Acceptances/Rejections/Decisions

[dsmiles]

hoping to hear something soon!

[SocHope]

Is it just me or does it seem like the acceptances and rejections this year are even more staggered than usual? Especially with regards to rejections - I can't imagine they'd keep so many applications in the "maybe" pile for this long.

Ok, but this is also a function of my impatience and waiting to hear news appears to distort one's perception of time. Blah! Yea or nay me already schools!

[giacomo]

Is it just me or does it seem like the acceptances and rejections this year are even more staggered than usual? Especially with regards to rejections - I can't imagine they'd keep so many applications in the "maybe" pile for this long.

Ok, but this is also a function of my impatience and waiting to hear news appears to distort one's perception of time. Blah! Yea or nay me already schools!

no, i think you're absolutely right. a downside of all this: all rejections- expected and unexpected alike- come out the same day(s). chaos.

[kbirch]

Am I the only one who hasn't heard anything?? Granted, a lot of my schools had later deadlines but... but... but... Frustration!!!

[sciencegirl]

I will second that it seems as if something seems off compared to previous years in regards to a very staggered acceptance procedure by some schools (Chicago), a question about how many waves there are or aren't in acceptances (Wisconsin, the UCs), or a slight delay from previous years (Northwestern, Harvard)... the only school that seemed to do it the old way was Princeton.. accept one day, reject the next and not leave people hanging.

Perhaps the schools have gotten an unprecedented amount of applications this year and are trying to make sense of this themselves? Figure into that the importance of funding/lack of funding... also the economy, competition, the acceptance rates of places like Wisconsin plummeting... we are all probably messing up their acceptance/cohort formulas and they are trying to adjust this year?

[jenjenjen]

Has anyone received a straight-out rejection from University of Michigan yet?

I'd like to know that too as I've heard nothing from them... I haven't noticed in UM rejections on the results survey though

[giacomo]

whenever this thread is updated, my heart pounds

[heulwen]

Am I the only one who hasn't heard anything?? Granted, a lot of my schools had later deadlines but... but... but... Frustration!!!

You're not alone. University of Michigan, University of Washington Seattle, Rutgers, not a word.

[avee]

Am I the only one who hasn't heard anything?? Granted, a lot of my schools had later deadlines but... but... but... Frustration!!!

I applied to 7 programs, and I've only heard back from MIT as of yesterday (rejection). Now I am really getting antsy. I just want to know, and it doesn't make me feel good that my first letter was one of rejection.

[lovenhaight]

Hmm...would it be overanalyzing to think that today's slow response rate has something to do with programs not wanting to send rejections on Valentine's Day?

[felicidad]

Hmm...would it be overanalyzing to think that today's slow response rate has something to do with programs not wanting to send rejections on Valentine's Day?

Yeah but there don't seem to be acceptances going out either. I'd think that an acceptance would be cheering for all the single people out there!

P.S. Being a teacher is like the best on Valentine's Day. Good haul this year! Three carnations, a cup, a rose, a box of candy AND a stuffed dog. And the dog is good-sized too. Going to miss this next year...

[sociology27]

haha, I think this is what the republicans are referring to when they talk about pampered teachers and their crazy benefit packages.

YOU'RE BANKRUPTING OUR COUNTRY!

[erenkrc]

Does anyone know if the acceptance/ rejection processes for international students are different? It seems that I am waiting for a decision more than the others who already posted their status.

[schooliscool]

Is it just me or does it seem like the acceptances and rejections this year are even more staggered than usual? Especially with regards to rejections - I can't imagine they'd keep so many applications in the "maybe" pile for this long.

Ok, but this is also a function of my impatience and waiting to hear news appears to distort one's perception of time. Blah! Yea or nay me already schools!

I really hope the lack of rejections isn't an indication of the size of the wait list. So far I'm the only wait listed person I see at my top choice, which has me quite hopeful! I'm assuming other wait listed folks just haven't been notified or just don't visit this forum. I was contacted by the DGS personally, which is probably because the DGS is my POI and we've spoken multiple times, so it isn't necessarily an indicator of my position on the wait list, and certainly doesn't mean I'm the only wait listed person.

My guess is there are plenty of folks on here in the 2nd tier pile, and you just haven't been notified.

[avee]

Yeah but there don't seem to be acceptances going out either. I'd think that an acceptance would be cheering for all the single people out there!

P.S. Being a teacher is like the best on Valentine's Day. Good haul this year! Three carnations, a cup, a rose, a box of candy AND a stuffed dog. And the dog is good-sized too. Going to miss this next year...

What the hell---all I received from a student today is a formal call to action regarding birth control handed out by her Priest in church. I guess I'll count that, though.

