Things to Do While You Wait for Decisions

[tvethiopia]

last night i had a dream i got a long rejection letter written all in bright green. WHY WOULD THEY WRITE IT IN GREEN?

[Yanaka]

3 minutes ago, tvethiopia said:

last night i had a dream i got a long rejection letter written all in bright green. WHY WOULD THEY WRITE IT IN GREEN?

And why so long?? hahaha

[tvethiopia]

1 hour ago, Yanaka said:

And why so long?? hahaha

hahaha right?!?! it was very deceptive.

[Marshall]

1 hour ago, tvethiopia said:

last night i had a dream i got a long rejection letter written all in bright green. WHY WOULD THEY WRITE IT IN GREEN?

Oh man, I clearly don't belong in this forum but I saw this when looking at Activity. I find it hilarious because haven't there been studies done that show that red is a crazy stressful color (when grading or correcting papers) and that green is the most calming and best color to make corrections in??

Maybe dream university was concerned about your stress levels.

[tvethiopia]

12 minutes ago, Marshall said:

Oh man, I clearly don't belong in this forum but I saw this when looking at Activity. I find it hilarious because haven't there been studies done that show that red is a crazy stressful color (when grading or correcting papers) and that green is the most calming and best color to make corrections in??

Maybe dream university was concerned about your stress levels.

the funniest thing about this is that i'm applying to composition and rhetoric programs so i'm like DON'T THEY KNOW THE RHETORICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THESE STYLE CHOICES?!

[Amanda87]

22 minutes ago, tvethiopia said:

the funniest thing about this is that i'm applying to composition and rhetoric programs so i'm like DON'T THEY KNOW THE RHETORICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THESE STYLE CHOICES?!

Hi! You live in Salem and I'm applying to Salem State for a Master of Social Work. Is that where you have attended school previously?

[Dr. Old Bill]

3 hours ago, tvethiopia said:

last night i had a dream i got a long rejection letter written all in bright green. WHY WOULD THEY WRITE IT IN GREEN?

 

1 hour ago, Marshall said:

Oh man, I clearly don't belong in this forum but I saw this when looking at Activity. I find it hilarious because haven't there been studies done that show that red is a crazy stressful color (when grading or correcting papers) and that green is the most calming and best color to make corrections in??

Maybe dream university was concerned about your stress levels.

 

1 hour ago, tvethiopia said:

the funniest thing about this is that i'm applying to composition and rhetoric programs so i'm like DON'T THEY KNOW THE RHETORICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THESE STYLE CHOICES?!

Okay, so I know I'm feeling very light-hearted for other reasons, but this exchange has me laughing out loud at work. Thanks, guys. 

[tvethiopia]

18 minutes ago, Wyatt's Terps said:

Okay, so I know I'm feeling very light-hearted for other reasons, but this exchange has me laughing out loud at work. Thanks, guys. 

that's what i'm here for, sir.

 

[FeetInTheSky]

I did my taxes the other day. 

[slightlymoreanonymous]

On 1/24/2017 at 9:27 AM, tvethiopia said:

last night i had a dream i got a long rejection letter written all in bright green. WHY WOULD THEY WRITE IT IN GREEN?

I could be wrong, but weren't the Hogwarts acceptance letters written in green ink? Your dream made me picture hundreds of rejection letters shooting out of a chimney...haha how emotionally traumatizing would that be? (Actually, last time around, I had a school send me multiple rejection letters... a bit of unnecessary cruelty in my opinion.) But I would love if our program letters were as cool-looking as the Hogwarts ones. Those plain white business envelopes don't convey the emotion of this process!

[Warelin]

3 hours ago, Ashley828 said:

I could be wrong, but weren't the Hogwarts acceptance letters written in green ink? Your dream made me picture hundreds of rejection letters shooting out of a chimney...haha how emotionally traumatizing would that be? (Actually, last time around, I had a school send me multiple rejection letters... a bit of unnecessary cruelty in my opinion.) But I would love if our program letters were as cool-looking as the Hogwarts ones. Those plain white business envelopes don't convey the emotion of this process!

I think the actual acceptance letter was in black font but the envelope had green ink!

[KikiDelivery]

Many of us may not have the privilege to partake in protest, but I've found that has helped me cope with anxieties I feel around the Trump administration. Also a good way to pass the time, meet some people, and wait for decisions.

[Warelin]

For those that are bored curious*, someone created this https://grad-cafe-visualizations.herokuapp.com/

It takes data from Grad Cafe and list the typical accepted applicant.

*Not as useful as English, but I think it's an interesting concept.
*No, I have not spent the entire day looking up different schools.

[claritus]

7 minutes ago, Warelin said:

For those that are bored curious*, someone created this https://grad-cafe-visualizations.herokuapp.com/

It takes data from Grad Cafe and list the typical accepted applicant.

*Not as useful as English, but I think it's an interesting concept.
*No, I have not spent the entire day looking up different schools.

It could be an interesting way to see if programs have an unofficial GRE cutoff. Not sure how much data you would need for it to be statistically significant, but you could see trends I imagine...

[Dr. Old Bill]

12 minutes ago, Warelin said:

For those that are bored curious*, someone created this https://grad-cafe-visualizations.herokuapp.com/

It takes data from Grad Cafe and list the typical accepted applicant.

*Not as useful as English, but I think it's an interesting concept.
*No, I have not spent the entire day looking up different schools.

Wow, this is quite interesting. You know what it does? It pretty much confirms that, generally speaking, GRE and GPA aren't hugely determining factors in decisions. For a search of English / all time / Ph.D., the difference between the average GRE verbal accepted and rejected is 164.16 to 162.31. Mind you, many folks don't list their GRE scores on the results page (not sure why), so that data is invariably a bit skewed. Most people DO list their GPA, however, though some put their M.A. GPA in the B.A. GPA field, which is going to inflate things a bit...but at least it inflates both data sets. Average accepted GPA vs. average rejected GPA is 3.85 vs. 3.78. Such a slender difference, really. This draws from over 100 results, so that's probably statistically significant in a group like this.

