2016 Acceptance Thread

[thatsjustsemantics]

6 minutes ago, FeeltheBern2016 said:

Call me insensitive, but I'm not really moved by your struggle to check a box.

This makes you eligible for a whole host of fellowship money that is inaccessible to others because surface diversity is what matters most.

I think the user you quoted addressed your concern about shallow surface diversity when he or she says "they need to find better questions to ask if they want to legitimately increase diversity."

[abisch]

2 hours ago, Swann said:

Wait, maybe I'm just a little slow. I realize that the post was deleted...and that is not why it is up any longer. But what would this post have been referring to? Or why does it make sense? Why would that imply that admissions keep an eye on the page?

 

 

 

I guess I am also a little slow. Is the "all schools" post different from the fake NYU post? 

[MVSCZAR]

11 minutes ago, FeeltheBern2016 said:

Call me insensitive, but I'm not really moved by your struggle to check a box.

This makes you eligible for a whole host of fellowship money that is inaccessible to others because surface diversity is what matters most.

My bad. I didn't know that the point of these diversity questions was to move others with stories of my struggles. I'll try harder next time to make me seem more worthy of those fellowships. 

[FeeltheBern2016]

2 minutes ago, thatsjustsemantics said:

I think the user you quoted addressed your concern about shallow surface diversity when he or she says "they need to find better questions to ask if they want to legitimately increase diversity."

Based on the extended discussion of their heritage, it sounds like the person is more interested in greater precision in stating race and ethnicity on the application. That doesn't strike me as addressing my point about surface diversity.

If we're talking about true diversity, admissions should be fast-tracking substance dualists and incompatibilists.

[gughok]

12 hours ago, MVSCZAR said:

I should probably take this as an opportunity to talk about all my struggles and stuff... And about how BS it is to expect me to select a race when I'm Hispanic. It isn't easy. At all. 

 

4 hours ago, FoxAndChicken said:

Some of them gave me legit anxiety. Like, you could tell that they tried to give all of the choices, but I'm like the most ethnically/racially confused person, you know? My dad is Mexican, but he got the weirdly pale genes, and he speaks five languages. So, he sounds European but people frequently ask if he's Chinese. Despite that, he's like 1/4 black, which mostly shows up in that I basically have an afro. My abuelita looks Philippina (is that the spelling of that?), and like half of my family still speaks Mayan. So I'm like ... Native American...? But like all the for those options were the ones like Cherokee. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ 

On the opposite side of things, I've been flat-out refusing to mark my own race on any applications that didn't additionally offer a diversity statement.

I'm an immigrant from the Middle East (I was born and half-raised there), and because of the census laws that makes me legally "white". I hope it does not seem unreasonably self-important of me to say that I do not feel white at all. If I was white I wouldn't be terrified that my mother might be attacked on the streets any day because of what she wears. I wouldn't be afraid of being singled out for my decidedly unamerican appearance every time I head into town. I wouldn't be worried that my homeland is going to be invaded and my extended family killed.

The craziest part is that if I was born literally a couple hundred kilometres to the east of my actual birth city, I would be legally Asian. It's absurd.

This diversity stuff is so often so poorly executed it's absolute bullshit.

[philosophe]

3 hours ago, Swann said:

Wait, maybe I'm just a little slow. I realize that the post was deleted...and that is not why it is up any longer. But what would this post have been referring to? Or why does it make sense? Why would that imply that admissions keep an eye on the page?

 

 

 

For those who didn't see it before it was deleted it basically said please don't write the names of the professor who emailed you (good news) because they have been harassed by the rejected in the past. They listed it for "All schools" and Philosophy.

One could assume that an admissions committee person (perhaps one named recently on the results page) posted that to the page. It would be odd for an applicant to have done it. That's why others are assuming that at least one admissions person has at least looked at the page.

Edited January 31, 2016 by philosophe

[Ulixes]

 

Right, so, before things get derailed: what was the 'all schools post'?

I'm not sure if it was a different one than the NYU post, and I don't get what folks were saying about admissions committees being on gradcafe.

