Social Welfare/Work Waiting

[mkatherine]

So I applied to Case Western, University at Buffalo, and University of Maryland Baltimore for FALL 2017. Has anyone heard anything from any of these schools?

[yourruth]

I applied USC, Michigan, Maryland, UW, and Berkeley. I got a reject from Berkeley but never heard anything from any of other schools...

[mkatherine]

Thanks for the update! Saw you on another post just now and replied but in case you do not notice it there I will say the same here: Also applied to Maryland. I had an email exchange with someone from Maryland after-deadline about an application glitch and she said they will have decided by "late March or maybe sooner." So my guess is mid-March? 

[mkatherine]

On February 13, 2017 at 6:17 PM, yourruth said:

I applied USC, Michigan, Maryland, UW, and Berkeley. I got a reject from Berkeley but never heard anything from any of other schools...

I just got rejected from Maryland today  From the department and the graduate school, soooooo ouch... I had really low quantitative GRE scores though because I have a learning disability in mathematics. It is really sad because it might be the very thing holding me back from being able to get into any PhD graduate program forever. I can do ALL of the math, but not fast enough for the GRE. I am registered as having a disability through the government but they make it relatively impossible to get accomodations. With a serious disability there really is a wall that we can hit. I practiced and practiced. I'm sure it is a possibility the rest of my application was not flawless so I emailed them to ask for feedback. If they give me some that I would think is useful in general for people, I will let you know.

I know what it is like to have things come easy because before I got brain injury from a seizure I was brilliant. Now I would say I am smart...ish but mostly just an extremely hard worker. So if you get in anywhere, please use your gifts because intelligence is really a gift, and it can be taken away for good in a matter of minutes. My brother got into Harvard and we were always the same caliber until this happened to me. Everything changed. It is a real shame because I wanted to help people with epilepsy in my research and it would have mattered to a lot of people. Wherever you get in, I believe you will do big things. I did not tell them I have epilepsy and why it mattered, because we get discriminated against. Even once you are seizure free for years, a lot of people are worried about having "a loose cannon." So, unfortunately a lot of people get to share their struggles, explain their stories and circumstances, and connect with people. But when you can be discriminated against, that is not an option.

I was hoping for a shot based on my years of research experience and the possibility that someone would believe in my mission. In addition to everything, probably not a good fit and would not be happy there in the end. Maryland was not my first choice, but this feels like a bad omen. It was pretty early to be rejected so something was probably very, very off. I have given up hope for myself but I will hope for you and the rest of the applicants on the cafe.

[Emarouk]

On 2/16/2017 at 9:13 PM, mkatherine said:

I just got rejected from Maryland today  From the department and the graduate school, soooooo ouch... I had really low quantitative GRE scores though because I have a learning disability in mathematics. It is really sad because it might be the very thing holding me back from being able to get into any PhD graduate program forever. I can do ALL of the math, but not fast enough for the GRE. I am registered as having a disability through the government but they make it relatively impossible to get accomodations. With a serious disability there really is a wall that we can hit. I practiced and practiced. I'm sure it is a possibility the rest of my application was not flawless so I emailed them to ask for feedback. If they give me some that I would think is useful in general for people, I will let you know.

I know what it is like to have things come easy because before I got brain injury from a seizure I was brilliant. Now I would say I am smart...ish but mostly just an extremely hard worker. So if you get in anywhere, please use your gifts because intelligence is really a gift, and it can be taken away for good in a matter of minutes. My brother got into Harvard and we were always the same caliber until this happened to me. Everything changed. It is a real shame because I wanted to help people with epilepsy in my research and it would have mattered to a lot of people. Wherever you get in, I believe you will do big things. I did not tell them I have epilepsy and why it mattered, because we get discriminated against. Even once you are seizure free for years, a lot of people are worried about having "a loose cannon." So, unfortunately a lot of people get to share their struggles, explain their stories and circumstances, and connect with people. But when you can be discriminated against, that is not an option.

I was hoping for a shot based on my years of research experience and the possibility that someone would believe in my mission. In addition to everything, probably not a good fit and would not be happy there in the end. Maryland was not my first choice, but this feels like a bad omen. It was pretty early to be rejected so something was probably very, very off. I have given up hope for myself but I will hope for you and the rest of the applicants on the cafe.

I'm sorry to hear you are feeling like this is such an uphill battle--and I don't doubt that it is. I really hope you do find that you get in somewhere soon because you sound incredibly dedicated to your research and you also have the lived experience. We need more academics like you.