Nervous about accepting/rejecting offers?

[booksareneat]

Actually, the world will end with this decision... so please don't mess it up.

[Spritely]

This is a salient point from Darkholmme:

If you're going to complain about having to get yourself mentally ready to pack up and change your life, think on how much harder it is for those on waitlists who have offers on the table for schools that are far less attractive. I had a friend who only found out on April 14 that she was admitted onto a waitlisted school and had only 24 hours to make a decision after already slowly coming to peace with a decision that was in no way clear-cut.

It's very difficult for people to make such a big decision on short notice. They will if they have to, but to put them in that position unecessarily does seem problematic.

How about this: Don't make a decision today, but give yourself a week and weekend to think it through and a deadline of next week, maybe Monday? Talk it over with those close to you and come to a final decision, knowing you've set a deadline for yourself. This would allow the process to move along at the other schools but also give you a few more days to come to terms with your situation.

I think programs would be more frustrated if you kept them in limbo until April 14 and then declined them rather than letting them know soon. Programs realize that not everyone admitted will attend, but at the same time it puts them through a lot of stress to have to contact wait-listed applicants and finalize their cohort in the last few hours around April 15 rather than if you were to give them a couple of weeks notice and they can more uniformly go through the process of finalizing their cohort with wait listers. Just imagine being a DGS or faculty member having to make several frantic calls the morning of April 15 to try to finalize a cohort. I'm sure they do not want you to put them in that position unecessarily, once your decision is made.

In the meantime, good luck with your decision!

[unspeakable]

Actually, the world will end with this decision... so please don't mess it up.

Booksareneat is absolutely right, but it's not the big deal you might think it is: it turns out the earth has already been destroyed by the LHC.

http://qntm.org/?board

[mss420]

When you decide where you're going, please let us know so we can plan accordingly. Douche.

[mmbakhtin]

Academia is a tiny, tiny little world, and there's no such thing as anonymity on the internet.

A truer word was never spoken. It took all of five minutes to identify this brat.

[booksareneat]

Whenever I see mmbakhtin's name, I read it aloud as mmmmmm Bakhtin. As if, Bakhtin is tasty. And then I think of a Bakhtin shaped cookie and that just cracks me up.

[mmbakhtin]

Whenever I see mmbakhtin's name, I read it aloud as mmmmmm Bakhtin. As if, Bakhtin is tasty. And then I think of a Bakhtin shaped cookie and that just cracks me up.

I am, in fact, a biscuit.

[booksareneat]

I knew it. You know what kind of philosopher/critic biscuit I wouldn't want to eat? Freud. Or Derrida. Or a Gilbert and Gubar. I'll bet a Said biscuit would be spicy. I think a Matthew Arnold biscuit would be stale. The Kant Kookie wouldn't really be good either.

[bowdoinstudent]

a J-Butler biscuit doesn't sound very appealing/exciting either

[mmbakhtin]

a J-Butler biscuit doesn't sound very appealing/exciting either

Don't try to insinuate yourself into this conversation and pretend that all is forgiven. And a Judith Butler biscuit would be confusingly overcooked.

[Jack Cade]

This was absolutely one of the most ill advised threads I've seen here so far.

Bowdoinstudent, read this all the way through, maybe twice, it is a smack in the face, you deserve it, but it is not a mean smack in the face, I promise.

I sympathize with your fear of change, really I do, I left after 36 years in the same state, 20 years in the same career. However, if I were wait listed to one of your programs or any program, I'd probably want to punch you in the mouth right now because you are acting like a spoiled jerk--I suspect that you would agree with me if you were wait listed. Now, I wouldn't punch you, that me is long gone, but I'd want to.

YOU OWE FOLKS WHO ARE ON WAIT LISTS AN APOLOGY FOR THAT INITIAL POST. You're like the person with so many different meal choices they just can't stand to pick one and miss out, who is complaining that they can't decide in the presence of folks who are starving, maybe dying (dramatic? sure, but the analogy holds).

You have a future, and you get to pick it, however trepidatious and scary that is--and believe me I get that it is scary, I have diarrhea for a week every time I have to make this kinda move, I understand. Folks on a wait list do not have a secure future of any kind. Their careers, their future's hang on the decisions of folks like yourself. As bad as it may be for you, and sure it is tough, it is much much worse for them.

