WINE, WAIT, AND WHINE THREAD

[gingin6789]

I understand why you're upset, Brains. I certainly would be, too, if I knew all of that information. Sometimes knowing too much is a curse. No matter what results you get, we're here for you! 

[artsy16]

A program I applied to notified applicants before the holiday break of interviews, yet I haven't heard anything. Interviews are 12 days away, is it too early to whine (and wine)?

[hippyscientist]

@artsy16 it's never too early to whine and wine! Only one of my programs interviews so it's a waiting game for the others. Plus, infuriatingly, there's no preior years results on grad cafe for any of the programs I applied to so I don't know when to be whining!!! Join the whine and wine club  

Edited January 7, 2016 by piglet33

[123hardasABC]

6 hours ago, Dr. Brains said:

I think I saw someone got an interview for my area (Behavior, Brain, and Cognition) so now I feel like it's over for me. My POI emailed me his grant and we had a nice convo but I guess I just got edged out. SO upset right now

Is that in DBBS (I ask because I know Neurosci is)? But yeah rejections from that depeartment went out this week. Two waves of interview invites have gone out already. I've heard nothing back, and the one official interview day is Feb. 26. :|

[artsy16]

Is it ok to whine over having interview conflicts?  

[Yav Friendly]

I have no idea what this thread is about.

[123hardasABC]

3 hours ago, Yav Friendly said:

I have no idea what this thread is about.

We let out steam about our waiting period woes while talking about our favorite alcoholic beverages and current Netflix binge shows. It's basically a thread to pass the time while we wait for the survey to refresh. 

[gingin6789]

Whining about dreams again, but just a scary dream, not a PhD-related one. 

In my dream, I get a phone call from my next door neighbor. My house was built in 1902, and my bedroom is a spacious attic which we joke may be haunted. In my dream, my neighbor calls and says "Samara isn't going to take it anymore. She's not gonna stand for you being there."

I hang up the phone, and my fiancé asks what that means. I tell him it means I can't go home again...  unless I try to stop Samara the ghost. 

My fiancé and I end up IN a video game about koalas. Koalas are one of my favorite animals, so it's cute. But it gets scary quickly. A koala bites my fiancé, and I wrench the koala off his hand and take it away, allowing it to latch to my hand, since I know it's a video game and won't really hurt. 

We hide out in a clear plastic tent, and an old man passes by, stares harshly at me, and runs his finger across his throat quickly as if to say my death is near. Angry, I look back at him and do the same motion before pointing as him, as if to say "no u". 

The koala in my hand has turned into plastic, which I crush in my hand since I'm so angry. I quickly realize that, since I accidentally killed the demon koala, I'll soon pay for it... Worse, I made an enemy of the man who threatened me.. 

The most terrifying music begins playing, and I wake up. 

Even after I wake up, the tune remains in my head... Thankfully I can't remember the tune now. 

So freaking scary, and might have ruined one of my favorite animals for a while. 

 

[nevermind]

One of my programs traditionally sends out interview invites a week after the application deadline (Dec. 15)...it was the only application where my LORs were incomplete (my adviser's LOR shows as "in progress" but not "submitted"...despite the fact that I've sent follow up emails)...now I fear that it's too late (I haven't heard from them) and I'm pretty much rejected at this place anyway. Honestly, it wasn't as good match of a match as my top choices and it was a long shot (I think they really value quantitative metrics as a filter over a "holistic" approach)...but it's kind of a bummer to start out an application cycle with an implied rejection. 

Edited January 8, 2016 by nevermind

[The Interdisciplinarian]

Are interviews standard? I asked the program director about that, and he said they don't conduct interviews. I did visit campus and spoke to lots of faculty, staff, and students in the program and stayed in touch with the director and his assistant a little. It does seem odd that a program with assistantships wouldn't interview candidates formally at some point. :/

[nevermind]

3 minutes ago, The Interdisciplinarian said:

Are interviews standard? I asked the program director about that, and he said they don't conduct interviews. I did visit campus and spoke to lots of faculty, staff, and students in the program and stayed in touch with the director and his assistant a little. It does seem odd that a program with assistantships wouldn't interview candidates formally at some point. :/

Some programs do, some programs don't. I believe this is the only program out of my applications that conducts interviews. 

[haltheincandescent]

1 hour ago, The Interdisciplinarian said:

Are interviews standard? I asked the program director about that, and he said they don't conduct interviews. I did visit campus and spoke to lots of faculty, staff, and students in the program and stayed in touch with the director and his assistant a little. It does seem odd that a program with assistantships wouldn't interview candidates formally at some point. :/

As far as I can tell, at least from reading these forums, interviews seem to be more common for the sciences, and less so for the humanities. Interviews almost seem to be expected for the former, whereas for the latter it's more of an oddity--I think only 2/14 of my programs (for English) have done interviews in the past, for example.

[Dishsoap]

23 minutes ago, haltheincandescent said:

As far as I can tell, at least from reading these forums, interviews seem to be more common for the sciences, and less so for the humanities. Interviews almost seem to be expected for the former, whereas for the latter it's more of an oddity--I think only 2/14 of my programs (for English) have done interviews in the past, for example.

Interesting. Reading these forums, I've come to the opposite of conclusions. Only 1/12 of my programs (physics) really does interviews, so I just assumed others who were talking about interviews are in the humanities  I'm not sure about chemistry and biology, however.

[artsy16]

I'm applying to psych phd programs which almost always require interviews. More so for clinical/counseling psychology because interpersonal skills are important to being a therapist. 

