Anyone heard back from PhD programs?

[George]

I know it's early, but I'm literally sitting here, staring at my computer, waiting for something to happen. I decided it's better to just post something, and here it is.

Some of the schools I applied to had a deadline of Dec 1-8, so it has already been a month. And I have seen other people here on grad cafe in other disciplines getting letters when they had similar application deadlines. Perhaps math takes longer?

[hubris]

I know it's early, but I'm literally sitting here, staring at my computer, waiting for something to happen. I decided it's better to just post something, and here it is.

Some of the schools I applied to had a deadline of Dec 1-8, so it has already been a month. And I have seen other people here on grad cafe in other disciplines getting letters when they had similar application deadlines. Perhaps math takes longer?

The best I have to offer is that one of my applications was sent to committee.

Keep in mind that a) the end of Dec. early Jan was basically a holiday; b ) neuroscience seems to account for a lot of activity.

Best of luck and now back to "f5" land

Edited January 13, 2010 by hubris

[origin415]

Look at the results from last year and find the earliest that anyone in math heard back from any of the schools you applied to. I made a list for myself of all the school's earliest dates.

For me, the earliest is Berkeley, which sent out a bunch of acceptances on 1/28/09. Since I have no expectations for acceptance as far as that application goes, I don't see myself getting anything from anyone until the 2nd week of february-ish.

hubris is right that ad coms don't meet over break, they are probably starting around now for the earlier deadline schools.

Edited January 14, 2010 by origin415

[Tam]

All I have so far are a few confirmations from departments that my applications are complete. I'm not expecting to hear anything until mid-February at the earliest. (My earliest deadlines were Jan 1 and a lot of my applications aren't due until Feb 1 or Feb 15.)

[Deleted]

Look at the results from last year and find the earliest that anyone in math heard back from any of the schools you applied to. I made a list for myself of all the school's earliest dates.

For me, the earliest is Berkeley, which sent out a bunch of acceptances on 1/28/09. Since I have no expectations for acceptance as far as that application goes, I don't see myself getting anything from anyone until the 2nd week of february-ish.

hubris is right that ad coms don't meet over break, they are probably starting around now for the earlier deadline schools.

It's really frustrating but true. And keep in mind that even if the first results were posted in early/mid Feb, it is more likely you won't here anything until early March. That's a lot of nail-biting ahead

[freudian]

It's really frustrating but true. And keep in mind that even if the first results were posted in early/mid Feb, it is more likely you won't here anything until early March. That's a lot of nail-biting ahead

I just got an email on Thursday saying I've been accepted to Stanford (Dec 8th deadline), but it's so early that I can't shake the feeling that it's some kind of cruel joke. In any case, it does seem like the decision process is fairly haphazard at best: they'll accept some people fairly early, then see what happens with that group (they encourage you to let them know as quickly as possible where else you got accepted, whether you're likely to go, etc.), then send out some more acceptances, etc. I think the rejections for people who are at least somewhat qualified can come fairly late (once they're sure they'll have enough matriculations) or not at all (unless you call up and ask), which seems like it can be something of a nightmare (no news is bad news, only much less decisive). In any case, looking at the results from last year I'm pretty sure there's really no reason to start worrying until around late February.

[hubris]

I just got an email on Thursday saying I've been accepted to Stanford (Dec 8th deadline), but it's so early that I can't shake the feeling that it's some kind of cruel joke.

Congrats! A nice feather to have in your hat so early on.

And now for the tin foil hat bit: a couple of years ago that very university sent out an email stating that recipient was in the number one spot on the wait-list and that they expected to offer them admission soon and to contact them before making any decisions...thirty or so minutes later they noted that the email was a mistake and sent to basically everyone not admitted in the first round. At the very least a fun moment for some people.

Edited January 17, 2010 by hubris

[freudian]

Congrats! A nice feather to have in your hat so early on.

And now for the tin foil hat bit: a couple of years ago that very university sent out an email stating that recipient was in the number one spot on the wait-list and that they expected to offer them admission soon and to contact them before making any decisions...thirty or so minutes later they noted that the email was a mistake and sent to basically everyone not admitted in the first round. At the very least a fun moment for some people.

Yikes! Thanks for the paranoia; guess I'll have nightmares tonight ;-).

[origin415]

Yikes! Thanks for the paranoia; guess I'll have nightmares tonight ;-).

Email them asking innocuously about visiting or stipends or something, when they respond you will know for sure. I'd hope they would catch their gaffe by now if it wasn't true.

Congrats by the way, having your nightmares would be a dream come true for the rest of us

Edited January 17, 2010 by origin415

[George]

Yikes! Thanks for the paranoia; guess I'll have nightmares tonight ;-).

Congratulations! I want to give you some peace of mind by telling you that I saw two people post acceptances to Stanford on the Grad Cafe Results page. One of them is probably you, but two flukes are unlikely. Don't worry!

Edited January 17, 2010 by George

[Deleted]

Yikes! Thanks for the paranoia; guess I'll have nightmares tonight ;-).

