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That awkward moment when...


melissaam

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At least it wasn't an e-mail to your accountant friend on how best to cook the books to get admissions to give you more money than you'd really need.

 

HAHA. That wins :)

 

Also, I'd love to meet your accountant friend who can help with this  :P

because although I'm poor- not poor enough for FAFSA apparently. 

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When you google your POI's name  to make sure you spelled it correctly in your SOP  and find out he passed away last year...

 

Did this happen to be at Caltech? I spent a year dreaming about somehow getting into that lab only to find the memorial on what used to be his laboratory website. Luckily, before I submitted.

 

Here's mine:

 

That awkward moment when your letter writer, a close mentor who you've been discussing the stress of the mindless and arbitrary admissions systems about, forgot to submit one of his letters and that one happens to be your top choice, biggest reach, and where he's the letter writer with the most ties to the institution. Sure, its on me for not being as diligent about it as I could've, but the last email I sent him was the day after the deadline that said "their system says you still haven't submitted your letter." The guy has been a huge support through the entire process, but the thought of talking to him about any of this again is so very cringey.

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Hahaha this thread made me laugh so hard!

 

Here's mine - When you finish your "school research" months beforehand, but still too late for a top ranked programme which has a relatively early deadline...only to find out (just 12 hours ago) through a kind soul on grad cafe, that said programme has extended its deadline by THREE months, and now you have less than 2 weeks to get your act together if you choose to apply!

 

:wacko:

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Hahaha this thread made me laugh so hard!

 

Here's mine - When you finish your "school research" months beforehand, but still too late for a top ranked programme which has a relatively early deadline...only to find out (just 12 hours ago) through a kind soul on grad cafe, that said programme has extended its deadline by THREE months, and now you have less than 2 weeks to get your act together if you choose to apply!

 

:wacko:

It's kismet, so git 'er done.

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I submitted my thesis for publication, but somehow completely missed an extremely important submissions guideline page on the journal's website that had all of the strict rules. I got a personal email from the main editor listing out every single thing I did wrong and telling me to read their submissions guidelines.

 

I honestly just thought that I had lucked out by finding a journal that didn't have very many rules for submitting. :wacko:

 

Thankfully, the journal I originally wanted to submit to just released a call for submissions, so I'll be submitting there now. Good thing none of my potential schools are involved with that publication, as well!

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I almost died of awkwardness for you just reading that. Honestly though, that is a brilliant share and I feel the insane urge to Google all of my POI's names now...

I emailed someone about working for them before I learned they were being fired for sleeping with an undergraduate. Fastest "I'm not taking students" I ever received. 

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When I was applying for one of the schools a few weeks ago (deadline was Jan 15), I was browsing through a few professor's research websites, and one of the professor's website looked very interesting and I was stoked because I finally found a faculty whose interest may mesh with mine. I wrote the entire email, prepare to send him my qualifications, only to glance at his "prospective students" webpage again to see a sentence of small font size reading "note: I am not taking any graduate students this year or next year". 

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From what I've heard you can't get penalized too much for your letter writers not having their shit together. This happened to me over Christmas break, and thankfully I knew the adcomm for the school wouldn't meet until January. Still, you should get in touch with your letter writer!

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That awkward moment when you submit your application in the nick of time thinking it's complete only to see one of your referees hasn't submitted their letter of recommendation... and now the deadline has passed.

Shouldn't be that big of a deal since the adcomm won't even review for another week or so at least. You could also send an email to a grad secretary or something to make note of the late letter of recommendation to see if that's kkay.
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When you butt-dial a professor (not just the uni office!!) at one of your top schools and don't even realize until over a minute has passed. And then your phone decides THAT is the best time to freeze up. So the only way you can hangup is by shutting down your phone. So you just sit there awkwardly staring at your phone, willing it to shut down faster, not even knowing if the professor is waiting on the other line for a response..  :unsure:

 

Considering he was at least 5 people down from my most recently dialed list, I don't even know how it's possible that I butt-dialed him. But it just HAD to be him, not aaanyone else on that list.. 

