Fall 2010 Admission Results

[Ziz]

Do we have a decisions thread yet?

Edited March 20, 2010 by Ziz

[manchinaes]

My friend got a DPhil offer from Oxford on Friday (20/3). Seems that they have already made the decision and for those who havent got any news from them, it might mean a rejection to you, sigh..

[curufinwe]

Thank you so much for __TheSquirrel' and Whistler __your kindly reply. I really appreciate. I am an international student and cant pursue my PhD without funding. I got three admissions. one totally told me that it cant give me assistantship and the other two are being made decision. Those are all low ranking schools. I have good background but very very low GRE so I cant apply for good programs. You guys think it is possible that If I send email to professors to ask for some funding? Thank you again for your kindness.

Unfortunately it does not work like that. If they have funding, they offer you funding. If not, you will not get anything no matter what you e-mail them after the decisions have been made.

And deriving from my experience, you have to ace every aspect of your application in order to be considered for a well-ranked program. That is, great GRE, great TOEFL, great GPA (or good GPA from a great program), great letters, great SOP, great fit of research interests and great writing sample.

If I were you, I'd start to reinforce the weak spots of my profile such as the GRE scores and apply next year if you will not be satisfied with a low ranked program. At least, that is what I plan to do for next year.

[tomorrows verse]

Curufinwe, you still haven't heard from Brandeis either? The wait is killing me!

[TheSquirrel]

maaganmichael: If you did not get *some* funding from the university (either in the form of a scholarship or a teaching assistantship), emailing the professor is usually useless, as professors cannot give enough to cover your expenses/tuition fees.... what the professor would give you from his/her own grant funds is supposed to complement what the university has given you. But, in *some* cases, if you can get the professor to agree to fund you to the extent of covering your living expenses, some universities will have a rule whereby they will cover your tuition fees automatically. That said, I really do not know how this would work out, and my guess is that not a lot of universities have such rules in place.

[whistler]

maaganmichael: If you did not get *some* funding from the university (either in the form of a scholarship or a teaching assistantship), emailing the professor is usually useless, as professors cannot give enough to cover your expenses/tuition fees.... what the professor would give you from his/her own grant funds is supposed to complement what the university has given you. But, in *some* cases, if you can get the professor to agree to fund you to the extent of covering your living expenses, some universities will have a rule whereby they will cover your tuition fees automatically. That said, I really do not know how this would work out, and my guess is that not a lot of universities have such rules in place.

You know what, you have nothing to lose. Send an e-mail to a professor, the program director, and financial aid office asking about additional funding opportunities. Tell them something about how much you would like to study at that university and how difficult it would be within this economy etc. Worst case scenario, everyone will say 'no' or won't reply.

[Scarlet]

Curufinwe, you still haven't heard from Brandeis either? The wait is killing me!

I don't think Brandeis has notified anyone yet.

[whistler]

Should we go ahead and remind USC POIR about the applications? I mean, it has been nearly four months, maybe they totally forgot that they were supposed to admit new people to the program.

[mn06556]

Unfortunately, my guess is that USC is more or less done. I was accepted there a while back...their visit day already took place and I got several e-mails addressed to all the admitted students. Maybe they are keeping an informal waitlist? If so, you guys might have some hope because I turned down their offer.

[TheSquirrel]

You know what, you have nothing to lose. Send an e-mail to a professor, the program director, and financial aid office asking about additional funding opportunities. Tell them something about how much you would like to study at that university and how difficult it would be within this economy etc. Worst case scenario, everyone will say 'no' or won't reply.

Absolutely. I was just pointing out how funding usually goes. I got admitted without funding 2 years ago, after all, and nothing came out of it despite my attempts via email.

[TheSquirrel]

Should we go ahead and remind USC POIR about the applications? I mean, it has been nearly four months, maybe they totally forgot that they were supposed to admit new people to the program.

lol... well.... yeah....

[gravityflyer]

Unfortunately, my guess is that USC is more or less done. I was accepted there a while back...their visit day already took place and I got several e-mails addressed to all the admitted students. Maybe they are keeping an informal waitlist? If so, you guys might have some hope because I turned down their offer.

I've come to the same conclusion with respect to an informal waitlist. My online status indicates that my application is still under review. I'm assuming they're simply waiting to hear back from those officially admitted before making any further announcements. I recall on Grad Cafe that someone recently relayed a conversation they had with Alex who mentioned the program expected to make additional announcements 'real soon'. While I appreciate it affords USC maximum flexibility in terms of making their decisions, it is borderline discourteous to applicants. I sense most would prefer that USC follow the convention of establishing a waitlist and/or announcing rejections.

[gsams]

When I go to check my GW application status, I get nothing. I am told my application is not complete? Yet, I know I submitted it (and have a confirmation to prove it). Anyone else seeing this?

[houdi]

I received a packet via USPS from American last Wednesday. I was accepted.

Friday I got an email response from GWU's Elliott School letting me know I was accepted.

Waiting to hear from Georgetown, University of San Fran, and Vandy.

