about 2.5 weeks from Goldwater decisions, I usually don't get stressed by stuff like this but I am starting to obsess

if it makes you feel better it's just a resume booster and not a ****load of money or anything.

it's definitely cool, but it's not *that* big of a deal.

I'm waiting for DOE CSFG and NSF GRF decisions.

yeah, but it seems like its a pretty big resume booster for grad programs. also its sort of one of those things where i feel it would give a sense of validation/motivation for putting so much time into school as opposed to drinking more the last few years. Its hard to keep an eye on long term goals for so long gets kind of tiring, need short term motivation

yeah i understand. And if you get it you should be very proud, and it's a very nice resume booster.

Best of luck to both you and Cue!

PS - Drink more. There's plenty of time for being serious later. Enjoy college.

currently doing it for neuroscience at uconn.

Since there are a lot of smart people in this thread, I'm going to share something that may or may not happen to you when you graduate.

I graduated in May, last year. I went to have someone calculate my taxes with the 1098-T my school sent me. I received a substantial amount of money in scholarships and grants (box 5) as is accurate. Normally, they report the tuition and fees expenses and you have to subtract and you're left with your taxable income. Well, my school "cheats" and moves the whole year's tuition expenses to the fall semester. What this means was, I have to report a semesters of scholarships and grants as income without a deduction for the semester's tuition.

As a result, I was surprised when I had to pay in 2.5x the amount in taxes than I did last year.

Excerpt from a waitlist email from my top remaining choice

Any of you guys have exp with this being a std form email or does this indicate anything about my relative position on the waitlist? I'm hoping to make a decision soonish

IME, standard.

Yeah, standard. If you have identified a specific advisor, maybe e-mail to get an idea of what's up.

fwiw, I didn't hear back until like early April, emailed putative advisor, who said I was waitlisted, how many total slots they had available, and that he was pretty sure one of the rock stars they were recruiting was going elsewhere so I'd almost certainly get offered a spot (which was all true).

Yeah I figured. Econ's a bit different than other fields there aren't generally advisers assigned or targeted entering the program. I would call but I'm assuming I'd get some cagey response.

Assigned advisers are the exception, not the rule.

In any case, if & when you need to give another school an answer, you should feel free to call the graduate chair, explain your situation, ask him/her where you are on the waiting list, and, ask him/her whether you should accept the other offer.

Just got rejected by MIT's CEE program. First academic rejection I have every really received. Don't really know how to react...

Standard. Move on. No big deal. People get rejected for all sorts of random reasons, and you shouldn't read anything into it. Sometimes whoever's making the decisions is just wrong, sometimes they see something that makes them think it's not a good fit, and other times they just run out of room.

^^^Agreed. I've known folks who got into Ivy League and multiple top-10 schools in their field only to be rejected by second-tier schools. Grad school has an extraordinarily random selection process.

Don't get me wrong; if you got rejected from all 10 of the top 10 schools, I'd wager that you're just not top 10 caliber. This is nothing to be ashamed of, btw -- lots of fine scientists/whatever come out of top 25 and even top 50 schools. 1 rejection doesn't mean anything, though.

If it makes you feel better (unlikely) I got rejected from 5 of the 9 schools I applied to for grad school, and admitted with no funding at one of the 4 I did get into (might as well be a rejection). I applied to 4 of the top 5 (all rejections -- clearly I'm not that caliber), 7 of the top 10, and all 9 were top 20 or very close, depending on who's ranking. I got into 2 of the top 10 and went to the one that admitted and funded me. Only takes one. That's why you're encouraged to spam applications to "reach" schools, apply to a couple of targets, and maybe one safety. My list was like 3 super-reach (Princeton, Harvard, MIT), 2 borderline reach (Caltech, Berkeley), 3 target (NYU, Michigan, Wisconsin), and 1 safety (Ohio State). I got into the Big 10 schools and NYU.

Oh, and I'm doing great now, PhD in hand, good job, etc. So rejections really, really don't matter as long as you get admitted to at least one place that you'll enjoy spending the next 5-6 years of your life.

I'm gonna brag: 1 for 1, top-ranked school (i.e. #1 ranked) in that field. (Even if I was wait-listed.)

Then again, I was pretty much the biggest idiot on campus once I got there.

I applied to 14 schools and have been admitted to exactly 4. Earlier this week I got admitted to the ~5th ranked department where I was 100% convinced I would be rejected based on how the others have gone.

Like everyone said, it's at least a little random. Beyond that it seems like the number of applicants has been really high at every place I applied this year.

I was accepted to UIUC and Purdue, which I think are ranked 2 and 3 for CE grad schools. MIT is ranked 7 in that category, they don't really have a strong Structures department either from what I've heard. They definitely weren't my top choice, so not super upset.

I'd appreciate any advice you faculty folk might be able to give me in my "Negotiating for a spousal hire" thread over in SMP!

I can't speak for everywhere, but it seems like GREs are typically most important in getting you past the "first round." Many psych programs receive so many applications that the professors can't possibly review them all. As a result, applications are often graded quantitatively based on GREs/letters of rec/GPA/etc and narrowed down significantly (i.e. from 300 to 50) before going to the professors.

After that, standards become much more eclectic. Individual professors have vastly different preferences in terms of research/clinical experience, personal statements, and scores.

Being a good "fit" with a target professor and having significant research/clinical internship experience (depending on program) seem to be the most important factors, in my experience.

Tell your girlfriend to make it clear that she interested in (and educated about) a target professor's research. Professors are typically very enthusiastic about their work, and they want to know that they will be working with someone who shares a similar passion. This assumes that the program uses a mentorship model, but that is almost universal among psych programs.

FWIW I am starting at my #1 choice and a top-10 program next fall.

Hope this helps, good luck to your gf.

The reason the number of applicants is high everywhere is due to the economy being bad still.

This. I applied to a number of schools with 300-500 applicants for 5-10 available spots. Everyone is dodging the recession atm. The professors I spoke to were amazed at the number of applicants.

Hey guys, grunching because my question is kinda different from most of the discussion here.

I have a BA in French (with a Linguistics slant, I also speak a couple of other languages to varying standards) and an MA in Transnational Studies from one of the UK's leading research universities.

I'm looking into the possibility of doing a PhD in sociolinguistics or cultural studies somewhere in the US - the first department that's caught my eye is the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at NYU, but really I'd be open to anywhere and I'm only just starting to look into options.

Any advice for those in the humanities or those coming from abroad? What about funding? I'm guessing I'm gonna have to ship a few donkaments to pay for it...

Okay, so here is my situation for the summer. I am currently working with a professor on a project that is in the field I am interested in for grad school (multi-agent systems), though the project isn't exactly the sort of thing I'm interested in. He is pretty big/well connected in the area and would be a great rec letter I think.

I started working with him this year, only really got going on project this semester but even that has been slow because the funding for the project doesn't come through until the summer. I feel if I worked for him this summer, even though I'm not super interested in the project, I'd get a very helpful rec letter.

The dilemma comes in because of another summer program, an applied math REU at UCLA. There is a project I'm very interested in that is closer to my specific area of interest. The deadline isn't until end of month but I emailed a professor ahead of time and got a response today.

This seems really cool, but he is a new professor and from France so probably doesn't have huge connections in the field yet. Is it worth it if i get accepted to do a program like that (I did another REU in a similar field last summer) or should I stick with my current project for the better relationship with professor? Right now the current professor seems to like me but I just haven't had much opportunity yet to show him what I am capable of. I have 2 other good rec letters so this would be the 3rd.

If I missed some details let me know, I think that sort of covers it.