Congratulations! You can hardly make better than that

[ebaronov]

I just got an email on Thursday saying I've been accepted to Stanford (Dec 8th deadline)

Congrats! It'll be great if you post your stats here so that the rest of us can see what it takes to get into such a school.

My bet is 3+ years research experience and 5 publications and well above 90% on the subject test

[freudian]

Not really. The only "research" I did was an REU this past summer; I learned a lot, but I didn't get any new results or publish a paper. I did get a very strong recommendation from my REU advisor (not such a well known professor, by the way) - in his words, "everyone exaggerates a little." My other recommendations were from pretty well-known professors and were probably OK but not amazing, one regret I have about my undergrad career is that I didn't spend enough time "getting to know" professors (I'm terrified of a lot of them). I have a 3.89 GPA, 3.95 in the math department (which mostly gives out A's and A-'s); I took enough classes to get a solid background, but not so many that I drove myself crazy. I got a 850 on the math GRE, which probably didn't hurt. I didn't take any grad classes, but I did take some somewhat advanced classes in my field. I think my statement of purpose was pretty good and showed that I had some clue what is going on in the field (and at Stanford) and what grad school is about (I mentioned that I was excited to teach . . .).

I get the impression that it's mostly about being an American citizen, going to a very good school for undergrad and having solid coursework. I think they do want to see a decent score on the GRE, and a lot of it probably comes down to how your research interests align with faculty and how you compare with other students with the same interests (they can't accept 15 people who want to do the same thing). In any case I don't think I'm a superstar, so hopefully this is encouraging for people who are intimidated by those with 3+ years of research and 5 publications :-).

[jdl]

freudian: Which REU did you do? Would you recommend younger students to apply there?

[Tam]

I got an email notification of acceptance to the University of North Texas today. It was my first one. Pretty exciting. I won't know about funding until early March.

[hubris]

I got an email notification of acceptance to the University of North Texas today. It was my first one. Pretty exciting. I won't know about funding until early March.

Congrats!

[ebaronov]

I just received an e-mail notification of acceptance from Stanford. It is my first one and I am so happy right now. I was sure I was out when I saw at least 5 people accepted there on the results page. I guess we should never lose hope. Apparently they are still admitting applicants.

[Deleted]

I just received an e-mail notification of acceptance from Stanford. It is my first one and I am so happy right now. I was sure I was out when I saw at least 5 people accepted there on the results page. I guess we should never lose hope. Apparently they are still admitting applicants.

Congratulations!

[iheartecoli]

I saw a few people posted rejections from Columbia for the applied mathematics PhD program. I haven't really received anything from them except an e-mail back on December 14th telling me that the application was under review. Is it a bad thing that I haven't heard yet? Don't they usually send out admits first and then rejections..? Meh..

Edited January 31, 2010 by iheartecoli

[origin415]

I saw a few people posted rejections from Columbia for the applied mathematics PhD program. I haven't really received anything from them except an e-mail back on December 14th telling me that the application was under review. Is it a bad thing that I haven't heard yet? Don't they usually send out admits first and then rejections..? Meh..

It depends on the program, looking at schools' results from last year, some sent out a round of rejections a bit before the first round of acceptances. Probably means the department went through and removed the uncompetitive applications ones and sent out rejections while continuing to deliberate over the rest. I'd take it as a good thing, you are on to the next round.

Edited February 1, 2010 by origin415

[Tam]

Got rejected by the University of Tennessee today.

[appmatharmy]

Got rejected by the University of Tennessee today.

Hang in there, I declined my offer from UK last week, if that helps

[hubris]

Got rejected by the University of Tennessee today.

Bummer (but you are 50% at this point, so not bad at all ).

Maybe a "fit" choice on their part.

[Tam]

Bummer (but you are 50% at this point, so not bad at all ).

Maybe a "fit" choice on their part.

I'm honestly not that great of a candidate in some obvious ways, so I'm not too surprised. I'm glad I got accepted by UNT already, though, so I don't have to feel like I am not going to get in ANYWHERE. Of course, it remains to be seen whether I'll get a funding offer anywhere. But we'll see! My life is pretty good, and not going to grad school is not going to screw it up too bad.

[kdilks]

Another thing that you might want to try and keep track of is when visitation weekends are (and when accepted people need to RSVP for them). At least one school I applied to had a small second wave of acceptances on the RSVP date (presumably because of people like me that declined the invitation). That way you can kind of know that if you haven't heard by a certain date, you shouldn't be especially holding out hope for that school anymore (schools really have no incentive to reject you/tell you anything earlier than they have to). Michigan has a visitation weekend, but I forget exactly when it is (I can find out if anybody wants to know). Stanford and Berkeley share a visitation weekend (something like Stanford Fri-Sat, Berkeley Sun-Mon) so they can split travel costs for people that are visiting both. Minnesota used to have an accepted student weekend, didn't last year because they accepted very few people, most of which were relatively local (no idea what's happening this year, I'll try and find out at some point). Rutgers/UCSD have an accepted student weekend. MIT just brings people in individually.