Fun stuff. Thanks, Warelin!

 

[Warelin]

9 minutes ago, claritus said:

It could be an interesting way to see if programs have an unofficial GRE cutoff. Not sure how much data you would need for it to be statistically significant, but you could see trends I imagine...

I think my only concern here would be that determining a cut-off might be difficult unless all information was correct. Looking up "Cornell" English for example would bring up a minimum score of 135 that was accepted. A lot of programs don't list minimum scores but those who do list that they prefer seeing scores in the top quarter. A 135 would be in the 3rd percentile which just seems off to me.

It could be interesting in many ways, particularly for those programs not impacted by false data. But it's also important to remember that what an admissions committee values most could change from year to year. Some committees still do place a value on prestige; others place a value on scores due to it sometimes being required for funding. Others care only about fit and the writing sample.

[claritus]

Oh for sure—you're not going to get any hard and fast cut-offs from the available data, but it is one of the only places where any modicum of data is available. Mostly I'm just curious about it as a statistical grouping. That being said, there may be cases in which no applicants have been accepted into a program with a score under X. I think thats where it starts to get interesting, though definitely not conclusive in any way. 

[Warelin]

2 minutes ago, claritus said:

Oh for sure—you're not going to get any hard and fast cut-offs from the available data, but it is one of the only places where any modicum of data is available. Mostly I'm just curious about it as a statistical grouping. That being said, there may be cases in which no applicants have been accepted into a program with a score under X. I think thats where it starts to get interesting, though definitely not conclusive in any way. 

Wouldn't it be nice if programs just stated that they weren't interested in applications below a certain score? I'd imagine it would save a lot of application fees and agony.

I did have a nice conversation with Penn State though. They said that I'd have to raise my current 164V in order to be competitive for their PHD program.

In a way it makes sense though. They only accept 1-2 external PHD students per year since most of them continue from the MA program. They also assured me that a lot of employees are related to graduate students. This makes sense considering Penn State's location.

[claritus]

3 minutes ago, Warelin said:

Wouldn't it be nice if programs just stated that they weren't interested in applications below a certain score? I'd imagine it would save a lot of application fees and agony.

I did have a nice conversation with Penn State though. They said that I'd have to raise my current 164V in order to be competitive for their PHD program.

In a way it makes sense though. They only accept 1-2 external PHD students per year since most of them continue from the MA program. They also assured me that a lot of employees are related to graduate students. This makes sense considering Penn State's location.

It'd be the most honest, transparent thing to do, especially if funding from the relevant school of graduate studies is tied to the GRE. I don't care how "holistic" a department's process is if the grad school is going to reject requests for funding. 

Re. Penn State—I can't say I know enough about the context to understand, I'm probably too Canadian. Is it a university town?

[Warelin]

On 1/30/2017 at 6:41 PM, claritus said:

It'd be the most honest, transparent thing to do, especially if funding from the relevant school of graduate studies is tied to the GRE. I don't care how "holistic" a department's process is if the grad school is going to reject requests for funding. 

Re. Penn State—I can't say I know enough about the context to understand, I'm probably too Canadian. Is it a university town?

Penn State is located in State College. It is a college town. It also is in a rather rural area. The closest city is Harrisburg. It's about 1.5 hours away by car. Pittsburgh is 2.5 hours away from State College.

[Dr. Old Bill]

1 hour ago, Warelin said:

Penn State is located in State College. It is a college town. It also is in a rather rural area. The closest city is Harrisburg. It's about 1.5 hours away by car. Pittsburgh is 2.5 away from State College.

Gotta say, though...Midtown Scholar Books in Harrisburg is one of the top three bookstores I've ever been to. I don't think I've seen a larger selection of literary theory anywhere. They've got a pretty strong Amazon Marketplace presence too, but you could easily spend hours in their physical storefront. Definitely a highlight of living anywhere close to Harrisburg...

[engphiledu]

12 hours ago, Warelin said:

I think my only concern here would be that determining a cut-off might be difficult unless all information was correct. Looking up "Cornell" English for example would bring up a minimum score of 135 that was accepted. A lot of programs don't list minimum scores but those who do list that they prefer seeing scores in the top quarter. A 135 would be in the 3rd percentile which just seems off to me.

I imagine that 135 must be a mistake. I know over the two application seasons I've been on GC, I have seen quite a few people accidentally switch their Verbal and Quantitative scores. Some people will also input a result twice to make a correction or addendum to an original post.

Really interesting, regardless! I think what it does highlight, as several have already mentioned, is that the numerical difference between all of us as applicants is minuscule. 

[FeetInTheSky]

1 hour ago, engphiledu said:

I imagine that 135 must be a mistake. I know over the two application seasons I've been on GC, I have seen quite a few people accidentally switch their Verbal and Quantitative scores. Some people will also input a result twice to make a correction or addendum to an original post.

Really interesting, regardless! I think what it does highlight, as several have already mentioned, is that the numerical difference between all of us as applicants is minuscule. 

I did that when reporting my OSU rejection. No, I'm not that good at math....

[biyutefulphlower]

Adding to the list:

60. Get a sinus infection/fever and be knocked on your butt for 3+ days.  (I wouldn't recommend it, but it sure takes your mind off applications.)

Edited January 31, 2017 by biyutefulphlower

[Dr. Old Bill]

61. Check your rating on RateYourProfessors

Someone gave me a strong review and a chili pepper. Which one do you think I'm happier about?