[kbirch]

Yeah but there don't seem to be acceptances going out either. I'd think that an acceptance would be cheering for all the single people out there!

P.S. Being a teacher is like the best on Valentine's Day. Good haul this year! Three carnations, a cup, a rose, a box of candy AND a stuffed dog. And the dog is good-sized too. Going to miss this next year...

@felicidad, What do you teach? I used to teach 5th grade and Valentine's Day was great, but now I teach middle school... Valentine's Day is now just an excuse to flirt, not pay attention and basically treat the whole day as a party.

[felicidad]

@felicidad, What do you teach? I used to teach 5th grade and Valentine's Day was great, but now I teach middle school... Valentine's Day is now just an excuse to flirt, not pay attention and basically treat the whole day as a party.

I teach 6th-8th. *sticks a tongue out at you*

[bubawizwam]

Hmm...would it be overanalyzing to think that today's slow response rate has something to do with programs not wanting to send rejections on Valentine's Day?

Ha, UC-Riverside didn't seem to mind rejecting me today. I guess they love me not.

[bubbaface]

I see a Harvard. Who is claiming it.

[SocHope]

I refuse to have this topic not be on the first page of sociology posts!

So am I just over-analyzing when I think if a program has an early March visit day, and I haven't heard anything from them, I've been rejected? I'm thinking this because most flights need to be booked 2 weeks in advance, otherwise the prices keep going up, and I can't imagine a program allowing and paying for flights less than 1-2 weeks in advance.

/craziness

[largo]

Hey guys, just wanted to make something clear. There're couple of schools (I guess 4 so far) that I've not heard of, haven't got a rejection mail; but people were either interviewed or got accepted to those universities. What do you think that means? Should I be totally depressed about being rejected and not being even told, or should I be a little bit hopeful about the possibility of a wait list? What do you think?

[RefurbedScientist]

Hey guys, just wanted to make something clear. There're couple of schools (I guess 4 so far) that I've not heard of, haven't got a rejection mail; but people were either interviewed or got accepted to those universities. What do you think that means? Should I be totally depressed about being rejected and not being even told, or should I be a little bit hopeful about the possibility of a wait list? What do you think?

I'm in the same boat with UCSB, a school where i felt like I was a strong candidate and where I had positive exchanges with a POI. Speaking from only my perspective, I imagine myself on a sort of de facto wait list. Acceptances went out a while ago, so I assume rejections have been mostly made as well. I like to locate myself in limbo somewhere in between. Perhaps they're waiting till after recruitment day to make final cuts when they'll have a better sense for the matriculation rate and cohort size.

[wmnshlthsoc]

Another rejection (Emory)... that's 2... still waiting for 3 more programs and I know for a fact that 2 of them already started accepting. It's hard to stay encouraged right now.

[abc123xtc]

I feel a bit cranky that I'm hearing from everyone BUT my top three choices. However, it is nice to know that I have options.

[jacib]

Hey guys, just wanted to make something clear. There're couple of schools (I guess 4 so far) that I've not heard of, haven't got a rejection mail; but people were either interviewed or got accepted to those universities. What do you think that means? Should I be totally depressed about being rejected and not being even told, or should I be a little bit hopeful about the possibility of a wait list? What do you think?

It depends on the program. I am fairly confident that all the large private universities send out their acceptances over the course of a day or two at most. Schools with masters programs (think MAPSS at Chicago and the free-standing MA at Columbia) may not send out rejections for a while because they have two completely separate rounds of acceptances. At large private schools without MA's, if you haven't heard within 48 of the first person, this is not a positive sign for your acceptance to the PhD program. Smaller schools that only accept one to three people a year probably can't really extend more offers than slots, so a school like that may wait to hear from their first sets offers before extending offers to others (ideally, they should tell you that you're "waitlisted" but you may find this is not always the case). At public universities, the situation can be more complicated. Look at the "results survey" to get a good idea of past behavior. At public universities, funding usually comes from more varied sources, and so acceptances can come in when information on funding is complete. People who the department wants to submit for university wide competitive funding especially may be informed earlier that they've been accepted. Other public schools will accept everyone at the same time and say "funding info to come", but not all do. CUNY, for example, has been known to let in a bunch of people who have been awarded university-wide "presidential fellowships" or something like that first, and then everyone else, for whom the funding is less known, slightly later.

However, people getting in after the recruitment weekend (or after they could conceivably make plans to go to the recruitment weekend) is very, very rare, and I've personally only heard of it happening once with one school that admitted a single student after recruitment weekend because they had had an uncharacteristic overlap in acceptances with two slightly higher ranked programs and their cohort was literally half the size they had hoped for, and would have been the smallest cohort in at least a decade.