WINE, WAIT, AND WHINE THREAD

[hippyscientist]

7 hours ago, artsy16 said:

Well, my wait is over. I have no offers this admissions cycle. This will be my last post here—good luck to those still waiting. 

Good luck for the rest of your endeavours artsy16

[Nirvik]

Well, March is here and the anticipation is causing my anxiety to blast through the roof. Reminding myself that it's only the First of March and it would soon be now or next year.

[dinny]

I know I shouldn't whine too much since I've already been admitted into a great program, but waiting to hear back from my top choice is killing me!

[Love3]

There is this program that I really love. I just came back from my interview on Friday and the school had the second round of interviews yesterday. So I'm guessing I should here back before next week. The anxiety of it all is killing me and it's the last program that I have to hear back from out of all the schools that I applied to. I have to keep myself busy at this point. 

Edited March 1, 2016 by Love3

[The Interdisciplinarian]

Welcome to the month of Ides, when wind blows

and doth calls softly, easing us to hear

a cacophony of yesses or nos;

the separation from misery nears.

Edited March 1, 2016 by The Interdisciplinarian

[katpillow]

Woke up to an email from UVa this morning. At least it was gently spoken and had the standard "there's just too many of you talented candidates" tone. I think I'm 0/11 ever since hearing from MSU, now. Get tin' ready to ride the remainder of the awaited responses in the same direction. I suppose next cycle I'll just go for that perfect score on my GRE. Maybe take a class if I'm able to afford it/have time for it.

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

1 hour ago, The Interdisciplinarian said:

Welcome to the month of Ides, when wind blows

and doth calls softly, easing us to hear

a cacophony of yesses or nos;

the separation from misery nears.

*applauds* This is beautiful.

[The Interdisciplinarian]

28 minutes ago, Pink Fuzzy Bunny said:

*applauds* This is beautiful.

Haha, thank you. Pain, as they say, is good for art. I'd give it all up for an acceptance letter, of course.

@katpillow, I'm so sorry to hear that. As for trying for a perfect score on the GRE, do you really think that's what sunk you? I can't believe places put that much stock in the GRE score above all else, though I suppose in a tough season they have to make decisions somehow.

[Bothriolepis]

Hello all! Long-time lurker checking in, because I need to grumble  

Just had another rejection come through. Now I'm only waiting to hear back from one place. I interviewed there a couple of weeks ago and they finished up interviewing last Monday. There's only one mention of the program/school in the survey, and it was a rejection that came through on March 1st a few years back. Worrying pretty hard right now, since this is my last chance for the year...

Think I'm gonna be spending a while in the pub tonight 

[katpillow]

@The Interdisciplinarian most of the time they probably don't put much stock into it, however my uGPA is fairly abysmal, so having something like a higher-end test score certainly wouldn't hurt. I shouldn't be totally unsatisfied with my current scores though, as at least I can say I'm in the 80+ percentile range.

I find myself in a bit of a squeeze at this point in my career. I'm not willing to give up on pursuing a PhD. However if I need to improve aspects of my application, it would probably mean investing more than a year of my time doing school, or switching to an academic job to increase the number of pubs I've got, in addition to acquiring more academic-arena recommendations. There is very little I'll be able to do before the next admissions cycle, logistically speaking.

Hypothetically, if I decide to go the route of boosting myself for a year or so, I'll be a 30 year old, unmarried person who will have to try and make something happen while I'm just starting a ~5 year program. I would not want to have kids while I'm in grad school, so I'd be looking at not starting a family until ~35 at the earliest. I know people have done this, and are probably happy, but this is an extremely undesirable situation to me, personally. I would still probably submit a few apps while doing the boosting, but again, I don't think the odds are really any better if I haven't actually improved anything by then.

Ugh I just want something to work out. I'm already at the point of sacrificing anything necessary to just have the opportunity to redeem and excel. My whining is strong.

[iloveOM]

Well, I feel kinda unexpected to receive an interview email at 12:15 am in the morning @@ The latest one I have received before that is 8pm.

2 hours ago, Love3 said:

There is this program that I really love. I just came back from my interview on Friday and the school had the second round of interviews yesterday. So I'm guessing I should here back before next week. The anxiety of it all is killing me and it's the last program that I have to hear back from out of all the schools that I applied to. I have to keep myself busy at this point. 

Good luck with your top choice! Spring break at some school is near, so that you should be busy planning what to do in the spring break :))

35 minutes ago, katpillow said:

@The Interdisciplinarian most of the time they probably don't put much stock into it, however my uGPA is fairly abysmal, so having something like a higher-end test score certainly wouldn't hurt. I shouldn't be totally unsatisfied with my current scores though, as at least I can say I'm in the 80+ percentile range.

