Most annoying part of application process

[swisnieski]

What was the most annoying part of your entire application process?

I have to say despite the obvious annoyance of studying for/taking the GREs, hounding profs for LORs, and waiting weeks for responses, the thing I hated most was contacting a prof and getting a generally useless response.

[JustChill]

This whole waiting period is by the far the most annoying part of the application process.

[cheesethunder]

GRE i blame my canadian hertiage for not grasping the point of it.....our school system is not based on learning how to take standardized test therefore i cannot appreciate this esp. since i took 3. paid1300$ for a prep class studied for months on a dialy basis and still did terribley

followed by chasign down reference letter writers.....

then being told my SOP doesn't show who i am/ i don't give of fa general idea of who i am as a person......ugh

[fancypants09]

I thought it was waiting for my LORs to submit their materials, since that was the only part that was outside my control.

But then life did what it does best: Took a surprising turn. Not too happy about one of the supplemental essays I wrote for one of my schools. I think I was just so invested in the main personal statement that I didn't give the supplemental essay the attention that it deserved.

Then today, I found out that I needed to submit a transcript from a summer study abroad I did about 8 years ago. Luckily I was able to have my study abroad program send it to the school, but I'm nervous b/c the transcript will be late. It's already 4 days past the official deadline, and the transcript will take about a week to get here from today at the earliest. I'm just hoping that it'll get to the AdComm just as the dust is settling from the 1/15 deadline.

[iCyborg]

Memorizing word-list for gre is the worst for me.

If I had super power, the first thing I would do to the world is to destroy ETS.

[whereiscarmen]

The GRE.

And the fact that everything I did might be completely pointless.... grad school is way too competitive.

[UnlikelyGrad]

What was the most annoying part of your entire application process?

I have to say despite the obvious annoyance of studying for/taking the GREs, hounding profs for LORs, and waiting weeks for responses, the thing I hated most was contacting a prof and getting a generally useless response.

For me, without a doubt, TRANSCRIPTS:

(1) Some of the schools I submitted transcript requests to took a month to even process my request.

(2) Even after transcripts had been mailed, 2 of the 9 schools I applied to "lost" the transcripts that were in my maiden name, even though both of the apps had specifically asked if I had ever done work under any other name. I did figure this out at the end of January and contacted the schools, who "miraculously" suddenly found my transcripts. One of the schools rejected me and I wonder if this is why. (I saw on the results page that they'd been accepting people for a while before my file was completed, so it's possible that they filled their slots before I even came into contention.) The other school had a rather late app date, so no one had even taken a peek at my file yet. I got in, and I ended up going there. But I was still a little irked by the idiocy of the grad admissions office.

[modernity]

The GRE and LORs. The GRE because it's so expensive, and depends so much on luck (what questions are you getting, how do you feel that day, etc). The LORs because I hate having someone, three someones actually, write letters about me that I'll never get to read that decide a large part of my future. I trust them, and I believe they'll be good...but how can I ever really know?

[origin415]

How about around $70 for the average application, plus another $20 to send GRE scores?

I studied abroad, so getting transcripts from there was pretty annoying, for some reason it took two months for them to get here, and I had to do it twice because my list had doubled in size by the time the first bunch got here. Fortunately some schools didn't need that transcript, and the ones that did had their due dates distributed such that it all worked out.

But of course the worst is the fact that after the application process is all said and done, you have to wait a couple months to hear a peep from the department.

Edited January 20, 2010 by origin415

[tarski]

I was most annoyed just by filling out slightly different forms over and over again. I applied to a large number of schools, so simply filling out all their forms took up a fair bit of time.

[modernity]

How about around $70 for the average application, plus another $20 to send GRE scores?

Plus transcript costs! It's all so expensive, and money that could be put to use elsewhere. This is a good point.

[hubris]

Basically the fact you get to pay for the application experience would be on the top of the most annoying list.

A lame filter: why not refund the those rejected as a consolation prize (sans interest).

Edited January 20, 2010 by hubris

[zilch]

application fees and getting mixed messages from schools.

[rogue]

Trying to find information on some schools' websites has been incredibly frustrating. Yesterday, for example, it took me almost an hour to find the link to check my status on one school's site. You'd think that would be glaringly obvious, in order to stave off phone calls to the grad admin.

[tarski]

Trying to find information on some schools' websites has been incredibly frustrating

+1 to this- it just made me remember how I did lots of research on faculty in early summer, and then a bunch of them moved to different universities in the fall. That can't really be helped, though .

[DJLamar]

Well, if you include the time waiting for admissions notices, that would probably be at the top. That's tied with or barely second to getting letters of recommendation. Two of my letter writers -- unfortunately the ones with the less important letters (student took my class and did well, maybe with a project too) -- were extremely prompt, wrote a letter way ahead of time, and submitted to each school within a couple of days of getting the request. However, my undergrad research advisor didn't submit his letter until a week into January (and my deadlines were almost all December 15th)! This was despite copious bugging on my part.

