The negatives thread...for people who made it!

[Anita]

So there's this hilarious "negatives thread" where people who are applying this year list the atrocious things about their apps. However, I'm more curious about the ones who actually beat the odds, aka YOU What was the worst thing about your app, what did you think would ruin your chances, and what made your acceptance seem "against all odds"? I'm hoping this topic will be a source of perspective/inspiration/just plain "calm-the-hell-down" for the rest of us nervous wrecks

[Jess77]

I applied to University of Minnesota, I got a 1020 on my GRE and I already thought it would boot me out, no matter how much the professor who interviewed me fended for me. I had a phone interview and she basically said she was my "ticket" to get in and I had to provide her with the best defense. Even though she said they don't use the GRE as a cutoff since it doesn't create the whole picture of the student, I was scared that the adcom was still not going to care. I got in...but I only think it's because of my LORs.

[UnlikelyGrad]

I posted on the other thread, but here it is again, with a few more details.

I had to send transcripts from FIVE undergraduate institutions.

At one of those, the one where I did my first two years, I failed six classes my freshman year (everything frosh year was graded P/F). My sophomore year I scraped a 1.9 for the first two quarters, then took a leave of absence when it became clear that I was going to do even worse the third quarter.

I had a kid while I was an undergrad (junior year). Plot my GPA quarter-by-quarter and you will see it head downwards when he was born and get progressively worse over time.

I was a stay-at-home mom for fifteen years.

I hadn't done any research at the time I applied (almost a requirement for Chem grad programs). I had no publications. Nor had I ever done any professional work in my field, since I went home to be with my kids as soon as I graduated with my bachelor's.

My subject GRE was above 50th percentile, but below the 70th percentile generally considered desirable for top schools.

Results: I got into four of nine schools, one of which was a top-10 chemistry grad program. WOOT. Although I only got in after visiting (while waitlisted) and knockin' the socks off the professors I talked to. Then I turned that school down.

[liszt85]

Can't beat the above!

I had a 6.8/10 (with two F's on the transcript) when applying which is pretty bad. However my bad grades were from undergraduate core engineering courses in which I had absolutely no interest in. Also, I had no background in Psychology. I completed a 5 year integrated Masters program in Physics and then applied to PhD programs in Psychology and Linguistics. Got an offer from a top ranked Linguistics program (top 10 I think). Got another offer from a very decent Psych PhD program and one MS offer (fully funded) for a Music Tech program at Georgia Tech. I ended up accepting the Psych offer. It was a crazy year. I applied to 12 places. Got in only at 3. Was a scary ride but I got the offer from the linguistics place very early, 2 weeks after I'd sent in my application..so that calmed me quite a bit. All my friends (top rankers) spent nerve wrecking months waiting for their results. My professors were surprised at my success too. My own adviser wrote me off ("you shouldn't be applying to all these top schools with your grades"). However, those were Physics professors who knew nothing about Linguistics and Psychology. So I never really took them seriously. I had an awesome LOR from a linguistics professor with whom I'd done 3 courses. GRE (1390), TOEFL (118) were good enough too.

So you never really should freak out just because one aspect of your application looks bad Decisions are made based on different things..most of all research fit. If you've made a good case of why you should be there working with the professors there, you will do fine.

[fuzzylogician]

Beside generally not knowing how my credentials will be viewed by American schools, I was worried about two things.

The last semester of undergrad my grades took a significant turn for the worse: I got one 22, which I later improved to a 69, and one 60 (out of 100; 22 is a glaring F, 60-69 is a D, I think). These were both in Math courses that I did for extra credit. I also had to withdraw from a third course, which was a graduate course in my concentration (graduate Advanced Semantics); it was the only linguistics course I took that semester. I was later diagnosed with a medical condition that is now under control, but you know how these things go, I only found out after the semester was over and it was too late to do anything about the grades.

The week before my first application submission deadline, my thesis advisor, who I was TAing two classes for, informed me that while she could write me a "good" letter, it wouldn't be great. I had spent the previous year abroad, and even though I gave her all my stuff to read during the summer (I had written 4 large papers, presented a paper at a conference and worked on two projects at a research institute), she never read any of it and said she couldn't vouch for any of my recent work--including the paper I was going to expand into my thesis, which she was supposed to be supervising(!)*. My last semester before I left was, as I mentioned above, pretty poor, and so it looked like I would have a bad third letter. AHHHH. I looked into it, but it was too late to change writers; I immediately contacted a fourth writer from the university I studied at abroad, who had previously offered to write me a letter, and got an extra LOR to send to all the schools last minute. This means I had three letters from professors at the university where I spent one year as an exchange student, but only the one weak letter from the university where I did my BA and would get my MA from; I was very worried about that. I also spent about a week so upset I couldn't even enter my advisor's classes. We never patched things up after that, which resulted in a few other problems that aren't relevant here.

But, obviously all of this didn't hurt me all that much, because I got into all of my top choices

* I might add, this person was my advisor only because the other relevant faculty were on sabbatical. I would never choose to work with her, I just had no choice.

Edited January 18, 2010 by fuzzylogician

[liszt85]

I also spent about a week so upset I couldn't even enter my advisor's classes. We never patched things up after that, which resulted in a few other problems that aren't relevant here.

Something VERY similar happened with me and my adviser. Our paper ended up getting rejected from a top journal and the reviewers gave comments that had already been expressed by me to him several times. He was just so adamant on sending it off without proper results. There were comments in the reviewers' reply that sometimes looked like quotes from my emails to the professor discussing what the results were and how they were not good enough for publication, maybe a conference, but definitely not a top journal.

Anyway, these things happen. Some people are just not happy enough with their jobs. These are cranky people who seem to be pissed off all the time about some thing or the other.

[zilch]

For me, the big weak point was my GPA. Although I got all As or Bs in courses in my major, I did have some Cs from random and irrelevant courses that I thought would be interesting to take (I've since learned that organic chemistry is never a good idea). I found it incredibly disappointing that most of the feedback I got from schools that rejected me was about my GPA and it was obvious that they never actually looked at my transcript.

in engineering I get the feeling that GPA is far and away the most important aspect of the application. Which is unfortunate because it discourages students who are looking at grad school from taking courses outside their comfort zone and undergrad is really the only time you can do that.

[twocosmicfish]

Well, I was kicked out of school for bad grades back in 1998, does that count? I did not have a few D's and F;s, I had loads. I stayed out of school until 2004 when I pleaded prior immaturity to my alma mater and convinced them to give me a second chance. I did very well, but had not planned on grad school upon re-enrollment, so when application season hit I had very little research (one summer REU) and only 3 semesters of decent grades. I applied to PhD programs twice (2006, 2009) and was pleasantly surprised that I was accepted by 4 out of 5 schools, having applied to the 5th fully expecting to be denied.