WINE, WAIT, AND WHINE THREAD

[Extra Espresso]

9 hours ago, rhombusbombus said:

Does anyone feel bad going on expense paid for recruitment weekends to other schools when they have a clear #1?

I feel like im taking advantage of the schools, but then i remind myself that theyre doing it for a lot of people and something in that visit could change my whole school hierarchy. 

 

Right?

Also, keep in mind your #1 may change! What I've heard over and over again across this forum is that a lot of times, people fall in love with a school that wasn't originally their top choice when they get to go to the campus, meet the people, interact with professors, and get a real view of what the school is like. In most cases (unless you've been fortunate enough to visit the school already), it's your first real chance to experience the university and not just their website, and it's definitely possible for your opinion to change.

For me, I'm really trying to go into my interviews with an open mind and really enjoy every weekend because I expect that I'll be surprised and my opinions may change. 

[hippyscientist]

@rhombusbombus and anyone else concerned about visiting multiple schools for interviews. I visited before applying and my rankings definitely changed. Go and enjoy interviews, let them woo you, see if you could fit in there with current faculty, current grad students but also the other candidates they're interviewing. That will tell you a lot about the mentality of the department and what they're looking for.

Most of all, enjoy! (and don't feel guilty about having lots of interviews. Both department and you need to see if you fit as well as you think you do)

[anthrostudentcyn]

anthropology is literally the slowest subject!! nothing really on the results board yet, and all the other disciplines have interviews and acceptances! grr. 

[Neist]

6 minutes ago, anthrostudentcyn said:

anthropology is literally the slowest subject!! nothing really on the results board yet, and all the other disciplines have interviews and acceptances! grr. 

History of Science and STS really is no better.

But I'm glad my applications went in later. Gave me time to polish up my writing sample after the semester ended. I used my capstone paper, and I just finished it this December.

[123hardasABC]

I just started Making a Murderer. My head is about to explode. 

[TheMonkeyOnMyBack]

So I broke my phone about a week ago and because of the way it broke none of my contracts were able to transfer. So every call I've been getting in the last week has been a call that I could not identify. So every call I've been getting send me into a mini panic attack.

[hippyscientist]

@TheMonkeyOnMyBack   Oh I feel your pain. I had an email from my current programme director titled "PhD Assistantships", the next line was "Hi Piglet, I'm really pleased to inform you..." and then it cut out. I initially didn't see it was from my programme director and got so excited in the grocery store. Turns out it was just asking me to forward on details of PhDs available at my current institution. So not fair!!

[haltheincandescent]

Just realized I had a typo in my address on one of my applications. Listed as 234 instead of 324. Whoops. (Best is, I remember reading it over, and changing it, but I guess the website didn't auto-save corrections, or something, but, alas.) And, of course, it was on the one application that's actually sent an acceptance, and a hard copy offer letter. Egh. I sent a correction and apology to them, but, also, 324 doesn't exist on my street, so hopefully it'll still show up--in the meantime, hoping a such a small, yet still pretty darn careless, error won't annoy the people at my program. 

Edit: ugh, they called me out on it, too. "You had 234 on your application, but I can resend it."

Feeling like a silly idiot now. Blah.

Edited January 20, 2016 by haltheincandescent

[Neist]

19 minutes ago, haltheincandescent said:

Just realized I had a typo in my address on one of my applications. Listed as 234 instead of 324. Whoops. (Best is, I remember reading it over, and changing it, but I guess the website didn't auto-save corrections, or something, but, alas.) And, of course, it was on the one application that's actually sent an acceptance, and a hard copy offer letter. Egh. I sent a correction and apology to them, but, also, 324 doesn't exist on my street, so hopefully it'll still show up--in the meantime, hoping a such a small, yet still pretty darn careless, error won't annoy the people at my program. 

Edit: ugh, they called me out on it, too. "You had 234 on your application, but I can resend it."

Feeling like a silly idiot now. Blah.

I refuse to re-read my application materials.

That's inviting anxiety. Oh, I know there's errors in there. I know it. I'd also rather not know about them for a while.  

[haltheincandescent]

5 minutes ago, Neist said:

I refuse to re-read my application materials.

