You know what's whack?

ramathorn · Post by **ramathorn** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:01 pm

If what's said on GradCafe about Stanford Applied Physics is true(namely, that they sent out ALL acceptances last week, but haven't notified the leftovers of rejection), THAT is whack. Am I the only person who finds this vaguely unprofessional? Imagine applying for a postdoc, waiting a few months, calling the PI, and asking "Hey, did I get that postdoc I applied for?" and the guy says "Oh, you. Umm we made that decision like two months ago. I guess we forgot to email you."

Nerds.

WhoaNonstop · Post by **WhoaNonstop** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:13 pm

ramathorn wrote:If what's said on GradCafe about Stanford Applied Physics is true(namely, that they sent out ALL acceptances last week, but haven't notified the leftovers of rejection), THAT is whack. Am I the only person who finds this vaguely unprofessional? Imagine applying for a postdoc, waiting a few months, calling the PI, and asking "Hey, did I get that postdoc I applied for?" and the guy says "Oh, you. Umm we made that decision like two months ago. I guess we forgot to email you."

Nerds.

I don't find it vaguely unprofessional, because I highly doubt that is the case. They are probably still looking through applicants and trying to pick out some people to waitlist. This is normal for all programs.

-Riley

negru · Post by **negru** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:37 am

I know right? But do YOU know what's NOT whack? This:

This is totally not whack. Walking your dog is very normal.

grae313 · Post by **grae313** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:40 am

I think it's pretty shitty. Most schools wait around until late March or even April to send out rejections. Considering some places have hundreds of applicants and make offers to less than 100 students, do they really need to keep the other 400 people on their "waitlist?" At the least one would think they could send out 300 rejection letters and keep only 100 students waiting for four months.

sphy · Post by **sphy** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 3:21 am

grae313 wrote:I think it's pretty shitty. Most schools wait around until late March or even April to send out rejections. Considering some places have hundreds of applicants and make offers to less than 100 students, do they really need to keep the other 400 people on their "waitlist?" At the least one would think they could send out 300 rejection letters and keep only 100 students waiting for four months.

This is professionalism.

sphy · Post by **sphy** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 3:25 am

ramathorn wrote:Re: You know what's whack?

According to Princeton WordNet 2.1

Whack:
The noun whack has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)

1. whack -- (the sound made by a sharp swift blow)
2. knock, belt, rap, whack, whang -- (the act of hitting vigorously; "he gave the table a whack")

The verb whack has 1 sense (first 1 from tagged texts)

1. (2) whack, wham, whop, wallop -- (hit hard; "The teacher whacked the boy")

admissionprof · Post by **admissionprof** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 7:14 am

grae313 wrote:I think it's pretty shitty. Most schools wait around until late March or even April to send out rejections. Considering some places have hundreds of applicants and make offers to less than 100 students, do they really need to keep the other 400 people on their "waitlist?" At the least one would think they could send out 300 rejection letters and keep only 100 students waiting for four months.

I agree. If we get X students, we might make offers to 0.20 X, reject 0.65 X and keep 0.15 X on the waiting list in case we get too many turndowns. It's disgusting to hold onto the 0.65X and not tell them.

But for foreign students, we often wait a little longer, since they don't need to visit campus. Still, waiting past mid-March is something we won't do....

Goran15 · Post by **Goran15** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 9:43 am

admissionprof wrote: But for foreign students, we often wait a little longer, since they don't need to visit campus. Still, waiting past mid-March is something we won't do....

Don't need to? Does that mean campus visit is normally a prerequisite for acceptance or that you don't care if we don't visit? A friend of mine visited couple of campuses last year before he made his decision and I hoping to do the same. Especially because as a foreign student I really have no idea what these schools look like.

Adarsh · Post by **Adarsh** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 10:55 am

admissionprof wrote:

But for foreign students, we often wait a little longer, since they don't need to visit campus. Still, waiting past mid-March is something we won't do....

Oh no! Do you make an exception for international students studying in the US?

admissionprof · Post by **admissionprof** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 11:37 am

Adarsh wrote:
admissionprof wrote:

But for foreign students, we often wait a little longer, since they don't need to visit campus. Still, waiting past mid-March is something we won't do....
Oh no! Do you make an exception for international students studying in the US?

Yes, we would consider those effectively domestic (since they would be able to visit).

admissionprof · Post by **admissionprof** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 11:42 am

Goran15 wrote:
admissionprof wrote: But for foreign students, we often wait a little longer, since they don't need to visit campus. Still, waiting past mid-March is something we won't do....
Don't need to? Does that mean campus visit is normally a prerequisite for acceptance or that you don't care if we don't visit? A friend of mine visited couple of campuses last year before he made his decision and I hoping to do the same. Especially because as a foreign student I really have no idea what these schools look like.

A campus visit is certainly not a prerequisite (or even relevant) for acceptance, and is almost always done after acceptance. All I mean is that foreign students generally will not be able to visit the campus and thus a few weeks difference in notification is not as big a deal. If a student were to e-mail me and tell me that they were visiting the US in March, with some details as to where and when they would be, and wanted to know their status, we might look a little sooner. The overwhelming majority of foreign students will not be able to afford to visit during that brief period (March and early April).

grae313 · Post by **grae313** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:48 pm

sphy wrote:
ramathorn wrote:Re: You know what's whack?
According to Princeton WordNet 2.1

Whack:
The noun whack has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)

1. whack -- (the sound made by a sharp swift blow)
2. knock, belt, rap, whack, whang -- (the act of hitting vigorously; "he gave the table a whack")

The verb whack has 1 sense (first 1 from tagged texts)

1. (2) whack, wham, whop, wallop -- (hit hard; "The teacher whacked the boy")

You're looking in the wrong dictionary.

enthree · Post by **enthree** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:08 pm

admissionprof wrote:A campus visit is certainly not a prerequisite (or even relevant) for acceptance, and is almost always done after acceptance. All I mean is that foreign students generally will not be able to visit the campus and thus a few weeks difference in notification is not as big a deal. If a student were to e-mail me and tell me that they were visiting the US in March, with some details as to where and when they would be, and wanted to know their status, we might look a little sooner. The overwhelming majority of foreign students will not be able to afford to visit during that brief period (March and early April).

This is good to know, I was getting a little worried about the lack of responses I was getting.