So begins the waiting

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

15 apps in the mail. Now what do I do with myself for the next two (possible) to four (more likely) months? Bears have it easy. They can just hibernate until acceptance season, AKA Spring.

Ways you know you've spent way too much time on grad school applications:

- You have ETS' Pittsburgh address for score reports memorized.

- You have records of your application fee payments in both alphabetical and chronological order.

- You stop trusting Microsoft Word's spell checking feature and double check using a dictionary, just to make sure that a spelling error won't cause your rejection.

- Every time you meet someone new, you feel obliged to provide a CV, personal statement, and writing sample.

- You have fretted over which GRE departmental code to use when a given department's name doesn't match anything that ETS lists.

- You feel no pity for your friends going into the real world who have to wait a whole week to hear back after an interview.

- You start looking at housing and transportation options for various schools, but don't want to read any potential professor's articles, because that would be "jinxing it".

- You feel torn when two schools to which you've applied play each other in sports.

- You feel the need to apologize to your friends for applying to your undergraduate school's rival for grad school.

- You have developed a true hatred for people who post fake admissions results on forums like this, but still rest assured, knowing that they will be reincarnated as dung beetles in their next lives.

- You remember, with a chuckle, how "stressful" it was to fill out three college applications as a high school senior.

- You've never actually been through the process before, but feel qualified to answer people's questions about the quality of their profiles and ability to gain acceptance to top programs.

- You look at your monthly budget and realize that you've spent more on app fees and GRE score reports than on rent and food combined.

- You've realized that if you spent all of the time that you spent on applications instead watching television, that you could have watched the entire (new) Battlestar Galactica series on DVD. (Additionally, you realize that your impatience for your admissions decisions is even greater than that for what could be the final season of Battlestar Galactica)

- You watch movies like "A Beautiful Mind" and wonder what Dr. Nash would have scored on today's GRE.

- You can spit out admissions statistics for various programs, Rainman style, but still have no clue how good a shot you have at getting in yourself.

- You make lists like this to keep from going crazy, even though the waiting has just started.

Dang. It's still November.

[Minnesotan]

- You look at your monthly budget and realize that you've spent more on app fees and GRE score reports than on rent and food combined.

Ain't that the truth! When the apps alone are between $50 (yeah, right!) and $100 (that's more like it), you know you're in for some deep hurting. I didn't send out 15 this time, but I certainly sent out enough to need a second mortgage to pay for it all.

Unfortunately, the real winners in this process are the people who figured out that supply for transcripts and generalized test scores will never diminish, no matter how much you decide to charge for a single @#$%ing piece of paper to be sent via first class mail.

The bastards!

[amanda1655]

I feel your pain... the program to which I am applied at Princeton has an 8% acceptance rate. What in the hell does that mean for my chances?! I have a 3.94 undergraduate GPA, a 4.0 in my master's, and I scored in 95% percentile on the Verbal portion of the GRE. I have good letters of recommendation, a good Statement of Purpose, and an honor's thesis to use as a writing sample, and I still feel as though I have a snowball's chance in you-know-where of being admitted.

February and March are a very long ways away.

[Minnesotan]

8% isn't bad. Some of the apps I put in have a 1-2% chance (not accounting for my obvious talent, wisdom, and rugged good looks, of course). lol

I say, what point is there in dreaming if you're going to dream small!

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

...and I still feel as though I have a snowball's chance in you-know-where of being admitted.

I don't think the raw numbers get much better than yours, so I'm sure you will get in somewhere quite nice. It makes me glad that I'm not competing against you hahaha.

[Minnesotan]

Raw numbers don't mean as much as they should. I had a 4.0 undergrad, 98th %ile on the GRE verbal, and glowing refs two years ago, but I screwed up my statements (they were written hastily because I was studying out of country and had to get them sent out), and got the boot from more than half of the programs to which I applied.

So, be satisfied if you took the time to put together a complete package, even if any one characteristic isn't overwhelmingly impressive.

[neonmeatte]

Add myself to this list... I applied to eight schools in the last month. A couple of the app. deadlines passed yesterday (December 1), but CUNY leaves it open until January. No wonder I have read so many angry posts from students hearing from CUNY in the summer!! They're one of my last choices anyway, so I hope it won't matter too much if they leave me waiting...

[Minnesotan]

Yeah. Last time, I didn't get my final acceptance letter until June (Canadian school).