And you, like a bully have complained that you have to make such a decision in front of them. A sort of bragging, oh I've soo many choices, its sooo hard on me.

Read American Pyscho, and understand that Ellis is writing an allegorical biography of the American moment.

FU, I mean really, FU. You are like Paris Hilton complaining that she has to drive her BMW cause the Jag is in the shop to someone whose family just got evicted from their home. And if you are a believer in the market merit BS you obviously haven't had a conversation with some of these idiot millionaires on Wall Street. Talk about dumbies.

How dare you act like you are the wounded party. Shame on you.

You are going to become a scholar, an academic, a professor of English. You will follow in the footsteps of greatness, you will shape young minds, you will shape society through your scholarship, you will be one of the people who forge our culture. You are not off to a very good start here. You are young, and that is ok. But you must do better than this. You will have much harder choices and you must think more about others and less about yourself if you are ever going to be worth a damn. You may have potential, according to admissions committees, but those with the most rewards have so rarely been worthy of those rewards, do not let it be so with you.

Delete this thread, post an apology, and tell the schools whose offers you "know" you are not going accept that you are not coming. Do it.

[spartaca]

Well played, Jack Cade.

OP - to reiterate what many have already said, you'll feel a hell of a lot better once you tell the schools your decisions. I had two acceptances, took one day to make my decision (granted, it was fairly clear-cut for me), one night to sleep on it, and sent my emails the following day. It felt great to know that the funded spot I turned down was going to the next person & that she/he was able to feel the thrill of an offer more than a month sooner than if I had waited until 4/15. My advice: go with your gut and pay it forward, man.

[TitusAndronicus]

mmbakhtin said:

I am, in fact, a biscuit.

This thread started out very tense and caustic. That said, the direction that it turned has been a hoot. Villanova sent out initial acceptances about 5 days ago. I wasn't one of them. I don't know if I'm rejected, waitlisted or lost in the kitchen cabinet, but I've been stressing. This thread had me cracking up laughing. Thanks all.

[Jack Cade]

Well played, Jack Cade.

Its what I do.

OP - to reiterate what many have already said, you'll feel a hell of a lot better once you tell the schools your decisions. I had two acceptances, took one day to make my decision (granted, it was fairly clear-cut for me), one night to sleep on it, and sent my emails the following day. It felt great to know that the funded spot I turned down was going to the next person & that she/he was able to feel the thrill of an offer more than a month sooner than if I had waited until 4/15. My advice: go with your gut and pay it forward, man.

And, that advice is right on. I was coming back to edit it in.

Bowdoinstudent, make your choice and don't look back.

That is the way life is.

Its ok to screw up, it is not ok to deny that you did.

And in that spirit, I too have an offer I have to let go.

I will do it tomorrow.

[needingspring]

Wow, this thread is a bit insane on all sides. Original Poster: You probably would have been met with more sympathy in the "decisions, decisions" section of this forum where there are already a bunch of threads (not so surprisingly) on the topic of making decisions. I think what people reacted to so strongly was that it seemed like your decision was already, obviously made, but for some lingering malaise over the general concept of decision-making. I think you need to give a thoughtful, careful assesment of your situation to figure out if it is actually something between the schools that is tripping you up, or if it is a more general fear of decision-making. I would just like to reiterate, that if you know where you want to go, and have for 2 months, then definitely just get on with life, and commit. Not having it all hang over your head will make you feel better, and the people on the waitlists feel better, so it's a win/win situation.

However, as someone who is confronting a tough decision between two schools that equally make sense for almost opposite reasons, I feel the need to defend (hopefully without being too defensive) the people who haven't decided which school they are attending yet. On another thread it was proposed that these people were either too "flighty" or "dithering" to make a tough decision, or they hadn't researched their schools properly. Here it's been proposed that they are essentially careless, spoiled, cry-babies. I guess all I want to say is it might be a bit more complicated then that: in some cases the decision process (much like other parts of this application process) are more difficult then originally anticipated. I'm pretty sure that not everyone confused by the decision process is just like Paris Hilton, or some of the other names that have been said about the original poster on this thread. I would also hope that the people who are still deciding are doing it as actively, thoughtfully, and quickly as they possibly can, with some kind of basic awareness and sense of perspective on the whole matter.