That's inviting anxiety. Oh, I know there's errors in there. I know it. I'd also rather not know about them for a while.  

Yeah, I haven't reread anything that's still under review, but for this one I only even realized it because they sent me a pdf of the offer letter, and it was being sent to the incorrect address. 

And now, here's a whole mess of them having to update my application, now, since I can't do it. (I mean, I really don't think it'll be that much to deal with, but still I feel bad for taking up someone's time even with a tiny typo like this.)

Edited January 20, 2016 by haltheincandescent

[Neist]

1 hour ago, 123hardasABC said:

I just started Making a Murderer. My head is about to explode. 

Have you listened to Serial? If you like Making a Murderer, you should give it a listen. 

I'm somewhat of a podcast snob. I've been listening to close to 8 hours a day for nearly a decade, and I believe Serial is one of the finest podcasts in a number of years.

[123hardasABC]

1 minute ago, Neist said:

Have you listened to Serial? If you like Making a Murderer, you should give it a listen. 

I'm somewhat of a podcast snob. I've been listening to close to 8 hours a day for nearly a decade, and I believe Serial is one of the finest podcasts in a number of years.

I love Serial! The theme song may or may not be my ringtone..... I've been following it since the beginning (big This American Life fan). 

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

Never re-read anything! It will only make you despise yourself!

 

[nevermind]

13 hours ago, Pink Fuzzy Bunny said:

#YOLO

On a side note @nevermind... doesn't that magical list of when places historically accept/reject people sort of get depressing/make you anxious? I thought it was a great idea so I started to make mine, but then I realized that if I get an e-mail during "acceptance week" and it's a rejection, I'll just feel that much worse, you know?

At least you have acceptances!   

I thought I'd hear at least something (unofficially positive) by now. So THAT's what's making me anxious.

Really, the speadsheet only makes me anxious because I think of all the unknown variables. We're working with limited self-selected data...so I'm not entirely confident in my spreadsheet's reliability and just remind myself that it's a reference tool--not sacrosanct. When I applied for PhD programs about 5 years ago, one program conducted interviews that I didn't even know about. There was nothing posted ANYWHERE (including these forums) that the department did an interview / flew short-listed candidates out to campus. This was a top 5 program in its field, so I assumed there would be data available from previous years. I only found out it when a friend (who went to that school) said something akin to, "the department was interviewing today". My rejection 2 weeks later wasn't a huge surprise, though everyone hopes they are a special snowflake where maybe your application was just *too good* that they didn't need to interview you...and all the excuses the imagination feeds itself to desperately hold on to hope...

THOSE interviews took place the last week of January. I haven't heard *anything* from really any of my programs (except for one academia.edu hit) and I'm trying not to wonder how many other programs have interviews/unofficial acceptances before they somehow trickle on to the results page...

 

[hippyscientist]

Yes the re-reading is a recipe for breakdowns! It's bad enough reading work when you get it back. I made a stupid mistake in a lab report writing isokinetic instead of isometric. D'oh. Big difference (one moves, one doesn't). 

I'm going to make the most of the lull in work and binge watch some more Buffy. At least we don't live in Sunnydale!

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

42 minutes ago, nevermind said:

My rejection 2 weeks later wasn't a huge surprise, though everyone hopes they are a special snowflake where maybe your application was just *too good* that they didn't need to interview you...and all the excuses the imagination feeds itself to desperately hold on to hope...

Yes! 

"Oh, [best school in the country] sent out all of their acceptances today! They must be putting mine off to prepare a fellowship for me "... even though I have a horrible subject GRE score and come from a school that isn't even in the top 200. OBVIOUSLY my application is so much better than everyone else's

[sjoh197]

@piglet33 When it comes to essays, scientific papers, and the like I am usually a very good writer. (Forum not so much lol) But I had one 30+ page paper due for a core class, and despite doing really well, in the middle of the paper I had literally left a "blah, blah, blah," Where I had meant to expand later and then completely forgot, and somehow managed to read over it like 5 times. 

The professor ended up putting "LOL" and didn't even take off points. It was a very stressful paper. 

[hippyscientist]

@sjoh197 That is hilarious!! Half my professors would love it, half would hate it. Also, 30+ pages? WTF do you write for that?!?! 