I'm still waiting on a decision from Melbourne. It's only been two years, now. I'm betting they'll accept me into their MFA program about the time I finish my PhD.

[amanda1655]

It was explained this way to me by a professor... Raw numbers will get the admissions committee to look seriously at your application, but they in no way ensure that you are accepted. After you have above a 3.75ish and a 90% GRE score (for top tier schools), it comes to down to intangible things like fit, quality of your statement of purpose and writing sample, and whether the professor reading your file saw something in your file that made them connect with you and want to fight for you. Although no one has ever said it directly, I'd guess that it may also have something to do with politics. If the professor that you want to work with is a dynamo in the department, they may have an easier time getting their students accepted than someone who has just been hired by the department or whose publication record isn't as stellar. The school may also choose not to accept someone because they already have enough graduate students in one area and need to admit people to fill up other spots.

One of my friends wasn't admitted to a top ten school (her first choice) because the professor she wanted to work with was on sabbatical, so she had no one to fight for her. She met him later at a conference and he went back to his department and asked why she hadn't been admitted. That's when he and she found out what had happened. It's stuff like that that makes me worry.

[Minnesotan]

Raw numbers will also get your application shitcanned before they bother reading the SoP and LoRs, if you screwed up badly enough as a bachelor or master.

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

Wooo! We've survived a month since I started this topic. That's one month closer to realizing the dream. My last recommender finally submitted letters on my behalf yesterday... three days before the deadline... after having agreed to do it in September. Now I can sit back and enjoy freedom... until Monday when I start exile in the private sector.

[Minnesotan]

I had one guy sneak his (electronic no less!) recommendation in three days after the Dec. 1st deadline. Egads!

By the way, only two more months to go until the December deadlines start coming back yay or nay! Everyone cross your fingers and hold your breath for me until then.

(If you all suffocate, I might have a better chance on the waiting lists. Ha!)

[nomad]

I'm in the same boat as the rest of you, but I have applied to UK schools mostly. They seem to act earlier especially if you are an international students dew to the funding requirements. Application deadlines in October and you start to here from them in December and January. Already got rejected by Cambridge, and have an interview coming up with the University of Edinburgh in early January. My sympathies with every one here having to wait till February and later.

Good luck all

[Minnesotan]

Good luck with Edinburgh. It's a good school, and a fantastic place to visit (and I would assume live). Great people, the Scots - very down to Earth, compared to the folk in some other major metropolitan areas in Europe.

Doesn't Cambridge work it like Oxford, with the multiple-deadline system (not a rolling deadline, but something similar)? I remember when I was studying there as an undergrad, I filled out an MA app, and I had a choice of which pool I wanted to be in. I'm still not sure what the difference was, but I'm just a daft American. I'm used to a more straight-forward application process (i.e. they let you know ahead of time how they are going to torture you for three months, then eventually screw you over - Oxford was a little more subtle about it).

=)

[Purgatory]

So what other good movies about university life (like A Beautiful Mind) are out there?

[Minnesotan]

Van Wilder, which is a good representation of undergrad life. =)

[nailbitingnmiserable]

I feel awful after reading all your posts. I screwed up a bit in the past, and my GPA is from my MA program is only a 3.4, but I did pretty well on my GREs, have amazing recommendations, and I think wrote a strong statement. The only other things I have going for me are my personal visits with professors, TA positions and intern/research experience. I feel like I'm in trouble. I want to grab the profs by the collar and scream at them, "Of course your should take me!" Too bad that would just get me thrown out of their offices. :cry:

[NO8DO]

'Accepted' is a decent comedy for undergrad life - I didn't like it when I first saw it but it grew on me afterwards, it's stupid haha but in a funny way

'Legally Blonde' - haha chick flic but a classic, law school at Harvard

'L'Auberge Espagnole' (The Spanish Apartment) - Erasmus (European University Exchange Program) Students all sharing an apt in Barcelona, honestly this is one of my favorite movies of all time - really good laugh, it's in French, Spanish, and English - each student comes from a different country so it's really entertaining what with all of the cultural differences all taking part in university (grad school) life

'The Dreamers' - American student abroad in Paris during the 60's, university life in Paris, pretty intense movie, really good

