one of them had me help her with a paper this morning, so I was talking about literature and theory on an intensely complex level and all the while in the back of my mind, thinking, "I won't get to do this anymore in a couple months." That. just. hurt.

I have one official rejection, three implicit rejections and one halfway decent chance at a wait list. Like you all, I'm really starting to feel depressed. Gonna try to take my mind off it by doing some schoolwork now.

[perrykm2]

I feel like I've been rejected from all of my schools even though I've only technically been rejected from Duke and Brown (definitely reach schools.) But then, I've applied to only 4 other schools, which now seems really stupid.

[TripWillis]

Is it just me, or did Pandora's box open in the last 12 hours?

[Silent_G]

On 2/22/2012 at 1:09 PM, perrykm2 said:

I feel like I've been rejected from all of my schools even though I've only technically been rejected from Duke and Brown (definitely reach schools.) But then, I've applied to only 4 other schools, which now seems really stupid.

This. I was rejected from BC and Brandeis. And at the time I thought applying to six schools was a lot. It was certainly a lot of money! But now I'm seeing that I should've cast a wider net. Of course, I'm geographically limited to the Boston area because I was silly enough to fall in love and get engaged, but I still wish I had applied to more schools.

[perrykm2]

Rice is notifying today?

[ahembree]

On 2/22/2012 at 1:11 PM, perrykm2 said:

Rice is notifying today?

I just got that email...whomp whomp...

Also, WUSTL is making me very nervous. I would love to avoid a double dose day (crosses fingers for a wait-listing...).

[perrykm2]

Another school that will probably notify everyone who applied except for me 200000 days later.

"I see you applied 2 years ago. Yes, we've finally decided, you've been rejected."

[perrykm2]

On 2/22/2012 at 1:11 PM, Silent_G said:

This. I was rejected from BC and Brandeis. And at the time I thought applying to six schools was a lot. It was certainly a lot of money! But now I'm seeing that I should've cast a wider net. Of course, I'm geographically limited to the Boston area because I was silly enough to fall in love and get engaged, but I still wish I had applied to more schools.

Congratulations on your engagement! I totally understand how you feel. I was 100% resolved that if I got into Duke, I would pack up my stuff and say goodbye to the most positive relationship I've ever been in. Now, I'm desperately hoping I get into OSU so we can stay together. I'm not sure an acceptance from any of my remaining schools is tempting enough.

Maybe when my boyfriend becomes a super rich physicist, I can have him buy me the education of my dreams.

[obrera]

Another school that will probably notify everyone who applied except for me 200000 days later.

"I see you applied 2 years ago. Yes, we've finally decided, you've been rejected."

EXACTLY HOW I FEEL.

[Silent_G]

Congratulations on your engagement! I totally understand how you feel. I was 100% resolved that if I got into Duke, I would pack up my stuff and say goodbye to the most positive relationship I've ever been in. Now, I'm desperately hoping I get into OSU so we can stay together. I'm not sure an acceptance from any of my remaining schools is tempting enough.

Maybe when my boyfriend becomes a super rich physicist, I can have him buy me the education of my dreams.

Haha! Exactly. My fiance is getting his PhD in molecular and cell biology. He wants to cure AIDS, like you do. What is it with science and literature peeps getting together? I hear it a lot. I'm totally counting on him to make the bulk of our subsistence, which is completely in contrast with my feminist self and the fact that my mother and aunts have always drilled into me how important it is to have your own money. Alas, I don't expect to make much as an English professor. If I ever even get to become one.

[antecedent]

Congratulations on your engagement! I totally understand how you feel. I was 100% resolved that if I got into Duke, I would pack up my stuff and say goodbye to the most positive relationship I've ever been in. Now, I'm desperately hoping I get into OSU so we can stay together. I'm not sure an acceptance from any of my remaining schools is tempting enough.

Maybe when my boyfriend becomes a super rich physicist, I can have him buy me the education of my dreams.

THIS. 100% THIS. I used to think I'd just move wherever the hell grad school took me and make my relationship work long distance or give up on it completely. Now I'm looking back on my apps and wondering how I could have chosen a city that doesn't even have an international airport (my boyfriend is Canadian). I'm now crossing my fingers for SFSU just cause it would be closest AND SFO is close by.

And, same with both you and Silent_G, my boyfriend is a meteorologist and likely to be the major breadwinner for the rest of always in our relationship. I never thought I would feel that way until I realized how broke an MA was going to make me.

[perrykm2]

Once I said to my boyfriend, "when you become a super rich physicist, will you take me to Iceland?"

And then he asked, "what if you're the one who becomes super rich?"

And then we laughed.

[Silent_G]

Congratulations on your engagement! I totally understand how you feel. I was 100% resolved that if I got into Duke, I would pack up my stuff and say goodbye to the most positive relationship I've ever been in. Now, I'm desperately hoping I get into OSU so we can stay together. I'm not sure an acceptance from any of my remaining schools is tempting enough.

Maybe when my boyfriend becomes a super rich physicist, I can have him buy me the education of my dreams.

Also, thank you for the congratulations! Didn't mean to be rude. Best of luck to you!!! I'm rooting for the other people on this forum more than I am for myself these days, it seems.

[perrykm2]

Yes, and of course, best of luck to you as well! Hopefully everyone will get what they want.

Regardless, engagements and weddings are always exciting.

[hiphopanonymous]

Long-time listener, first-time caller.

Personally, I'm batting 1/11 at the moment. But my brother's applying in a different area of the humanities and hasn't heard from anyone yet. I'm dying for him right now, and for all those in the forum who've gone 0-fer thus far.

I've been out of school for a couple years, always carrying around the threat of applying to PhD programs more or less as a way to persuade myself that I don't have to keep doing this job. My brother's finishing an MA right now, and I've been so impressed by his enthusiasm and his fantastic research project and his energy for travel and investigation that I actually got more excited about English grad school than I have been since my second year of undergrad. The mere thought that I might be going to school and he might be sitting out for a year (I will make him apply again--he's too good) is painful. As in so painful I sometimes don't want to go.

Anyway, all just to say, for those of you who are anxious about what family members are thinking, what friends are thinking: the ones who love you are pulling for you more than you know. Even the ones who say things like, "Of course you'll get in. You love reading!" They may not understand how hard it is, but they'll see how hard you're taking it.

[End sweeping, string-heavy Lifetime score.]

Best of luck, all.

[Dagny1984]

haha! I relate soooo much, especially with your response.

I got a text from an unknown number last night. At first I was like, "Omg! They're texting me to let me know I've been accepted!"

Then I realized how stupid that was

I got a call a little while ago from a number that I did not recognize and it turned out to be some cruise line asking me to take a poll for a chance for free tickets. I literally yelled at the recording. It said, "Sorry I did not recognize that" ahhhh