Are GradCafe results just the tip of the iceberg?

[Marie-Luise]

I have been wondering how many people actually submit their results. How many acceptances are genuine? How many rejections unknown because their recipients are not exactly keen on telling (even though it's anonymous)?

I would bet that about 10-20 percent of acceptances go on here. Sometimes less, but rarely more.

But the truth is that we, the unknowing, hang on to the submissions like onto oxygen tanks. We keep refreshing the page for our school and programme (yes, admit it) in the hope (or fear!) that results may start showing. Yet, in the background, sits the ever-lurking fear that acceptances might have gone out without our noticing. That there are people out there, evil people, heinous people who sneakily got accepted into OUR programmes and don't even bother to tell us. Because we have a RIGHT to know, NOW! And we pile up on the paranoia as the month goes trickling by...

 

Thoughts, fears, tales to tell?

 

(Yes, I am both insomniac and bored. One day, I'll invent a job where you get paid for that.)

[DontHate]

In answer to the title of your post: I think so, yes

[Vavasor]

I have been wondering how many people actually submit their results. How many acceptances are genuine? How many rejections unknown because their recipients are not exactly keen on telling (even though it's anonymous)?

I would bet that about 10-20 percent of acceptances go on here. Sometimes less, but rarely more.

But the truth is that we, the unknowing, hang on to the submissions like onto oxygen tanks. We keep refreshing the page for our school and programme (yes, admit it) in the hope (or fear!) that results may start showing. Yet, in the background, sits the ever-lurking fear that acceptances might have gone out without our noticing. That there are people out there, evil people, heinous people who sneakily got accepted into OUR programmes and don't even bother to tell us. Because we have a RIGHT to know, NOW! And we pile up on the paranoia as the month goes trickling by...

 

Thoughts, fears, tales to tell?

 

(Yes, I am both insomniac and bored. One day, I'll invent a job where you get paid for that.)

Yeah, I admit I was refreshing the results board pretty compulsively for the last three days. With my email opened next to it! But I got my admissions offer email from University of Rochester this morning before the results started pouring in. Its the best feeling in the world to relieve all that tension at once. The crazy part was I was keeping such a constant watch on the email inbox, but the second the mail from Rochester appeared I was too terrified to open it. It took me like fifteen minutes.

 

Maybe a lot of us are torn like that, we want to know but we're afraid to look!

[jazzyd]

This is sort of the other side on the coin about knowing... it's the not knowing. For example, correct me if I'm wrong, there's been no news on the results board this year about Stanford English (no interviews, no nothing) yet it's safe to assume they've notified the people who they want to go the next step. The same could be possible with Michigan but I highly highly doubt it (*knock on wood*). 

 

But when you see 2 or 3 acceptances from a school, it gives cause to be hopeful and anxious since, they can't be done notifying yet, right? But it's likely possible also that they have and these were the only people on Gradcafe who found out. And really there's no way to tell except to wait. But that's all anyone can do in the end...

Edited February 20, 2013 by jazzy dubois

[jmu]

Yeah, I admit I was refreshing the results board pretty compulsively for the last three days. With my email opened next to it! But I got my admissions offer email from University of Rochester this morning before the results started pouring in. Its the best feeling in the world to relieve all that tension at once. The crazy part was I was keeping such a constant watch on the email inbox, but the second the mail from Rochester appeared I was too terrified to open it. It took me like fifteen minutes.

 

Maybe a lot of us are torn like that, we want to know but we're afraid to look!

 

I did the same thing. I was sitting with my email open (which I actually do anyway) when the first came in. I looked at it and handed my partner my laptop and told her I didn't want to know. It turned out to be a rejection. A few minutes later I got an email from another program and the same thing happened. That one was an acceptance, though, and since then I have felt much more relaxed about the whole thing. I have somewhere to go next year.

[OctaviaButlerfan]

Okay, so, I noticed there is a rejection from MSU posted. I haven't received one yet.

 

That means something good, right?

 

Right?!

 

I'm only half joking.

[blakeblake]

I never know what to think.  I get really paranoid, too.  I start thinking: wait, why has only one person posted about acceptance to X program.  What if the person is just making the acceptance up to mess with me/us/the world?  Then I see tons of people claim that they were accepted to Y program and I start wondering how many days it takes to send out all of the acceptances and aretheremorecoming and if so, how long will thattake and ifnot amiwaitlistedorrejected andwhenwillifindout???

 

It's brutal, this waiting.

[Marie-Luise]

No Stanford acceptances and lots of rejections. How big a slice of the iceberg is that?

[chaussettes]

I just searched the results for my program. The postings for the last two years (2013 and 2012) showed a total of one acceptance, but I know that 10+ people were accepted both those years. So the guess that 10% of acceptances posted sounds about right, if not on the high side.