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

I feel awful after reading all your posts. I screwed up a bit in the past, and my GPA is from my MA program is only a 3.4, but I did pretty well on my GREs, have amazing recommendations, and I think wrote a strong statement. The only other things I have going for me are my personal visits with professors, TA positions and intern/research experience. I feel like I'm in trouble. I want to grab the profs by the collar and scream at them, "Of course your should take me!" Too bad that would just get me thrown out of their offices. :cry:

It still depends on your field. Some aren't as GPA obsessed as others. While the top top schools in any field will have plenty of applicants with perfect 4.0s, most seem to be more interested in your fit with the program. My grad GPA wasn't stellar, but it seems like my profile makes me a much stronger prospect for poli sci phd programs than I ever was for econ ones. It really is your overall profile and ad coms seem to know which schools are known for grade inflation and which are tougher.

[Minnesotan]

Grades aren't the be all end all, which is too bad in my opinion. heh

It seems like there are four things going on with the application process:

1) You need to avoid raising any red flags.

2) Your fit needs to be amply demonstrated.

3) You have to get a professor interested in working with you.

4) You have to catch the adcom on a friday, or after someone in the department baked fudge, or something.

I was bitter about the process for quite a while, after applying for MA programs two years ago. I got rejected at three backup schools, got in to half of my decent schools, and got one dream school, but no funding (and really, really high tuition and cost of living there).

There's a point, I think, when you have to realize that once you've done everything you can do, selection is a crap shoot. Fit would be the only reason I could think of that my backups would reject me and I would get into a school I didn't even think I had a chance of getting into, but for the fact that I feel I demonstrated fit pretty well for at least two out of the three safety schools. And one of them was an extremely safe safety!

Maybe good grades can cost you at safety schools, like bad grades at dream schools. I don't know. The entire point of this post is that, assuming you've hit the bases you need to hit, the application process seems fairly arbitrary after that. You see people getting rejected from the English program at Miami of Ohio, only to get acceptances at Penn and Iowa, and they admit they were a much better fit at Miami-Oh.

My advice? Do the best you can, and then do what the rest of us do, which is anything that keeps us from going completely looneyshit for the next couple of months.

[NO8DO]

actually laughing out loud at #4, haha

It's a bit paradoxical that 'safety' schools might not be so safe, but I guess that some smaller schools don't feel that they can support certain research proposals - and as a result they reject someone who otherwise was a stellar applicant at such a school. Let's just hope this 'fit' theory carries over to this cycle

[Minnesotan]

If I'm not as good a fit at my top choice as I think I am, I will be perfectly willing to sacrifice the theory on the altar of expedience.

[crazypoligirl]

Hi All,

I am new to the forum. I told myself that I was not going to become "THE" OCD grad applicant, that I have a ton of other things to do besides obsessing over this... but really, I don't . I almost fainted when I got an email from UChicago two weeks back. I was scared to open it even though it obviously couldn't have been a rejection THAT early. Anyways, just turned out to be an email "officially" letting me know that my application had been forwarded to the admissions committee.

THE ADMISSIONS COMMITTEE! I just about died! I mean, obviously it has to be reviewed, but there was something about reading that I am "being taken under consideration".

This process can make even the most qualified candidate self conscious. I don't even want to tell people that I am applying so I won't "jinx" it.

AND

I keep compulsively looking up living costs, etc. for the various schools that I am applying to....but I just don't know where I am going to be!

Did I mention I live in Japan!?! I keep obsessing over things getting lost in the mail. One thing for sure, I am ecstatic about the Japanese emphasis on perfection... I am scared of postal workers in the US, but the Japanese... they make me feel safe, lol!

Okay, enough ranting... I guess I am letting it all hang out on my first post! :wink:

[nailbitingnmiserable]

Thank you to all the people who replied to my post with comforting words and humor. I can't wait till the end of March, and yet there is a part of me that knows that at least now there is still hope...by the end of March there may not be. I tried to only pick schools I would be a good fit at, so I'll keep hoping for now. 8)

[Purgatory]

Thanks for the movie tips guys.

There seems to be a lot of us political science majors on this forum. I'm one too. I know what you mean about the Chicago email too. Actually the Yale one (about sending in more documents) this week was the freaky one for me and i found my mouse hand quivering over the email. I'm an international applicant and it has been more than two months since I ordered my Toefl scores but apparently notre dame still hasn't received them... I've kind of given up on that application. I gave up on all the English schools because of their lack of financial support.

I've actually heard that some poli science programs get back to people in late january, gee is it almost time?