Your expectations and results, a poll

[yivorechecho]

I had myself convinced at one point that I wouldn't get in anywhere. I almost started crying at several points just out of the blue. My parents were so upbeat and were sure I'd get in everywhere and I felt horrible thinking that I was going to let them down.

Well, they were right. I got in everywhere I applied. I wasn't expecting any money at all because I knew MA students usually got stiffed, but I'm sitting on 2 substantial scholarship offers, an assistantship offer, and a promise of another one coming this week. My in-state top choice e-mailed me the assistantship offer a couple of hours ago after leaving me dangling for two months and I'm over the moon about it. I don't know if it's renewable after this year, but even if it isn't, it's still great. I'll still need loans, but it's less than half of what I thought I'd need to borrow and the number just looks so much more manageable.

I've been really fortunate in this process and I'm so grateful for it.

[fuzzylogician]

Thanks. My adviser and I have had some ups and downs in our relationship...there was another person in my department who's interests are a better match to mine who I wanted to be my adviser but he is on sabbatical this year, so I was kind of "stuck" with my current adviser--and she knows it. But she does have me TAing her classes this semester and last, so I thought we had a good working relationship. It took me about a week after that incident, but I had a talk with her and asked if she was going to write me a bad rec, she said no, but she doesn't want me to get my hopes high for the top schools. It's a good thing I had two other letter writers who were very enthusiastic about my chances and I decided to get a fourth letter to counter her probably-not-so-enthusiastic letter. It must've worked because several people have commented on my good recs. God, I just hope I never become as jaded as my adviser and say something like that to a student. She was very close to ending my career before it even began.

[liszt85]

God, I just hope I never become as jaded as my adviser and say something like that to a student. She was very close to ending my career before it even began.

The professor I'd worked with, entirely voluntarily (no course requirements, no thesis requirements, nothing), for more than two years told me that he'd heard from some other professor that I was lazy!! WTF! I have done 4 courses with this person and have a 9/10 avg in his courses. I have also sent a first authored paper (with him as second author even though he met with me only twice or so during the entire time and contributed almost nothing) to a good journal. So this guy goes on to tell me that my grades in some other courses were not as good and so he would not be able to write me a stellar recommendation. If graduate schools were to go by only grades, they wouldn't be asking for recos, would they! Moreover, those bad grades came in courses that were not even remotely close to my intended field of study.

I now have taken a theory project under the same guy (I have no reason why, maybe its because he lets me do whatever I want to because he has no idea about the kind of research I've been doing). Now, I needed to meet him for a few clarifications regarding some theory he knows that I wanted to use in my research and he told me that he was extremely busy organizing a conference (which is to be held only in June) and he wouldn't be able to meet me. I have a committee evaluation coming up for this project of mine which I had to do totally unsupervised.

If I ever become a teacher, I've learnt from some of these guys how not to do it!

[Stories]

I didn't think I was a very strong applicant because my grades were rather... meh. I did have a lot of experience in research in my field (2+ years full-time RA) plus a master's in the field, as well. I got rejected from the majority of my reach schools (as I expected), but go into my top school (which was also a reach) with full funding! It just goes to show, you have no idea what you're capable of unless you apply.

I knew I'd have good recommendations, a solid statement of purpose (I had two of my professors proof and recommend changes on my entire statement 5+ times), and well-defined research goals. It was just a matter of waiting.

[Reinventing]

Geez, I must have applied to the wrong programs. I had a high GPA, GRE scores, great experience. Not a single dollar. Hmph. I don't know what they think, but I am not rich. I spent the last 10 years paying for my undergrad. Phooey.

[t_ruth]

Geez, I must have applied to the wrong programs. I had a high GPA, GRE scores, great experience. Not a single dollar. Hmph. I don't know what they think, but I am not rich. I spent the last 10 years paying for my undergrad. Phooey.

Ed programs are rough on the funding...

