Adverse reactions

[myzzm]

This might seem counterintuitive but is anyone else feeling down in response to acceptances? I've applied to 11 schools for English Lit; Critical Cultural Studies. I've received 2 acceptances to Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Ohio State and one rejection from UCSD. My first "in" gave me an all day caffeine high without the coffee. But since then I've only felt depressed even when a second congratulations greeted me. What for? Could I be mourning the agonizing admissions process - the journey back to grad school? Doubtful. I've worked the past 2 years in a meaningless waste of life office job. I find it hard to believe I'm depressed about leaving it behind. Maybe it's the anxiety of making decisions, my still unknown status with funding, or the other 8 responses I should be receiving this month. If anyone has insight on the mysterious blues of being accepted and possible underlying causes, I'd love to know. It has me quite confused.

[Rutabaga]

I can relate to that. After the initial Whoooooo feeling of my first (and so far only) acceptance I went home and it all sort of set in and I got really depressed. I think it's a few things. The main one being that this was something I had invested so much emotional energy in and that to have it actually happen just somehow did not compute. I mean what do you do with all that pent up energy and stress once you get want you wanted? Also, the whole idea of it being real is sort of stress inducing. It's one thing to say I'm going to get a PhD! It's another to actually GET one and move and leave your comfort zone. I'm feeling a lot better about it all now though. Maybe just give yourself a chance to let it sink in and try to remember that you earned this so it's ok to be happy for a little while at least!

[IvyHope]

I think alot of people find the notification process to be a bit...anticlimactic? You'll find that you're still bottling some anticipation even after receiving all of your notifications, and there's not much to be anticipating. Does that make sense to anyone?

[freefallen]

Agreed. I'm sitting on three acceptances and I'm just kinda...bummed?

But of course I've been reading bad apartment ratings, looking into my funding packages, examining the courseload/comps etc. It's sinking in, I think. I am excited on one hand of course, but I think the process of picking a school and moving away to God knows where is taking a toil on the joy. I get exhausted just thinking about packing up all my stuff and leaving everyone I know to spend 5 years in place across the country.

Anticlimactic? Perhaps. My first acceptance was on a Friday and resulted in a complete drinking-fest at the club. My other two, I woohooed, and then went home and worked on my thesis.

[IvyHope]

I also think most people forget, amongst the application process, that an acceptance is a christening into the hardest time of your life! lol...more work than you'll ever do in your life, combined with a sub 20k salary (some of us, 4-figure salaries) and an umatched "thickening of the skin..."

It's not really like hitting the lotto. It's more like, congratulations! you get to be somebody's bitch for the next 3-7 years. Woohoo.

[void]

Wow, I am so glad someone brought this up. I have very mixed emotions. There was so much invested in applying and all of the work and pressure for years up until that point. Now that I am in at two places I am both thrilled and scared. I will be leaving behind my support system, and perhaps have to move without my partner, to a place where I know no one and will barely be able to afford a plane ticket, let alone have much time, to see people I know. That and the anxiety of choosing the right place. I am having a very hard time with that aspect, which is definitely a very good place to be in, but I find this part of the process so foreign to me.

[IvyHope]

post-partum depression...that's what it reminds me of. (reminded me of, as I haven't experienced it in three years)

[wantaphd]

It's not really like hitting the lotto. It's more like, congratulations! you get to be somebody's bitch for the next 3-7 years. Woohoo.

This is too funny! And too true.

[myzzm]

Ahh it must be the buzzkill that is packing!

Seriously, I am so glad that I'm not the only one. I was feeling guilty for not being more thrilled. I think the weight of a life style change is heavier than I anticipated. I have been living in the same city (one that I adore despite the frigid winters) for 7 years. My fiance is a law student in his 2nd year. We're looking into visiting student options for him to complete his last year of coursework. All of this seems to trump the bliss of returning to more meaningful work.

Still, we all deserve a pat on the back.