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Haha, the post above just reminded me....

 

I was working on making a research poster last spring and compiling the stats, making figures, etc. I came across a problem and was stuck. My professor/research advisor would occasionally text me about research related things, check in on the study, and whatever else. I decided I would shoot him a brief text to see if he could tell me the best way to do what I was stuck on. Oh and it was about 6pm. The response I got back was "I am much too drunk. I cannot think right now." I about died. My professor was getting turned up on a weeknight at 6 pm and here I was doing homework and making a research poster. 

 

I also butt dialed an internship supervisor (yikes) when I was at a bar. I took my phone out of my pocket to see it too was at around a minute and I quickly hung it up, in a panic. She didn't call me back either. I'm sure that the loud music in the background on a Saturday night was self explanatory. She never said anything to me about it either. Awkward.

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Haha, the post above just reminded me....

 

I was working on making a research poster last spring and compiling the stats, making figures, etc. I came across a problem and was stuck. My professor/research advisor would occasionally text me about research related things, check in on the study, and whatever else. I decided I would shoot him a brief text to see if he could tell me the best way to do what I was stuck on. Oh and it was about 6pm. The response I got back was "I am much too drunk. I cannot think right now." I about died. My professor was getting turned up on a weeknight at 6 pm and here I was doing homework and making a research poster. 

 

I also butt dialed an internship supervisor (yikes) when I was at a bar. I took my phone out of my pocket to see it too was at around a minute and I quickly hung it up, in a panic. She didn't call me back either. I'm sure that the loud music in the background on a Saturday night was self explanatory. She never said anything to me about it either. Awkward.

 

oh my goodness these are both hilarious. I feel like I should just start putting my phone on airplane mode when I go out :P

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When you call the graduate director and leave them a nice long message explaining a situation and ask them to call you back. Hang up, all happy with yourself that you managed to not sound like an idiot (I hate leaving messages!!), and realize you called the wrong person in the department.

 

Man, phones are just not working out well for me these days. 

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...you submit too many recommendation letters because the website allows it, only to learn that the committee will only end up seeing three of them (I still have no idea which three they saw...fingers crossed anyway...).

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when you're in the middle of a skype interview and your dogs decide to start running everywhere and basically fighting to the death

ahhh oh no I feel you on this one! definitely sending my pooch to day camp if I have any skype action coming up... and hey, based on your name, any experience with Brittany, France? :P

 

When you call the graduate director and leave them a nice long message explaining a situation and ask them to call you back. Hang up, all happy with yourself that you managed to not sound like an idiot (I hate leaving messages!!), and realize you called the wrong person in the department.

 

Man, phones are just not working out well for me these days. 

oh noooo! I so feel this one, and me neither although it's extended to dumb health insurance issues and the like.

 

that all reminds me, everybody - Mercury has now gone retrograde!! technology, communication, travel, and contracts can be wonky or take extra time. maybe just another good excuse to try distracting ourselves and refrain from constant contact with various depts :rolleyes:

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Hilarious!!! I laughed to tears picturing the admissions person reading the subject line!!!

I got an email from a university about FAFSA. I forwarded it to my friend and it said "time ta do some taxes bitches. help me- I'm poor."

Yeah, I forwarded it not to my friend but a guy on admissions.... he responded with a long polite email about how they didn't have my tax information, and I should seek help for my FAFSA. I responded, and explained I was morbidly embarrassed and that my friend who does my taxes has his same name, and that was an accidental email.

Luckily, he immediately responded back and said that was the first email during the whole admissions process that made him laugh, and it was ok, sending a wrong email just showed I was human.

He was cool but still, how awkward.

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That moment when the country you currently live in (China) decides it's a great time to block all the major VPNs and tighten up internet security to a ridiculous level . . . so now you can't access ANY department websites!  And then you have to start harassing departments via email to make sure your documents have all arrived (and explaining, with just the right amount of pathos, that you live in a very restrictive country that hates intellectual freedom).  So, so, so frustrating!

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