I made sure to apply to programs that say they offer every student funding and even then some of them said they had nothing for me! (though I was lucky enough to get funding offers at a few)

[zilch]

total fail for me. still waiting on a few schools but it's looking like rejections across the board with one wait-list and one school moving my app to the masters program pool. my expectations were 3 or 4 out the 7 apps. My gpa is a little low for a electrical engineering PhD, but I come from a top 5 school in the field (both undergrad and grad), I have research experience and publications. Never expected MIT or berkeley but I applied to a few smaller/less prestigious schools as well.

on one of my visits all of the professors seemed to like me, a few of them were interested in the research I'm currently working on as an undergrad and one requested a pre-release of my current paper because he said he wanted to use the model I've built to investigate some stuff for his own research. and then 2 days later they wait-list me. and he's still bugging me to send me him that pre-release once its out...

[TulipOHare]

on one of my visits all of the professors seemed to like me, a few of them were interested in the research I'm currently working on as an undergrad and one requested a pre-release of my current paper because he said he wanted to use the model I've built to investigate some stuff for his own research. and then 2 days later they wait-list me. and he's still bugging me to send me him that pre-release once its out...

Wow, what an ass!!

[feisty]

Sort of. Expected to only get into 1 school, but didn't expect to get into the one I did (highest ranked of the 7 I applied to, applied to it on a brazen whim).

[lauraeli]

I planned to apply to 7 or 8 schools:

Columbia TC and Penn GSE were both super reaches and I though maybe someone would take pity on my SOP, but i didn't think I had a realistic chance at acceptance...

NYU and Brandeis I at first thought I had an OK (but not great) chance of getting in- and then as soon as I sent them off, i thought about it, and decided my application was horribly, horribly weak, and i shouldn't have bothered applying... (even though I went to Brandeis for undergrad)

Planned to apply to 3 or 4 more schools that I didn't really want to go to, but was pretty sure i'd be accepted to... put those off until right before the deadline, but before i had a chance to submit them I was accepted to Brandeis and realized I'd be so much happier there than at the safety schools that it wasn't worth applying... and then I got into NYU, which for a while I was sure wasn't going to happen....

So, in at 2 out of 4, out at one, and still waiting for penn, although I'm positive that at this stage of the game it's a reject; i'm kinda just waiting for garbage day to role around.

...So a month ago I was making serious plans for what I would do when i had 7 rejections.... and I'm in at 2/4!

[wantaphd]

I applied to three; got in at one. I guess I was pretty darn lucky, given this horrendous application season.

[sra08]

I applied to 11 PhD programs, and I thought I would get more than 2 unfunded PhD admits an one unfunded MA admit. Now, granted, most of the schools I applied to accept very few people, and a few weren't good fits, but I did hope/sort of expect better. It looks like I probably can go to one of the PhD programs and hope to get a TA/RAship in my second year, but it's hard not to feel at least a little disappointed. I really thought I had done just about everything "right"--top grades at a good school, competitive scores, a writing sample that my adviser, who has a reputation for being a very tough grader, gave an A+. I'd like to think I might have done at least somewhat better in a better economy, but who knows? Since I still am probably going to one of my top choices I'm fortunate, I just would have liked there to be a little more actual choice.

[Reinventing]

Ed programs are rough on the funding...

I made sure to apply to programs that say they offer every student funding and even then some of them said they had nothing for me! (though I was lucky enough to get funding offers at a few)

I didn't think ed programs would be so rough on funding, I admit. I applied to the programs I thought would best be able to offer me funding; but the economy threw a wrench into things. Also, it seems PhDs are having more luck with funding, which makes sense. Well, that's life and I'm okay with it--just sharing my somewhat unexpected results. If nothing else, this process has been illuminating.

[vern23]

I applied to 10 programs, still waiting on 2 and still on a waitlist at 1. The funny thing is I thought I'd get more acceptances (only have 1 so far), but the one I got I thought I'd for sure be rejected from, it was one of my top choices ( my other top choice is still deciding). So I'm happy, my expectations are met.

[moommoombaba]

I did just as well as I thought i would.. I got into all the programs that I applied to. However, at one point, I was worried that I was on the waitlist for my top choice because people started getting acceptance but not me. Nevertheless I received the admission letter later but found out the letter was dated way back among the first round of admission letters sent out, it just took more than 3 WEEKS to get to my place. Can you imagine how much anxiety I had for those 3 weeks?

Financially though, I am not doing too well...