It's Going To Be Okay

[vandemataram]

Hi all,

I thought it might be nice to have a place to share our experiences with the application process. I personally didn't talk to many friends about the process in case things didn't work out (I don't do well with conversations like "it'll all work out for the best in the end, everything happens for a reason" etc). I also didn't post a lot here because I wanted to be sure I'd remain anonymous until after I had all of my decisions. BUT, reading threads on Grad Cafe was a great comfort, so I thought that future applicants might also find it nice if we shared our ups and downs.

About me:
Education Policy (and related fields) PhD applicant, no Master's degree, no publications, 2 years work experience, 2 years RA experience as an undergrad
Top 10 college, 3.85/4.0 GPA, honors thesis (Public Policy/Urban Education)
GRE 170V, 164Q, 5.5AW
Applied to Penn (Ed Policy and ECS), Columbia, Stanford, UChicago, and Northwestern

After reading about a lot of other applicants on here, I realized some strong things and some not-so-strong things about my application. I have a solid (and highly relevant) academic record, but no master's, no publications, and less work experience than many others. Despite those potential weaknesses, I decided to apply once I received my GRE scores, which I felt (and still feel!) great about. I noticed that a lot of Grad Cafe-ers say that they have "excellent LORs," but as I didn't get to read mine, I really have no idea what they were like. They were written by people who I know think very highly of me, so I assume they were very nice, but I ended up getting paranoid during the (VERY LONG) wait between submission and decision that my recommenders had only said I was an "impressive student" instead of "extremely impressive," or whatever else GC-ers had claimed can make a difference. Same goes for SOPs: I have nothing to compare mine to, so I think/hope that they were good, but who knows? I definitely worried about this a lot in the time between December and March.

My anxiety was assuaged a bit when two of my first three notifications were interview invitations (the third was a rejection that, upon receiving, I realized I hadn't really cared about anyway). Although I currently live abroad, I attended one interview weekend and participated in the other remotely. I thought that they both went great (I consider myself to be very good at interviews, and I enjoy professional-social-type situations). High point!

However, I ended up on waitlists at both of those programs, as well as a third for which I did not interview. Two other schools admitted me to the Master's instead of PhD programs. So I had 0 acceptances, 3 waitlists, 2 MA acceptances, and 1 rejection. One of the schools where I was waitlisted seemed very optimistic that I'd get in (saying I was "very high on a short waitlist"/"on the top of their list") and definitely seemed to want to admit me. The others seemed much more up in the air. After weeks and weeks of no news, I started contemplating what I would do instead next year. My partner applied to the school where they had seemed most optimistic, and was accepted (for a different program), so I was planning on moving to that city with him and staying in touch with the faculty and re-applying. By late March, they indicated that their waitlist probably wouldn't be moving after all. (Low point).

BUT, I woke up one morning to an acceptance from the school where I'd been waitlisted but hadn't interviewed! I'd mentally written that program off since I'd had very little personal contact with them, so it was definitely a surprise. I was so shocked/happy that I didn't even realize for around 30 minutes that I'd also been given a fellowship with a $30k/yr stipend, which I had *definitely* assumed I wasn't even in the running for. 

I waited a while to hear back from the other schools where I'd been waitlisted, but with way less anxiety because I knew I had a great offer regardless of what happened. Finally, I withdrew myself from those waitlists yesterday (April 14th) and accepted the offer with the fellowship. I'm not sure what I would have done if I'd gotten off of the waitlists at either of the other schools (i.e. whether I would have chosen the school where I'll be attending, or one of the others), but it doesn't really matter because 1) that didn't happen, and 2) I'm going to a *fantastic* school with amazing funding regardless. I'm definitely not worried about the "what if" scenarios

The whole process was such an emotional rollercoaster, which I guess sounds a bit dramatic, but was honestly how it felt. I'm typically a fairly even-keeled person, so going from such confidence after the GRE and interview invites to such uncertainty and then despair definitely rattled me. I'm very glad that things worked out the way they did, but I also have a much better sense now of just how subjective the whole process is. Things could have gone very differently if someone had accepted their offer ahead of me on the waitlist, or if another school had funding for just one more person, etc.

I guess my takeaway is that, if things don't work out, don't obsess over what you should've done differently, or what very minor part of your application should've been different, or whatever. This site, while such an amazing resource, can definitely feed that kind of obsession (I spent way too many late nights browsing GC for ideas of where I went wrong). Just take some time to relax/recover, figure out if you have the emotional energy to go through the process again (now or in a few years), and hope that the stars align in your favor next time. In other words, though we all know this already, grad admissions is a bit of a crapshoot. May the odds be ever in your favor.