[fuzzylogician]

I can totally relate. I've received some really great offers I had thought for sure would make me *die* with excitement, but after the first few hours of joy, I'm back to feeling kind of depressed. I guess it's just the realization that it's really happening. I'm really going to leave my bf, move half way across the world and start all over again, alone and in a strange country. There are so many things I have to get done over the next 6 months, it's just overwhelming. Not to mention the change from I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing-next-year to the daunting My-life-for-the-next-5-to-7-years-is-pretty-much-set!

I hear it's a natural process so I'm hoping to go back to feeling good and excited about my decision after it all sinks in.

[t_ruth]

I'm feeling it as well.

Part of it is the anticlimactic nature of the acceptances (what, you mean they don't come w/a marching band outside of my door?), and part of it is facing the work for the move. I'm still excited about beginning school itself, but trying to sell my house (in this market!), liquidate my business and pack up my entire family is incredibly daunting.

[IvyHope]

I'm feeling it as well.

Part of it is the anticlimactic nature of the acceptances (what, you mean they don't come w/a marching band outside of my door?), and part of it is facing the work for the move. I'm still excited about beginning school itself, but trying to sell my house (in this market!), liquidate my business and pack up my entire family is incredibly daunting.

lol, t_ruth, you want me to bring my trumpet up this weekend and play for you? it can be arranged.

[Louiselab]

I have to say up front, I feel great guilt about feeling this way because I acknowledge my luckiness for finally getting in after a second round of applying, particularly when most profs told me I had a snowball's chance in hell.

I need to fast forward to Sept. or something. I don't want to be stuck where I am anymore, I can't wait to leave. And i really want my CONCRETE PAPER ACCEPTANCE ALREADY PLEASE. Because otherwise, I keep waiting for them to take it back. Juuust waiting for it. And tallying how much it's going to cost me to move, and buy a car, and that I now have to buy airplane tickets instead of train tickets to go home. I was thinking about this while I was opening a new account, and randomly telling the guy I was going to a PhD program, and for some reason blurted out "you know, being an adult is expensive. I'd rather be 4 again."

[miratrix]

I was actually going to make a thread like this, titled "cold feet" or "self-doubt" or something along those lines. I got my first acceptance at a school far away, and I could still end up going somewhere closer to home, but I think I'm already subconsciously starting the mourning process for my current home and life. When I think about moving and meeting new people and doing interesting work in grad school, it's directly opposed in my mind to my current location, my local friends, and my 9-5 job. It makes me ask, "is this what I really want?" Basically, do I value my studies and career as much as I think I do, to the point that it's worth it to give up what I like about my life now for the sake of having a job I like? Or is a job that generally bores you just the price you pay for having an otherwise decent life?

Then I think about fieldwork and get excited again. But the anxiety is still there. Glad I'm not alone.

[yivorechecho]

I tend to get very anxious about things, and not having any acceptances was a way to shove off worrying about all that. Now I'm holding 2 and it's all hitting me. I have 4 more weeks of college. I suddenly need to come up with thousands of dollars. I need to find my own housing after having it handed to me on a silver platter for the last 21 years of my life. I'm a bit reclusive, but I built up a group of friends anyway over the last four years and now I have to start all over again.

I feel like I haven't slept well in weeks. First it was fretting about my senior comprehensive exercise. I passed that. Then I worried that I would never get in anywhere and would be living in my parents' basement working at Subway into my 30s. I got in. Now I wake up hours before my alarm worrying about money and the unknown. I don't do change well. Excitement over my acceptances buoyed me for about 3 days, but now I've crashed and I'm exhausted and tired of worrying.

[miratrix]

That's a lot to hit you, I think financial worries are much worse than grad school worries (for me, at least). I was applying for jobs at the same time as for grad schools, and jobs took FAR more time and psychological energy. Even now that I am employed and got into one school, I'm actually more worried about asking for time off from work for grad school visits than I am about the visits themselves, even though the visits will have more of a long-term impact on my life. Figuring out how to feed and shelter yourself is much more immediate and basic than intellectual questions and challenges, and that part of graduation from college and grad school is pretty intimidating. But it sounds like you're on the way to finding those answers, even though it will be a big upheaval....