[whistler]

Unfortunately, my guess is that USC is more or less done. I was accepted there a while back...their visit day already took place and I got several e-mails addressed to all the admitted students. Maybe they are keeping an informal waitlist? If so, you guys might have some hope because I turned down their offer.

Well, if that's the case.....I will be here next year, too. I wasted nearly $1000 and quite some time for these applications. (though seriously, why do you lie to the applicants? Bad admissions office! Bad admissions office!)

I hope I don't see any of you guys on gradcafe next year

[TheSquirrel]

Re: USC......

geez. if they did all that so early on , WHAT on earth is taking them so long to finalize their admission?

If this is how uSC treats its applicants, I wonder how it would treat those it has a formal commitment to? Hopefully not in the same manner.

[newbie09]

I've come to the same conclusion with respect to an informal waitlist. My online status indicates that my application is still under review. I'm assuming they're simply waiting to hear back from those officially admitted before making any further announcements. I recall on Grad Cafe that someone recently relayed a conversation they had with Alex who mentioned the program expected to make additional announcements 'real soon'. While I appreciate it affords USC maximum flexibility in terms of making their decisions, it is borderline discourteous to applicants. I sense most would prefer that USC follow the convention of establishing a waitlist and/or announcing rejections.

I really hope the both of you are right about the informal waitlist because if an applicant was flatly rejected, it definitely would be upsetting to wait this long.

[newbie09]

Unfortunately, my guess is that USC is more or less done. I was accepted there a while back...their visit day already took place and I got several e-mails addressed to all the admitted students. Maybe they are keeping an informal waitlist? If so, you guys might have some hope because I turned down their offer.

In hopes of me actually being on an informal waitlist, I'd like to extend a "thank you" for turning down the offer. =)

And if you don't mind my asking, what attracted you to your other offers as opposed to USC? This is my first time applying to grad school and I would like to know about other options if I strike out this round. I really liked the POIR program and the funding package.

Edited March 21, 2010 by newbie09

[alsol000]

When I go to check my GW application status, I get nothing. I am told my application is not complete? Yet, I know I submitted it (and have a confirmation to prove it). Anyone else seeing this?

Just because it was submitted does not mean the supporting documents were received/processed. I would think they would have informed you if you were missing anything way earlier though.

That's strange.

Perhaps call them tomorrow?

[Keller65]

Time for still another week of admission decisions, as the number of schools still out dwindles to a small handful. Expect, too, for sundry individuals to begin turning down schools. The wait-listers may begin getting some action.

Edited March 22, 2010 by Keller65

[tomorrows verse]

Please Brandeis, send us some emails this week!

[yangus2010]

When I go to check my GW application status, I get nothing. I am told my application is not complete? Yet, I know I submitted it (and have a confirmation to prove it). Anyone else seeing this?

Neither do I. However, I held a pessimistic view about my GW result since someone in our forum have received the acceptance.

has anyone received news released from American university?

[maaganmichael]

To Curufinwe,TheSquirrel,Whistler:

Thank you so much for your guys' reply. I am from great program with good GPA but I am really bad at this kind of standard exam. I applied last year for good programs and was all rejected as for my bad GRE.You cant imagine how bad it was. I took GRE again this time but still did not do well. Therefore, I all applied for low -ranking schools this year.Three admissions, two pending,one rejection. well, this rejection was because of unfit for my background. Anyway, I think your advice is wise. I tried to contact some professors and they told me to wait to see if some one rejected their offer. And some told me they had tight fund.I am not positive about getting fund. I am thinking of applying for next year. Do you guys think it will help me a lot if I go to Israel to learn Hebrew as my interest is in Middle East? Of course, I have to work hard on my GRE and TOEFL. Thanks a lot

[curufinwe]

To Curufinwe,TheSquirrel,Whistler:

Thank you so much for your guys' reply. I am from great program with good GPA but I am really bad at this kind of standard exam. I applied last year for good programs and was all rejected as for my bad GRE.You cant imagine how bad it was. I took GRE again this time but still did not do well. Therefore, I all applied for low -ranking schools this year.Three admissions, two pending,one rejection. well, this rejection was because of unfit for my background. Anyway, I think your advice is wise. I tried to contact some professors and they told me to wait to see if some one rejected their offer. And some told me they had tight fund.I am not positive about getting fund. I am thinking of applying for next year. Do you guys think it will help me a lot if I go to Israel to learn Hebrew as my interest is in Middle East? Of course, I have to work hard on my GRE and TOEFL. Thanks a lot

That would definitely help. But if you can, at the same time, raise your GRE score, that would be better. Big shot schools, especially at such times of plethora of good candidates and scarcity of funds, tend to ignore those with low GRE scores unless you were exceptional at some other areas, like serving as under-secretary of state or a reputable journalist.

Then again, if your writing sample demonstrates an excellent command of English, don't worry much about the GRE for schools other than the top ones.

[gsams]

Just because it was submitted does not mean the supporting documents were received/processed. I would think they would have informed you if you were missing anything way earlier though.

That's strange.

Perhaps call them tomorrow?

Yeah, I did call them to make sure everything was there, as one of my recommenders had issues, so I know it is fine. However, this just recently happened. I don't know. At this point, I am not too concerned about GWU.