So there is this website (which I briefly mentioned before), GradCafe. There is a section on it where students post which grad schools accept or reject them. It is anonymous, minimizing any need to lie. My friend and I are obsessed with it, and while I can’t speak for her, I refresh the page every five minutes. Aside from seeing U. of Wisconsin reject every single person who applied, it gives us a sense of which schools are posting their decisions, and getting a general idea of what kinds of students each are accepting (the students posting have the option of releasing their stats like GPA, GRE scores, and such… again, totally anonymous). We have decided it is like American Idol for academics.
You can narrow it down by campus or field. So far the schools I have applied to have only released their decisions in the maths and sciences. The humanities are just now starting to pop up, and English hasn’t come up, until today. One of the schools I applied to sent a rejection to someone. That means they are posting their decisions. I log into my account with them, and my application went from “submitted” to “check your mail.” They do not release their decision via email or phone, but in an actual letter. A bit later I realized I had not checked my mail today. Nevermind that I had just stepped out of the shower… Nope… sopping wet, barefoot and in only a towel I run to my mailbox. As I am rifling through the box I am praying I didn’t just lock myself out.
Mind you, this is a very small box, meaning nothing gets lost in it. I had some junk mail, but that could have been from a previous day… so either my mail man hasn’t come yet, or I didn’t get any actual mail today. Both of these things are possible. I will check again later, but this time I will have some decency and at least put on some sock.
On an unrelated note, I am very excited about this thing I have been working on. Should I finish it up tonight, I will post it.
Ok… back to writing and page refreshing.
Right around now people are beginning to hear back about graduate admissions. I have not heard anything yet from any of my schools, and my immediate friends have not either. As soon as applications were submitted I knew it was just a matter of waiting, and pushed it all out of my mind, being reminded of it only when technical problems arose. In fact, just a few days ago one of my schools lost my letters of recommendation and I had to contact all three of my letter writers asking them to resubmit. At least it is not just me, and the same things have been happening to numerous other friends, meaning I am not a complete idiot who can’t get applications right.
However, as the days pass it is getting harder and harder to not think about it, and the anticipation is making me rather jittery. As I compulsively check my email every five minutes I am practically twitching. I know sitting here and staring at my email, refreshing the page every little while won’t make it come any faster, but when it does, I will know immediately. I know all of my emails go directly to my phone, so I will hear it buzz as soon as something comes through, but just in case I don’t hear my phone I have set my email up on every single device available to me.
I told myself I wouldn’t do this. Two months ago as I was talking to people about it, I was so nonchalant. “Well, I sent them everything. It is out of my hands now. I will hear when I hear.” *Shrug* Everyone was impressed with my calm and collected demeanor. Some were even jealous at my mellowness. Oh, if only they could see me now! Oh wait, they do see me now. And they are doing the same thing.
In fact most conversation I have with friends nowadays start with “so, have you heard yet?” and others completely revolve around listing schools at each other. We go out to dinner just so we can talk about applications we have not heard back on, and torment ourselves by going online and visiting websites that list which schools have announced their decisions already.
Any day now.