[philosophe]

2 minutes ago, Ulixes said:

 

Right, so, before things get derailed: what was the 'all schools post'?

I'm not sure if it was a different one than the NYU post, and I don't get what folks were saying about admissions committees being on gradcafe.

See my post directly above yours. I assumed the NYU post was just a fraudulent accept, because I didn't see it. Is that right?

[gughok]

1 minute ago, philosophe said:

See my post directly above yours. I assumed the NYU post was just a fraudulent accept, because I didn't see it. Is that right?

I think that is the general assumption. It would be anomalously early for NYU, and though I didn't see the post, it was apparently a bit of an angry ramble.

[philosophe]

Just now, gughok said:

I think that is the general assumption. It would be anomalously early for NYU, and though I didn't see the post, it was apparently a bit of an angry ramble.

Interesting! Well the "All Schools" post was written like an admissions FYI from some anon professor on a committee. It was listed as "other" and then requested people don't use names when they're posting on the results page.

[gughok]

Just now, philosophe said:

Interesting! Well the "All Schools" post was written like an admissions FYI from some anon professor on a committee. It was listed as "other" and then requested people don't use names when they're posting on the results page.

Yeah, I did see that post, and I admit I'm not sure why it was deleted. It seemed perfectly polite and reasonable. In any case I think we should honour the request.

[philosophe]

1 minute ago, gughok said:

Yeah, I did see that post, and I admit I'm not sure why it was deleted. It seemed perfectly polite and reasonable. In any case I think we should honour the request.

I suspect that because it's technically not a result, the moderator may have deleted it as spam

[MVSCZAR]

14 minutes ago, gughok said:

 

On the opposite side of things, I've been flat-out refusing to mark my own race on any applications that didn't additionally offer a diversity statement.

I'm an immigrant from the Middle East (I was born and half-raised there), and because of the census laws that makes me legally "white". I hope it does not seem unreasonably self-important of me to say that I do not feel white at all. If I was white I wouldn't be terrified that my mother might be attacked on the streets any day because of what she wears. I wouldn't be afraid of being singled out for my decidedly unamerican appearance every time I head into town. I wouldn't be worried that my homeland is going to be invaded and my extended family killed.

The craziest part is that if I was born literally a couple hundred kilometres to the east of my actual birth city, I would be legally Asian. It's absurd.

This diversity stuff is so often so poorly executed it's absolute bullshit.

I feel you. It all seems terribly contrived. I've often wondered about the ME white thing. Is there any way for you to highlight that seamlessly? 

[Ulixes]

27 minutes ago, philosophe said:

For those who didn't see it before it was deleted it basically said please don't write the names of the professor who emailed you (good news) because they have been harassed by the rejected in the past. They listed it for "All schools" and Philosophy.

One could assume that an admissions committee person (perhaps one named recently on the results page) posted that to the page. It would be odd for an applicant to have done it. That's why others are assuming that at least one admissions person has at least looked at the page.

 

Thanks!

 

[thatsjustsemantics]

43 minutes ago, gughok said:

 

On the opposite side of things, I've been flat-out refusing to mark my own race on any applications that didn't additionally offer a diversity statement.

I'm an immigrant from the Middle East (I was born and half-raised there), and because of the census laws that makes me legally "white". I hope it does not seem unreasonably self-important of me to say that I do not feel white at all. If I was white I wouldn't be terrified that my mother might be attacked on the streets any day because of what she wears. I wouldn't be afraid of being singled out for my decidedly unamerican appearance every time I head into town. I wouldn't be worried that my homeland is going to be invaded and my extended family killed.

The craziest part is that if I was born literally a couple hundred kilometres to the east of my actual birth city, I would be legally Asian. It's absurd.

This diversity stuff is so often so poorly executed it's absolute bullshit.