[frissoli]

On 4/15/2016 at 8:11 AM, vandemataram said:

Hi all,

I thought it might be nice to have a place to share our experiences with the application process. I personally didn't talk to many friends about the process in case things didn't work out (I don't do well with conversations like "it'll all work out for the best in the end, everything happens for a reason" etc). I also didn't post a lot here because I wanted to be sure I'd remain anonymous until after I had all of my decisions. BUT, reading threads on Grad Cafe was a great comfort, so I thought that future applicants might also find it nice if we shared our ups and downs.

About me:
Education Policy (and related fields) PhD applicant, no Master's degree, no publications, 2 years work experience, 2 years RA experience as an undergrad
Top 10 college, 3.85/4.0 GPA, honors thesis (Public Policy/Urban Education)
GRE 170V, 164Q, 5.5AW
Applied to Penn (Ed Policy and ECS), Columbia, Stanford, UChicago, and Northwestern

After reading about a lot of other applicants on here, I realized some strong things and some not-so-strong things about my application. I have a solid (and highly relevant) academic record, but no master's, no publications, and less work experience than many others. Despite those potential weaknesses, I decided to apply once I received my GRE scores, which I felt (and still feel!) great about. I noticed that a lot of Grad Cafe-ers say that they have "excellent LORs," but as I didn't get to read mine, I really have no idea what they were like. They were written by people who I know think very highly of me, so I assume they were very nice, but I ended up getting paranoid during the (VERY LONG) wait between submission and decision that my recommenders had only said I was an "impressive student" instead of "extremely impressive," or whatever else GC-ers had claimed can make a difference. Same goes for SOPs: I have nothing to compare mine to, so I think/hope that they were good, but who knows? I definitely worried about this a lot in the time between December and March.

My anxiety was assuaged a bit when two of my first three notifications were interview invitations (the third was a rejection that, upon receiving, I realized I hadn't really cared about anyway). Although I currently live abroad, I attended one interview weekend and participated in the other remotely. I thought that they both went great (I consider myself to be very good at interviews, and I enjoy professional-social-type situations). High point!

However, I ended up on waitlists at both of those programs, as well as a third for which I did not interview. Two other schools admitted me to the Master's instead of PhD programs. So I had 0 acceptances, 3 waitlists, 2 MA acceptances, and 1 rejection. One of the schools where I was waitlisted seemed very optimistic that I'd get in (saying I was "very high on a short waitlist"/"on the top of their list") and definitely seemed to want to admit me. The others seemed much more up in the air. After weeks and weeks of no news, I started contemplating what I would do instead next year. My partner applied to the school where they had seemed most optimistic, and was accepted (for a different program), so I was planning on moving to that city with him and staying in touch with the faculty and re-applying. By late March, they indicated that their waitlist probably wouldn't be moving after all. (Low point).

BUT, I woke up one morning to an acceptance from the school where I'd been waitlisted but hadn't interviewed! I'd mentally written that program off since I'd had very little personal contact with them, so it was definitely a surprise. I was so shocked/happy that I didn't even realize for around 30 minutes that I'd also been given a fellowship with a $30k/yr stipend, which I had *definitely* assumed I wasn't even in the running for. 

I waited a while to hear back from the other schools where I'd been waitlisted, but with way less anxiety because I knew I had a great offer regardless of what happened. Finally, I withdrew myself from those waitlists yesterday (April 14th) and accepted the offer with the fellowship. I'm not sure what I would have done if I'd gotten off of the waitlists at either of the other schools (i.e. whether I would have chosen the school where I'll be attending, or one of the others), but it doesn't really matter because 1) that didn't happen, and 2) I'm going to a *fantastic* school with amazing funding regardless. I'm definitely not worried about the "what if" scenarios

The whole process was such an emotional rollercoaster, which I guess sounds a bit dramatic, but was honestly how it felt. I'm typically a fairly even-keeled person, so going from such confidence after the GRE and interview invites to such uncertainty and then despair definitely rattled me. I'm very glad that things worked out the way they did, but I also have a much better sense now of just how subjective the whole process is. Things could have gone very differently if someone had accepted their offer ahead of me on the waitlist, or if another school had funding for just one more person, etc.

I guess my takeaway is that, if things don't work out, don't obsess over what you should've done differently, or what very minor part of your application should've been different, or whatever. This site, while such an amazing resource, can definitely feed that kind of obsession (I spent way too many late nights browsing GC for ideas of where I went wrong). Just take some time to relax/recover, figure out if you have the emotional energy to go through the process again (now or in a few years), and hope that the stars align in your favor next time. In other words, though we all know this already, grad admissions is a bit of a crapshoot. May the odds be ever in your favor.

Thanks for this! Super helpful. I'm curious to know, do you think that the statement of purpose that you wrote pulled on your work experience or education experience at all or was it more future thinking?