[ILikeCatsALot45]

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[mmbakhtin]

^

That's the lamest sock puppet I've ever seen.

Well, actually, I spent some time searching, and this one's pretty lame, too:

But not quite as lame as the first one.

[Jack Cade]

It is the attitude which is the same IlikeCats.

A sense of entitlement, an ignorance of the suffering of others. I did not "align", btw, I made analogies--one to one situation via metaphor and simile.

I am not saying the two positions within the analogy are equivalent only the rough relationship between the two is, and I obviously did it for shock value.

Why aren't waitlists capitalism at work? How are they not? They produce a structure to control the applicants (workers), they produce a supply and demand scarcity reinforcing the hegemony of the institution over the applicant, who is in a dependent and precarious state. The institutions keep key information secret, hide the workings of the process, etc, all in an effort to control access to the means of academic production.

But, I am no marxist, nor even a post-marxist.

All this whining makes just about as much sense as yelling at the OP for applying to begin with.

I have no idea how that tracks, nice ad hominem attack though, very much not fifth grade, more pubescent teen, below.

It's called a waitlist, not a WHINElist, and you're put there for a reason, which is that the adcom wanted to give someone else a priority chance to make a decision because they thought that person was a BETTER choice for the program. Newsflash: people on waitlists aren't entitled to anything, especially sympathy, since they pretty much out their application out there in full knowledge of the possibility of being waitlisted.

Marxist or meritocrate?

And are you being purposefully obtuse? Or just trying to put a dunce cap on my head.

At the very least the OP was rude and tacky as hell.

Come on, people on waitlists have to read that schmucky question. Waitlisters have to encounter the spoiled whine about how hard it is to actually commit to the one school even although they made up their mind 2 months ago. Meanwhile Jane or Joe applicant on this forum is 'dying' with each rejection and just hoping to get in off the wait list.

It was tacky, mean, and indefensible insensitive.

No it is not starving kids in Africa, an illustrative metaphor nonetheless, but what it clearly is, is dickish. And the consensus is with me on this.

I mean not burning sacks of puppies or anything, but not cool, an "I am sorry", you all are right about covers it.

Bowdoinstudent is in a unique position now to find clarity and pursue their career and recognize their relationship to their profession and the rest of the world, if that is they recognize my point, via the hyperbolic metaphor and simile I swung like a two cinder blocks tied to a rope; the ones you, for whatever reason, choose to take as some sort of near literal claim on my part. This person is an incredibly lucky and privileged person to have so many tremendous possibilities. But they come with a responsibility to be magnanimous and humble about it all. Not a passive aggressive braggart--whether intentional or no.

As for the whole ad hominem whiny five year olds, you seem to completely miss the fact that the OP was perhaps the most childish post of the season.

Yeah, I take umbrage with your usage of that word. Particularly as you seem to single me out as the chief whiner.

Which is clearly not what I am doing, and this undercuts your ethos I think.

The response to OP, while occasionally ill advised, was on the whole, appropriate and entirely expectable. I didn't discover it until late in the day, but after I read the OP, I could guess what the thread would contain.

This forum is open to grad applicants both the lucky and unlucky, both the good and the bad, however those terms intertwine to produce the mess we have waded through this season and in which we will make our professional home.

Why for Pete's sake, when I have so much to do, am I wasting time with this?

[mmbakhtin]

psst, Jack.

Don't waste your time. Ilikecats here is either a sock puppet or a real life friend of the OP. Don't ask me how I know, but I do. Rather, temporarily bracket explanations outside the text and say I know because the original post is indefensible and somebody showed up to defend it.

[Jack Cade]

psst, Jack.

Don't waste your time. Ilikecats here is either a sock puppet or a real life friend of the OP. Don't ask me how I know, but I do. Rather, temporarily bracket explanations outside the text and say I know because the original post is indefensible and somebody showed up to defend it.

Yeah, I think I was responding to myself.

New rule, only one visit per day.