Cheers. I'm also from the Middle-East (born abroad, naturalized USA), but I don't think that's very helpful for us as far as census boxes are concerned on application pages. Instead, in my diversity statements, I highlight from which culture my family originates, and I talk about why it's wrong to dump people from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, or Lebanon into one shallow group called 'Arabs.' Arabic people and Middle-Eastern people aren't underrepresented in academia, it's true, but people within the ME 'white/caucasian' class can merit the description of a 'minority' once they make salient how their particular origin gave rise to experiences that are not shared with groups overrepresented in academia.

Edited January 31, 2016 by thatsjustsemantics

[MVSCZAR]

Should everyone who applied to Emory have heard back by now? Or do they do rounds?

[jacbarcan]

51 minutes ago, MVSCZAR said:

Should everyone who applied to Emory have heard back by now? Or do they do rounds?

Looks like they don't do rounds based off of limited data from gradcafe. I would wait a couple of days. They seem to be doing things a little differently this year though, coming out a lot earlier than predicted. 

I would guess you'll hear back today or tomorrow.

[dgswaim]

Really hoping to see some movement from Duke today.

[Ulixes]

1 hour ago, dgswaim said:

Really hoping to see some movement from Duke today.

That would be great. It seems like a slow start to the week; Emory rejections came in, but not much else (I guess UIC, for those interested).

I just want to hear back from a program, even if it's a rejection; I feel like I'm perpetually waiting for the whole process to start.

[SamStone]

...so what are the chances we'll really hear from Berkeley tomorrow? Have they been relatively consistent in the past? 

[jacbarcan]

2 minutes ago, SamStone said:

...so what are the chances we'll really hear from Berkeley tomorrow? Have they been relatively consistent in the past? 

Berkeley is one of the ones that is very consistent. They seem to release midweek (Tuesday and Thursday) and in the past four years it has always been the first week of February. 

2012-Feb 2 Thurs; 2013-Feb 5 Tues; 2014-Feb 2 Sun; 2015-Feb 3 Tues

I rounded down the average to Tuesday because Tuesday has shown up more than once. (Who knows if this is a legitimate reason to round down an average. I figure that maybe (really sketchy justification) they come to some decisions the week before and they run those by one last time after the weekend on a Monday, decide how to release, or they need some sort of "okay" from financial offices or what have you.)

Since it has been a tradition from both Ian and Sid in the past to consider days of the week, I have as well. 

In any case, I'm very confident we will hear from them this week. 

(Just so everyone knows, some of the predictions are based off of 1 data point; so, you can expect some to be quite off.)

Feel free to let me know if, when some deadlines are approaching, you would like me to tell you how confident I am about the predictions. 

 

[FoxAndChicken]

Berkeley LMS seems to be less predictable.  The database indicates that it should be sometime this month though. Eeps. Good luck everyone who applied to Berkeley! 

[Ulixes]

Come on Duke! Come on Berkeley!

Hopefully 02/02/2016 will be a good day and not just another humdrum biddletum.

[Ulixes]

2 hours ago, jacbarcan said:

Berkeley is one of the ones that is very consistent. They seem to release midweek (Tuesday and Thursday) and in the past four years it has always been the first week of February. 

2012-Feb 2 Thurs; 2013-Feb 5 Tues; 2014-Feb 2 Sun; 2015-Feb 3 Tues

I rounded down the average to Tuesday because Tuesday has shown up more than once. (Who knows if this is a legitimate reason to round down an average. I figure that maybe (really sketchy justification) they come to some decisions the week before and they run those by one last time after the weekend on a Monday, decide how to release, or they need some sort of "okay" from financial offices or what have you.)

Since it has been a tradition from both Ian and Sid in the past to consider days of the week, I have as well. 

In any case, I'm very confident we will hear from them this week. 

(Just so everyone knows, some of the predictions are based off of 1 data point; so, you can expect some to be quite off.)

Feel free to let me know if, when some deadlines are approaching, you would like me to tell you how confident I am about the predictions. 

 

 

Also, Jac: thank you for putting so much effort into the admissions blog. I sincerely appreciate the predictions!

 

 

[PorchlightPhilosopher]

The first day of February is almost over and it's been quiet... too quiet.

Edited February 2, 2016 by PorchlightPhilosopher