My longest was 5000 words and that was a research project! My discipline does concise only... Also, my forum writing is appalling, I just write how I talk here and it's pretty bad lol. 

I had feedback from a paper that asked me to make my axes on my graphs black....they were?! I felt like at that point the grader was just trying to find stuff to grade me down for! 

[sjoh197]

@piglet33 Well, once you took out the test results and images, it was probably more like 20+ pages, but still, it was a lot freaking pages. It was basically the whole... abstract, general history, procedure, results, discussions... everything, the whole shebang. The worst part was that there wasn't a page limit.... that's just how long it took to write all the crap we had to write. And mine was pretty succinct. 

 

And we had not one... but two of them in the semester. I managed to keep the blah blah blah out of the second one. lol

Edited January 20, 2016 by sjoh197

[hippyscientist]

@sjoh197 relieved to hear you kept the blah, blah, blah out! 

[Lexie16]

19 minutes ago, sjoh197 said:

@piglet33 When it comes to essays, scientific papers, and the like I am usually a very good writer. (Forum not so much lol) But I had one 30+ page paper due for a core class, and despite doing really well, in the middle of the paper I had literally left a "blah, blah, blah," Where I had meant to expand later and then completely forgot, and somehow managed to read over it like 5 times. 

The professor ended up putting "LOL" and didn't even take off points. It was a very stressful paper. 

Bahaha, this has to be one of the best stories I've heard about paper mishaps ? Glad your professor had a good laugh!!! Even if it might have given you a heart attack at first when you realized you left it in there!

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

19 minutes ago, piglet33 said:

@sjoh197 That is hilarious!! Half my professors would love it, half would hate it. Also, 30+ pages? WTF do you write for that?!?! 

My longest was 5000 words and that was a research project! My discipline does concise only... Also, my forum writing is appalling, I just write how I talk here and it's pretty bad lol. 

I had feedback from a paper that asked me to make my axes on my graphs black....they were?! I felt like at that point the grader was just trying to find stuff to grade me down for! 

Really? In biomech you don't have to do lab reports? I suck at writing essays, but a 30-40 page lab report for me is better because it's not about "how things sound", but how correct they are.

[hippyscientist]

@Pink Fuzzy Bunny yeah we have to do lab reports but they're restricted word counts. Most are 1-2000 words, an occasional 3000 and the major projects we do are 5000. They never come to more than about 10 pages. My undergrad research project was 24 pages including all reference lists, appendices, contents etc. We don't do verbose lol. I think that there may be a disparity in country norms here too, not sure though. What I'd love to have done a month at undergrad in the US to see the differences.

[haltheincandescent]

35 minutes ago, sjoh197 said:

@piglet33 When it comes to essays, scientific papers, and the like I am usually a very good writer. (Forum not so much lol) But I had one 30+ page paper due for a core class, and despite doing really well, in the middle of the paper I had literally left a "blah, blah, blah," Where I had meant to expand later and then completely forgot, and somehow managed to read over it like 5 times. 

The professor ended up putting "LOL" and didn't even take off points. It was a very stressful paper. 

Hahah, yeah, I used to just put in place holder titles, because I wanted something on the page when I started, one of which was something like "Something or other about failure in this novel--the kind of failure I hope this paper isn't." I printed it, and almost turned it in without reading it. I ran into the prof while going to reprint it, half an hour before it was due--"No, sorry, it's not ready quite yet...." Though, to be honest, he probably would have gotten a kick out of the title. But, after that, I put any place holder text in brackets so I can easily go back and search for what I needed to remember to actually input.

Edited January 20, 2016 by haltheincandescent

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

13 minutes ago, haltheincandescent said:

Hahah, yeah, I used to just put in place holder titles, because I wanted something on the page when I started, one of which was something like "Something or other about failure in this novel--the kind of failure I hope this paper isn't." I printed it, and almost turned it in without reading it. I ran into the prof while going to reprint it, half an hour before it was due--"No, sorry, it's not ready quite yet...." Though, to be honest, he probably would have gotten a kick out of the title. But, after that, I put any place holder text in brackets so I can easily go back and search for what I needed to remember to actually input.

You should've left it in