no response to post-interview 'thank you' email

[didion10]

Do you think this is a kiss of death? I'm dying over here!!

[Applicant38]

I didn't get a response to one of my thank you letters. I was accepted about a week later. So I wouldn't worry about that.

[didion10]

5 minutes ago, Applicant38 said:

I didn't get a response to one of my thank you letters. I was accepted about a week later. So I wouldn't worry about that.

phew!!!!

[iloveOM]

41 minutes ago, didion10 said:

Do you think this is a kiss of death? I'm dying over here!!

It depends on personality of the professors I think.

Out of my 4 thank you email after interviews:

1. Quick response, told me that I could expect to receive my result within 2-3 weeks. It has been over 1 month, no news until now.

2. No response. I got admitted 10 days later.

3+4. No response. No result until now (about 2 weeks ago)

So no response/ response for your thank you letter really says nothing about your chance of admission, from my experience.

[mylifeinshambles]

don't worry about it. that doesn't really mean anything unless you said something in your email that would warrant a response. 

[overdetermination]

11 hours ago, Applicant38 said:

I didn't get a response to one of my thank you letters. I was accepted about a week later. So I wouldn't worry about that.

OH GOOD thanks folks. I was worried about this, too. 

[Anniexu]

On ‎2016‎年‎2‎月‎25‎日 at 10:29 AM, mylifeinshambles said:

don't worry about it. that doesn't really mean anything unless you said something in your email that would warrant a response. 

I said thank you and asked for some feedbacks if possible but no response. Is that too bad? That's my last opportunity T T

[Phanicus]

I got responses from 4 out of 7 of my thank you emails across two schools and was accepted at one and wait listed at the other. Hang in there! 

[mylifeinshambles]

15 hours ago, Anniexu said:

I said thank you and asked for some feedbacks if possible but no response. Is that too bad? That's my last opportunity T T

It sucks but I think email responding is really dependent on PI personality. Some are just not good with email or are just really slow. One guy took 11 days to respond to something, but I still got accepted. It's possible that they just read it, and forgot to respond. Or, worst case scenario, they just didn't care enough to want to respond. Would you want to work with the latter type of person though?

[Applicant 1746]

Another reason a POI might not respond to an e-mail is because they/their department is currently caught up in bureaucratic red tape, and they're not able or allowed to give out any information just yet. After my department's post-interview faculty meeting, I asked a faculty member which prospective(s) of his -- who I met at the interview -- would be getting an offer. He said that even though the department had decided on candidates to extend offers to and had forwarded their departmental recommendations on to the graduate college, they technically weren't allowed to say who would get offers because the graduate college hadn't officially approved all the dept recommendations (even though the graduate college pretty much never blocks the dept's recommendations). He also said that faculty often don't respond to e-mails from their prospectives at this point, because even a post-interview "thank you" e-mail usually has the subtext of asking for information about decisions. Since the faculty don't feel that they're in the position to give out this information, or even to hint at it, they often don't reply to e-mails until everything goes through administratively and they can go about directly extending offers. 

As hard as it is, I think we just have to wait it out. Otherwise we'll drive ourselves crazy coming up with plausible explanations when any number of things we can't imagine may be going on behind the scenes. Hang in there!

[Timemachines]

32 minutes ago, Applicant 1746 said:

Another reason a POI might not respond to an e-mail is because they/their department is currently caught up in bureaucratic red tape, and they're not able or allowed to give out any information just yet. After my department's post-interview faculty meeting, I asked a faculty member which prospective(s) of his -- who I met at the interview -- would be getting an offer. He said that even though the department had decided on candidates to extend offers to and had forwarded their departmental recommendations on to the graduate college, they technically weren't allowed to say who would get offers because the graduate college hadn't officially approved all the dept recommendations (even though the graduate college pretty much never blocks the dept's recommendations). He also said that faculty often don't respond to e-mails from their prospectives at this point, because even a post-interview "thank you" e-mail usually has the subtext of asking for information about decisions. Since the faculty don't feel that they're in the position to give out this information, or even to hint at it, they often don't reply to e-mails until everything goes through administratively and they can go about directly extending offers. 

As hard as it is, I think we just have to wait it out. Otherwise we'll drive ourselves crazy coming up with plausible explanations when any number of things we can't imagine may be going on behind the scenes. Hang in there!

This is helpful to know as I asked for feedback from my POI today via email after finding out that all offers have been extended (I kind of blindly assumed I'm rejected) and he hasn't responded. I'm so confused about what's going on. Its been crickets for almost 3 weeks.

[Anniexu]

8 hours ago, mylifeinshambles said:

It sucks but I think email responding is really dependent on PI personality. Some are just not good with email or are just really slow. One guy took 11 days to respond to something, but I still got accepted. It's possible that they just read it, and forgot to respond. Or, worst case scenario, they just didn't care enough to want to respond. Would you want to work with the latter type of person though?

I have no choice lol. So I think I will just be more active if I do get the chance to work with this kind of people.

You reminded me of fundamental attribution error in social psychology lol. No offence.

Anyway, thank you so much!!

[mylifeinshambles]

21 hours ago, Anniexu said:

I have no choice lol. So I think I will just be more active if I do get the chance to work with this kind of people.

You reminded me of fundamental attribution error in social psychology lol. No offence.

Anyway, thank you so much!!

I can see why you think that because you clearly misinterpreted what I said. What I provided for you were just example scenarios as to why they may not respond to you, not making any kind of generalized statement about all PIs who don't respond to email. Yeah, there can be external factors(e.g. too busy) but even the busiest people can reply to emails promptly or even reply at all if they cared to.  

 

 

[Plasticity]

I think this falls into the category of things that we read way too much into and most likely means nothing. The anxiety is real!