:wink:

Ah heck maybe this thread will get some folks moving on and rejecting offers.

[sonicsustain]

All this whining makes just about as much sense as yelling at the OP for applying to begin with. Various insinuations that the OP is "selfish?" But how reciprocally self-centered to think that s/he should even be thinking of YOU, waitlistees!

Actually, I think that most of those responding thus far have not been waitlistees. It would seem that most of them are simply thinking of those who are waitlisted when encouraging the OP to drop the schools he or she won't attend. The original post stated that the OP was quite sure of his or her decision but did not want to decline offers. Sure, it may be out of fear, but they said they were sure. That's what brought about the derision from other posters.

Maybe the OP should have dealt with this issue elsewhere, but it's up to you to be mature enough to DEAL with the fact that you weren't the adcom's priority elsewhere, too.

This isn't necessary. Being on a waitlist, though stressful, means that you're good enough, but for various reasons (budgets, cohort construction, etc.), the school couldn't offer you outright admission. I know you're very aware of this fact, so I'd like to ask you (as a fellow waitlistee posting to this thread for the first time) to avoid cheapening the privilege of still being considered for admission at a program after all the rejections have already gone out.

Treating the OP like this for posing what was a fairly innocent question--and one that in no way conveyed, EVER, that he was planning to wait until April 15th--is just as strange as demanding to be given a list of accepted people so you can call them up and bitch at them for their delay in making a decision.

Maybe the responses were harsh at first, and the OP could have clarified his or her stance to alleviate matters quickly. Unfortunately, many took offense, including the OP, and what could have been a blip on the radar turned into something with a life of its own. If you read over the first page or two of responses, the OP had opportunity to explain him/herself, but instead went on the attack. If he or she just said, "Yeah, I understand, and I'll try to come to a decision as soon as possible," this whole debacle could have been avoided.

Moreover, since you've been waitlisted, it's your burden to put together your research so that when the time comes, you already know what you would do if you were accepted. If you have to make a decision in a day, it's no one's fault but your own.

Again, you're choosing language that stigmatizes the notion of being waitlisted when its a helluva lot better than being rejected entirely.

And having to make a decision in a day cannot be someone's fault if, say, people waited until the last minute to decline offers and suddenly you have two on the table. Sure, you can do all the preparation in the world for that moment, but when it's there, it's bigger than you can imagine. Regardless of how much planning you undertake beforehand, the decision is exponentially more difficult when the choices not only materialize, but they do so at the eleventh hour. It's not all on the waitlistee, as having more time with a sure offer provides more insight into the process of decision making. Also, concerns about funding cannot be addressed until an offer is made, and in this day and age many people have to plan out their budgets and fiscal calendars to allow for the expenses that come with relocation and entering grad school.

Yeah, this thread got crazy fast. I think the OP should do his or her best to try and make a decision soon in order to make enough time for the schools and waitlistees to act. Maybe we should all just back off of this discussion and see how it plays out. There's 3 weeks left till April 15, and if the OP makes a decision and notifies soon, that should provide sufficient time for reorganization of admissions priorities.

[ElusiveMuse]

I am not sure I understand why the burden of research ahead of time and an idea of how you would handle an offer is on the waitlister alone. Should this not have been every applicant's responsibility, back in November/December when we began this process?

[ILikeCatsALot45]

*

[ElusiveMuse]

Look, everyone wants to finalize this. I think it is not unreasonable to say that one is being spectacularly ridiculous if one is holding onto offers with no intention of accepting them. At the end of the day there is only one way to move this along and that is for people to notify their programs of their decisions. Only people with offers can do this. I am not sure how asking that this be done in some sort of organized and/or timely fashion can be construed as selfish on the part of waitlisters, particularly when confronted with "I've been decided for two months but I'm fretting" sorts of posts.

[booksareneat]

You know what I am entitled to as a waitlister? Cookies. And I've chosen my philosopher/critic cookie: The Wayne Booth Biscuit. An elegant, simple biscuit, with just a bit of cinnamon that I can dip in a big glass of milk.

And I'm on a couple of waitlists, so that means a couple of cookies. Once that's done, we can use big words and try to look smart.