[poiuyt]

[quote name="Louiselab

[BostonGrrl]

I'm feeling rather depressed as well. I received an acceptance from a good school with full funding and, after about 24 hours of excitement, depression started setting in. While it is a good school, it is not my top choice-- it is far away, it is not Top 10, and my partner does not want to move there. I have yet to hear from my top two schools. Others have heard from those schools, and it's killing me. Even though I have yet to hear from 6 schools, I've convinced myself that this will be my only acceptance and I'm going to lose my partner of 4 1/2 years, live in a very, very cold state and always wish I had gotten into a Top 10 school. I really should get off these fora and try to focus on work, family, etc.--- but I just can't concentrate. I'm just depressed and everyone around me wants me to just get my mind of grad school stuff and be happy-- but I can't.

[Dreams]

I'm feeling rather depressed as well. I received an acceptance from a good school with full funding and, after about 24 hours of excitement, depression started setting in. While it is a good school, it is not my top choice-- it is far away, it is not Top 10, and my partner does not want to move there. I have yet to hear from my top two schools. Others have heard from those schools, and it's killing me. Even though I have yet to hear from 6 schools, I've convinced myself that this will be my only acceptance and I'm going to lose my partner of 4 1/2 years, live in a very, very cold state and always wish I had gotten into a Top 10 school. I really should get off these fora and try to focus on work, family, etc.--- but I just can't concentrate. I'm just depressed and everyone around me wants me to just get my mind of grad school stuff and be happy-- but I can't.

If you anticipate feeling miserable at that school, then do not go. Just wait it out and reapply for F2010 programs instead.

[msphdhopeful]

I can relate to these unexpected feelings of sadness and anxiety after receiving some good news. When I was doing my applications I convinced myself that it would only take one acceptance to make me completely and utterly happy and satisfied....so now that I've been invited to two schools for on-campus interviews and have one admit, I feel very guilty for feeling dissatisfied. One of my top schools had interviews already and I have not heard a word from them...so I'm back to the old feeling of unworthiness I had when I first started my applications. Ugh, I need to stop...I'm afraid my lack of excitment will give me bad karma.

[purplepepper]

I'm feeling rather depressed as well. I received an acceptance from a good school with full funding and, after about 24 hours of excitement, depression started setting in. While it is a good school, it is not my top choice-- it is far away, it is not Top 10, and my partner does not want to move there.

Actually, I'm just going through the same thing right now. I've just been accepted to a top 10/15 program, extremely generous funding, profs that seem to really want me there. But it is not my top choice, and my partner and I too don't feel 100% excited about moving there. And you know, I feel guilty for feeling these things. I'm glad some other people are going through the same thing. I'm kicking myself for taking bad advice and not applying to more schools. I'm still waiting on my top 2 choices, but whether or not I have a chance at all I have no idea. Hopefully the end of Feb. will come soon enough, along with other news.

Anyone else feeling similar?

[IRdreams]

Actually, I'm just going through the same thing right now. I've just been accepted to a top 10/15 program, extremely generous funding, profs that seem to really want me there. But it is not my top choice, and my partner and I too don't feel 100% excited about moving there. And you know, I feel guilty for feeling these things. I'm glad some other people are going through the same thing. I'm kicking myself for taking bad advice and not applying to more schools. I'm still waiting on my top 2 choices, but whether or not I have a chance at all I have no idea. Hopefully the end of Feb. will come soon enough, along with other news.

Anyone else feeling similar?

I don't have a partner so I don't have this added stress, but this whole process has left me fairly depressed. I got into a top 10 program ivy program and all that jazz, something I failed to do as an undergraduate, and all I could think was that it's my only acceptance (I could get more and hopefully will) and it all just feels like a fluke. I'm trying to write my thesis right now, but all I can do is worry about the admission call I didn't get this week. I also worry about why I got in there and not at "lesser" programs...again feeding into my feelings on inadequacy. I can think of a 100 logical answers to that last question, but a mean little nagging voice remains.

[lycoris]

I'm really glad, for so many reasons, that I didn't apply as an undergrad (as I had intended to). I can't imagine adding the stress I experienced in the application process this fall and the (very different, but equally intense) stress I have been experiencing first waiting for replies and now receiving them to the incredible stresses of finishing my thesis and saying goodbye to my friends.