I find myself in a bit of a squeeze at this point in my career. I'm not willing to give up on pursuing a PhD. However if I need to improve aspects of my application, it would probably mean investing more than a year of my time doing school, or switching to an academic job to increase the number of pubs I've got, in addition to acquiring more academic-arena recommendations. There is very little I'll be able to do before the next admissions cycle, logistically speaking.

Hypothetically, if I decide to go the route of boosting myself for a year or so, I'll be a 30 year old, unmarried person who will have to try and make something happen while I'm just starting a ~5 year program. I would not want to have kids while I'm in grad school, so I'd be looking at not starting a family until ~35 at the earliest. I know people have done this, and are probably happy, but this is an extremely undesirable situation to me, personally. I would still probably submit a few apps while doing the boosting, but again, I don't think the odds are really any better if I haven't actually improved anything by then.

Ugh I just want something to work out. I'm already at the point of sacrificing anything necessary to just have the opportunity to redeem and excel. My whining is strong.

I am sorry to hear that, @katpillow I think if you try your best, you will do it eventually. Good luck!

[hippyscientist]

Agh @katpillow admissions season sucks. Sometimes I truly think departmental politics come into play and exceptional students don't have offers extended to them because of the faculty they would likely work with aren't "rated" highly. I know pretty much for a fact that's why I was rejected from the one place I've heard anything concrete from. It's easy to get bogged down into thinking about the future, but it may be a case that MSU comes through for you!! My fingers are crossed

In happy news, I just made an awesome presentation on Prezi about my research and it looks pretty slick. Hoping it will impress the profs grading it as last time what I thought was a good presentation was not graded highly. Fingers crossed this time round. MUST. Speak. slowly. haha

[Love3]

6 minutes ago, iloveOM said:

Good luck with your top choice! Spring break at some school is near, so that you should be busy planning what to do in the spring break :))

Thank you! I graduated in 2014 so spring break doesn't apply to me anymore unfortunately. I do have a birthday and a birthday vacation coming up so that's a good way to end this application cycle. 

[katpillow]

11 minutes ago, hippyscientist said:

Agh @katpillow admissions season sucks. Sometimes I truly think departmental politics come into play and exceptional students don't have offers extended to them because of the faculty they would likely work with aren't "rated" highly. I know pretty much for a fact that's why I was rejected from the one place I've heard anything concrete from. It's easy to get bogged down into thinking about the future, but it may be a case that MSU comes through for you!! My fingers are crossed

In happy news, I just made an awesome presentation on Prezi about my research and it looks pretty slick. Hoping it will impress the profs grading it as last time what I thought was a good presentation was not graded highly. Fingers crossed this time round. MUST. Speak. slowly. haha

Thanks for the vibes. I hope things work out too!

I'm sure you'll kick butt with your presentation. If you're ever in need of a judge or an opinion pre-presentation, you can always tap into one katpillow. We present fairly regularly in my company/lab, so I like to think my skillz are fairly good on this front (always room for improvement, though).

[BooksCoffeeBeards]

Well, Oregon said they would send out decisions his week, but I am seeing acceptances posted for them on the Results page and Lit/Comp forum.

Might be down to three schools, one of which is only taking 4-5 students it seems. :/

[hippyscientist]

2 minutes ago, katpillow said:

Thanks for the vibes. I hope things work out too!

I'm sure you'll kick butt with your presentation. If you're ever in need of a judge or an opinion pre-presentation, you can always tap into one katpillow. We present fairly regularly in my company/lab, so I like to think my skillz are fairly good on this front (always room for improvement, though).

ahh thank you my old department loved my presentation style, my current one less so. Just got to adapt to fit their approach. It helps I know this topic inside out because it's my research area. Still got 17 days to practice. 

By the end of this month we should all know one way or the other whether anyone wants us and if so, where we're going! That's a crazy thought. I'm already getting withdrawal symptoms from this forum!!

[thepinkdragon76]

Last year I applied to KU for the MSW program and waited months to hear my big fat no. This year I decided to go back to my roots and applied for the MSIT program and the EECS department is so on top of things that I submitted my application yesterday and I've already gotten a blanket email thanking me for applying and an up to date, your app has been timestamped and should reach the department in 1-3 business days. It's rolling admissions for Fall acceptance, so I could know this week or next month. I've been trying to set up a meeting time with my POI this week about the CyberCorps initiative and I'm like, crap, I hope I get to meet him before they decide. Eeeek. I'm terrified. 

***Update. Should I be worried that he said tomorrow is a bit special, that he now has a meeting from 9-11am and can meet with me at 11:10am tomorrow? I did update him on submitting my application. His original schedule was open from 10-12. 