After that comes the fact that ETS exists, and after that I would put my statements of purpose. I wrote a sort of template for the first 3/4 or so which detailed my past work and had a general introduction to what I think my interests going into grad school are. The last quarter was personalizing the statement to the school by picking out some professors whose work I liked and picking out specific papers and conjecturing what interesting questions arise from them. That last quarter was the bulk of my effort for each school -- in most cases, I didn't know the professors' work well enough in advance to write much about it, so I had to find their publications page and skim tons of papers to find good ones to cite...

[LifeIsGood]

Well, if you include the time waiting for admissions notices, that would probably be at the top.

This, definitely.

I only applied to two schools and my LOR writers were prompt, so I know I had it much easier than most.

[artist_lily]

The GRE.

And the fact that everything I did might be completely pointless.... grad school is way too competitive.

I second this, exactly. Most of the application tasks were rather harmless, though irritating, but the thing that really drives me crazy is that this may very well be for nought. How is that even possible to invest so much time and energy and have it be for nought? That goes against everything I've ever learned about the value of "hard work".. and trust me, that's a lot!

[chimerical]

I want to say the waiting, but it's been a couple years since I took the standardized tests so I may have blocked that pain from memory.

[grad_wannabe]

For me it's not any one thing in particular - it's every little thing added up. Death by a thousand cuts, I guess.

I'm gonna go on a mini-rant here, so feel free to skip everything.

I have one application left. Yesterday I was mailing out the transcripts. Just one little step! Just transcripts!

First, as all of you know, I had to get the transcripts. I went to three different schools for undergrad, so that's three entirely different processes of acquisition (some schools don't allow hand-carrying the transcripts. Some don't allow online ordering. Some do ONLY online ordering. Some take only fax orders. Some cost 15 dollars. Some cost 2. Some take 3 weeks to get there. Some take 2 days. For one school, I actually had to buy the transcripts online, print out an order form, fill it out by hand, THEN write my purchase number on the form, then FAX that back to the school. I'm lookin' at you, Humboldt State.)

Then, once I finally had all the transcripts, I realized this school wants TWO complete sets - one sent to the graduate school, and one sent to the department. So, I got two envelopes, filled out two address labels, and put one set of 'scripts into each envelope.

Then I realized that the graduate school has forms that are supposed to accompany the 'scripts - so I had to print out three forms and fill each of them out by hand and staple one to each school's 'script, then put the whole set back in the envelope.

Today after work (luckily I work part time - I don't know how people with jobs and families to take care of get this all done, to be honest) I have to go to the post office and pay to send both envelopes, both with delivery confirmation.

I know you guys all know exactly what I mean - this entire process is incredibly grueling, frustrating and tedious. On top of outrageously expensive.

Whew I gotta calm down. This can't be good for my blood pressure.

[johndiligent]

LORs. By far.

[Tam]

I think probably the needless worying and stressing I've done over various aspects. I was worried about my LORs because of so many horror stories here, but all of my professors got them done on time (except one that got missed and then done a bit late after I let the professor know about it) without much prompting from me. I was worried that so many schools didn't seem to get the transcripts I sent last (after the semester ended and grades came out), but eventually they all did show up, and I think those schools were backed up. I've just worried about a lot of stuff that I think I didn't need to worry about.

[fuzzylogician]

For me it's not any one thing in particular - it's every little thing added up. Death by a thousand cuts, I guess.

This.

<rant>

Try convincing a school that doesn't have transcripts to give you one! I had to make one myself and beg someone in administration to approve it. Then get the departmental secretary to sign 15 copies + put them in official envelopes + sign across the flap. They didn't like me there for a while after that.

The LOR who told me the week before the deadline that she would write me a letter like she promised, but it couldn't a strong letter (this is my MA thesis advisor who I also TAed for. ). The scrambling to get a 4th writer last minute. Filling out and overnighting them forms abroad.

The extra costs of being international - higher app fees, the TOEFL+score reports, higher postal fees.

The school that changed the deadline from Jan 15 to Dec 15 but didn't post a notification, only changed the small print in the FAQ section (it's a good thing I'm obsessive and rechecked the requirements every so often).

Diversity statements.

Schools that can't admit you because there's no funding for internationals, but won't refund your app fees.

People who tell you they're sure you'll get in.

People who don't understand why you're so stressed.

People who think you're wasting your time going to grad school.

The Wait.

</rant>

[whereiscarmen]

Why are decisions due on April 15 and not May 1?

Some schools don't even tell you their decision by April 15...

[Kinkster]

Basically the fact you get to pay for the application experience would be on the top of the most annoying list.

A lame filter: why not refund the those rejected as a consolation prize (sans interest).

That would be awesome!

For me, it was the cost of the whole applying process and transcripts... oh and forgot to mention the apprehension and anxiety...