I applied to fifteen programs. I have a top five, a middle five, and a bottom five (any of which I would go to, if it was the only one that had accepted me, and offered funding), but within each category I am utterly incapable of ranking them. The first place I heard from was in the bottom tier, but I was exhilarated - I'd gotten in somewhere, and I hadn't even expected to start hearing until March. Then I found out I got waitlisted at another bottom-tier school (these are my rankings, by the way - the first department is ranked by US News in the top 20, the second at 39 - but what does that even mean?) and wasn't too upset about it. Then yesterday I found out I'd gotten in to a school in the middle group (which happens to be ranked in the top 10). Now I see that most of my top 5 have started notifying people, and I haven't heard anything, so I assume I'll eventually hear in the negative. Honestly, that's preferable to just sitting on my hands waiting, which I've been doing for a month and a half now.

I know I should be happy with what I have already. I keep telling myself I just want one more acceptance, but the truth is that probably won't make me feel any better. I've gotten in to two great programs, with funding, in really neat cities that offer a lot of potential opportunities. I will be leaving behind some family (but most are very spread out anyway) and some friends (but these are also everywhere, now, and even those nearby I don't see more than once a month, unlike my rather tight-knit college group) and the small amount of disposable income I've been enjoying for the last few years (I console myself that the library, where I will be spending all of my time anyway, is free), and probably one of the best relationships I have ever had (he has applied to 17 programs in a different field and has not heard from anywhere yet - there is a substantial amount of overlap, but realistically, we will be parting ways in September after a really, really good year and however many months that is together; I am miserable about it but do not see it working out any other way).

But you know the worst part of it for me right now? I KILLED myself applying to those top five (and to a lesser extent, a few in the middle five) schools, and the ones who have accepted me seem just as competitive. But, although I still did a lot of research in preparation for their applications, I ended up sending (the two who have accepted me so far) very generic applications. Why is it that these very good schools seem to think I'm a good fit, but the few places where there are people doing work that really, really excites me, where I knocked myself out to read everything I could get my hands on by them and boil it down into an astute sentence or two in my Statement of Purpose, where my recommenders had colleagues who would give some real weight to their high opinions of me - why is it that these places, which are in theory not really any better than the ones that have taken me, have failed to see in me the potential I see in them?

This is not the same as getting into my first choice and being unhappy about it, but I don't really know if getting into one of those top tier schools will really make me feel any better. It's not, as so many here have already pointed out, worth much to get the mere acceptance or rejection. I want to feel that my pouring out of energy, my sending out into the ether these vulnerable little extensions of myself, is going to be received and appreciated with due solemnity or exuberance. I think that anything short of that, regardless how good the news is, will leave me feeling a little hollow. I guess I'd better get used to it.

[meankney]

I got into the University of Wisconsin-Madison with an offer for guaranteed funding for 5 years and a "prestigious" research assistantship (their words, not mine). This is great, but I really wanted to end up on the west coast. UW-Madison is one of the top 10 geology graduate schools in the country. I found out I was waitlisted by University of Oregon (which is about #30)...and now I am waiting to hear back from 4 other schools. I'm happy about my acceptance, but I can't help but think, why don't the other schools want me just as much/why haven't I heard from them, too? The difference I'm worried about is that I got a chance to visit Madison in the fall because it is fairly close to my undergrad. I couldn't afford to fly all over the country to visit the other ones and now I'm afraid that might have been the kicker that would have gotten me accepted rather than rejected or waitlisted. I guess I shouldn't be spazzing out because no one else has really heard much or anything from my other 4 schools, but I can't help it.

[socialpsych]

The difference I'm worried about is that I got a chance to visit Madison in the fall because it is fairly close to my undergrad. I couldn't afford to fly all over the country to visit the other ones and now I'm afraid that might have been the kicker that would have gotten me accepted rather than rejected or waitlisted.

I doubt it. Unless your field is very different from mine, no one will expect you to have visited beforehand.