Edited January 8, 2016 by artsy16

[Dr. Brains]

18 hours ago, 123hardasABC said:

Is that in DBBS (I ask because I know Neurosci is)? But yeah rejections from that depeartment went out this week. Two waves of interview invites have gone out already. I've heard nothing back, and the one official interview day is Feb. 26. :|

I'm in Behavior, Brain, and Cognition (Psychology) and there's only ONE post about it on the survey. I saw all the DBBS rejections  but maybe no news is good news! Feb 26th is further away than Feb 12th (my recruitment weekend). I emailed the grad admissions woman for my area and she said they're sending out invites either Jan 14/15th or Jan 18/19th so they might wait until late Jan to send your invites out! Stay strong (and tipsy), my friend. 

[Dr. Brains]

2 hours ago, gingin6789 said:

Whining about dreams again, but just a scary dream, not a PhD-related one. 

In my dream, I get a phone call from my next door neighbor. My house was built in 1902, and my bedroom is a spacious attic which we joke may be haunted. In my dream, my neighbor calls and says "Samara isn't going to take it anymore. She's not gonna stand for you being there."

I hang up the phone, and my fiancé asks what that means. I tell him it means I can't go home again...  unless I try to stop Samara the ghost. 

My fiancé and I end up IN a video game about koalas. Koalas are one of my favorite animals, so it's cute. But it gets scary quickly. A koala bites my fiancé, and I wrench the koala off his hand and take it away, allowing it to latch to my hand, since I know it's a video game and won't really hurt. 

We hide out in a clear plastic tent, and an old man passes by, stares harshly at me, and runs his finger across his throat quickly as if to say my death is near. Angry, I look back at him and do the same motion before pointing as him, as if to say "no u". 

The koala in my hand has turned into plastic, which I crush in my hand since I'm so angry. I quickly realize that, since I accidentally killed the demon koala, I'll soon pay for it... Worse, I made an enemy of the man who threatened me.. 

The most terrifying music begins playing, and I wake up. 

Even after I wake up, the tune remains in my head... Thankfully I can't remember the tune now. 

So freaking scary, and might have ruined one of my favorite animals for a while. 

 

Had three dreams in one night about getting accepted to one school and then had two dreams another night about being accepted somewhere else.... then I woke up and was depressed because they weren't real

[hippyscientist]

YOU GUYS!! I had an email from a PI urging me to apply for the graduate school fellowship award as "I want to award it to you, but I can't until you sign these forms". I hadn't heard anything from this school until this point. YAY!

And I took my 2nd exam and it went well (I think). And I saw Star Wars (go see it, it's amazing). And now I'm going for pizza because there's a gluten free pizza restaurant in my incredibly small town. Today is so good!!!! 

Passing all my positive vibes on to you all. Keep smiling! It will all work out!

 

Edited January 8, 2016 by piglet33

[nightfarmer]

As someone who's in their third round of doing this (finished MA already, didn't get a funded PhD program last year, reapplied this year) let me assure you this is the most nerve wracking time of year. It's the time right before you can realistically expect any responses, but you know it's coming soon. My only advice for keeping your sanity in the weeks to come is not to say "I hope I hear something today" but instead "I hope to hear something this week."

[Yav Friendly]

4 hours ago, 123hardasABC said:

We let out steam about our waiting period woes while talking about our favorite alcoholic beverages and current Netflix binge shows. It's basically a thread to pass the time while we wait for the survey to refresh. 

I watch Netflix on watchepisodes.com. What does that make me?

[Extra Espresso]

I got my first interview notification two days ago, and I am still on top of the world! Probably going to celebrate with a margarita.  

37 minutes ago, Dishsoap said:

Interesting. Reading these forums, I've come to the opposite of conclusions. Only 1/12 of my programs (physics) really does interviews, so I just assumed others who were talking about interviews are in the humanities  I'm not sure about chemistry and biology, however.

It's basically expected in biology and bioengineering. I believe it's also common in chemistry but not chemical engineering, which strikes me as odd. I'm applying in bioengineering, and 9 of the 11 programs I applied to have interviews. 

[Dr. Brains]

8 minutes ago, Yav Friendly said:

I watch Netflix on watchepisodes.com. What does that make me?

smart. i use solar movie lol

[Dr. Brains]

21 minutes ago, piglet33 said:

YOU GUYS!! I had an email from a PI urging me to apply for the graduate school fellowship award as "I want to award it to you, but I can't until you sign these forms". I hadn't heard anything from this school until this point. YAY!

And I took my 2nd exam and it went well (I think). And I saw Star Wars (go see it, it's amazing). And now I'm going for pizza because there's a gluten free pizza restaurant in my incredibly small town. Today is so good!!!! 

Passing all my positive vibes on to you all. Keep smiling! It will all work out!

 

CONGRATS!!

[Yav Friendly]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Brains said:

smart. i use solar movie lol

I actually do not understand why we are able to do this.

[DrZoidberg]

If I can say there has been one good thing to come from the waiting period, it is that I have a much better idea about my priorities. I am applying to six programs, and my prioritized list was much different before I applied than it is now. Kind of like when you flip a coin to make a decision, but you don't have to look at the result because all of a sudden you kind of realize that you certain preference for the outcome. I could kind of sense it when I wrote my SOP's, and now that I am hoping to hear back. Now I have universities where I really, really hope for admission, and some that I would be really okay with not getting into, and they are not what I thought they would be before I applied. So yay, waiting, right?

[Dr. Brains]

3 minutes ago, Yav Friendly said:

I actually do not understand why we are able to do this.

yeah idk but whatever. i don't watch a lot of tv so it wouldn't be worth it for me to get cable or netflix so this is a nice option