Edited March 1, 2016 by thepinkdragon76

[aluminumfalcon3]

Admissions season is extremely confusing. Just got a few more rejections that make me even more grateful now for the acceptances I have gotten. But it really feels like a crapshoot, nowhere is a guaranteed yes or no. For physics I got into Caltech but rejected from Boulder or UCSB. Really makes me wonder how it all works. 

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

3 minutes ago, aluminumfalcon3 said:

Admissions season is extremely confusing. Just got a few more rejections that make me even more grateful now for the acceptances I have gotten. But it really feels like a crapshoot, nowhere is a guaranteed yes or no. For physics I got into Caltech but rejected from Boulder or UCSB. Really makes me wonder how it all works. 

Dang... nice!!! Caltech has better weather anyway

[HeidiBobine]

On 2/27/2016 at 1:35 PM, ibnbattuta said:

I can't speak to the specifics of your situation, but I had two interviews this application cycle (my third time applying to PhD programs, mind you).  The first interview was with Emory, and it went extremely well lasted the whole 30 minutes they had scheduled, and then an extra 5 before they had to let me go to interview the next candidate.  The next week I had an interview with UPenn, and it went sooo poorly and lasted only 11 minutes (!!).  I could barely hear what they were saying as there was a sound issue and I had to do the interview on my iPhone because my PC was broken.  At the end they said thank you and that was all of their questions and then it lagged and I said "Thanks good bye I appreciate the opportunity, etc etc."  Then after hanging up I realized they never asked me if I had any questions.  It was at that moment that it dawned on me that when my connection lagged and my interview said "thank you we have no more questions" they *had* to have asked me if I had any, but I missed it all.  I frantically emailed them back with questions, but I for sure thought it was over.

The next week Emory notified me I was rejected and three days later UPenn emailed me with my acceptance.  So while my situation is most definitely different than yours, the moral of the story is don't read too much in the interview.  Although I had a miserable interview last year where the first question was "What would you do if your potential advisor were to die the year you arrived? What would you do if he succumbed to the mortal coil?"  I was floored and did not expect anything like that, and unsurprisingly I was rejected two weeks later.

Interviews...never know what to expect.

thanks @ibnbattuta - this does make me feel a bit better. I'm still fairly certain that I will not be accepted after that interview, but I find comforting in knowing im not the only one thats flubbed one. Interesting coincidence though - my disaster interview was also with UPENN!!  Maybe they should re-think the whole skype interview process? I get the appeal for logistical purposes, but there's nothing like meeting in the flesh. Even a phone interview seems a lot better than an admissions panel staring you down over skype!  In any case, I just wasn't prepared and I didn't represent myself or my research ideas well. I tried to save myself in a follow-up email...so hopefully that wasn't too little too late. I'm not going to give up hope entirely though. I'm just going to have very low expectations. I feel like that's the theme of this whole phd application process for me....low expectations.  :-)

Does anyone remember the old snl skit "lowered expectations"?....

[Euler]

I just took a nap, and had a dream where I was accepted into my top choice.

Waking up sucks sometimes.

 

On a more serious note, since I'm working from home and don't have set working hours or anything, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to be productive these last couple weeks. I'm great dealing with things that are in my control- I like that kind of stress. But this is different, since there's nothing I can do about it, and like everybody else, I can't wait for this to be over.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Euler

[FoxAndChicken]

20 minutes ago, Euler said:

I just took a nap, and had a dream where I was accepted into my top choice.

Waking up sucks sometimes.

 

On a more serious note, since I'm working from home and don't have set working hours or anything, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to be productive these last couple weeks. I'm great dealing with things that are in my control- I like that kind of stress. But this is different, since there's nothing I can do about it, and like everybody else, I can't wait for this to be over.

Are you applying math? (Inference from Username) 

I find making lists helps! 

[Euler]

1 minute ago, FoxAndChicken said:

Are you applying math? (Inference from Username) 

I find making lists helps! 

Yeah, pure math PhD programs are what I'm waiting on.

Lists have been helpful in the past, maybe I'll mess with making up some more now. Thanks for the recommendation!

[morpheus]

47 minutes ago, Euler said:

On a more serious note, since I'm working from home and don't have set working hours or anything, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to be productive these last couple weeks. I'm great dealing with things that are in my control- I like that kind of stress. But this is different, since there's nothing I can do about it, and like everybody else, I can't wait for this to be over.

Me too! It's so demotivating... 1.5 months and it'll be over forever 

[magnetite]

@Euler I've had a few of those dreams the last month. In one of them, I got waitlisted at Caltech and was elated. Not even in my dreams can I get into that school.