Physics GRE Discussion Forums

Seems to me like Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and Santa Barbara just opened up the first wave (and I applied to all three...) but otherwise, yeah, seems slow.

evilclaw2321 wrote:So is it just me or have things slowed? Everyone keeps telling me wait till mid-late february, thats when things start happening. But From looking on here and other boards it seemed late january and early feb there was a ton of notifications, now things are just kind of trickling.

I remember someone telling me I should have most notifications by mid February. It's now the end of February and I had one rejection and 5 still in the air.

I want to hurl paperclips out a window, too. Maybe magnets with paper clips on them. It is getting kind of old having heard nothing. I am beginning to make plans for next year already...

Anyone heard back from UMD at College Park, University of Illinois at UC ?

I'm still waiting on UMD @ College Park.

I sure hope I get in. I know they got the best version of my personal statement. I also just sent them a new CV about a week ago... Good luck to all of us.

spershog wrote:Anyone heard back from UMD at College Park, University of Illinois at UC ?

I know some people have heard back from UIUC... Check the accepted board.

Should I hit the panic button now?

bosem wrote:Should I hit the panic button now?

you mean the "easy" button

here... wait what happens... some schools take till march to make up their second round picks. hey i am still waiting for 8 school to make up their mind. i know i got offers, but still i rather make an informed than forced decision

This weekend, I am going to send out email to all my schools asking for the update. I think, I deserve a quick response for my ~$75 (average) application fee.

Guys, Feb's almost over and am still at 0-0. Yet to hear a damn thing from anywhere. Not even rejects....now thats really depressing. Oh god! when am I going to start scoring????

Yeah, I asked Harvard for the update and they told me I'm out....
Others told to be patient, and not to bother them unless I have something important.....

spershog wrote:Others told to be patient, and not to bother them unless I have something important.....

I would heed this advice. I think there were more applications than normal this year for a lot of places and things are getting pushed back a bit. I know it is painful, but give it a couple more weeks. If you haven't heard from them by a week before their open house, there's a good chance you won't be accepted.

You know, if your application was great or even good enough to be waitlisted I'm guessing that emailing and asking about the status won't knock you out of the running. While it is a good idea not to annoy the application committee, if you REALLY need to know now, I don't see why asking courteously would have any bad effects.

I actually have emailed 3 schools so far to ask if I've been waitlisted, one said my application was complete and under review, one told me who was reviewing my application and I haven't heard back from the third yet... but I just emailed them yesterday so I'm prepared to wait a few more days before my feelings get hurt.

The physics program e-mail address is managed by the department secretary not a computer that all the admission committee members gather around checking e-mails sent to so that they could reject you. Im pretty sure if you havent been notified by Harvard it doesnt hurt at all to e-mail since decision has been made since they already notified people admitted and those on waitlist.

At this point people have legit reasons to want to know..when I asked Harvard I pointed out that I was asking because I need to start making travel arrangements for visiting weekends (particularly since I will already be in Boston for MITs).

On an unrelated (but appropriate for this thread) topic: has anybody heard rumors about where Stanford is in their process? They're the only school I'm really waiting to hear from.

sterculus wrote:At this point people have legit reasons to want to know..when I asked Harvard I pointed out that I was asking because I need to start making travel arrangements for visiting weekends (particularly since I will already be in Boston for MITs).

On an unrelated (but appropriate for this thread) topic: has anybody heard rumors about where Stanford is in their process? They're the only school I'm really waiting to hear from.

"by March 1st".... so tomorrow or monday... I hope tomorrow... they have had *** enough time already.

Waitlisted by PSU..hopeless...
the first round is finished

clytze_pp wrote:Waitlisted by PSU..hopeless...
the first round is finished

same here...
I am wondering if those who already got into Princeton, Harvard, Berkeley,... as well as PSU can withdraw their PSU application, since they will definitely NOT choose PSU over Harvard. Thanks in advance.

babazula wrote:

clytze_pp wrote:Waitlisted by PSU..hopeless...
the first round is finished

same here...
I am wondering if those who already got into Princeton, Harvard, Berkeley,... as well as PSU can withdraw their PSU application, since they will definitely NOT choose PSU over Harvard. Thanks in advance.

I would suggest you guys create thread asking people to withdraw from PSU. Or post on the thread of the "a plea from admissionprof"

So now that we're at the end of Feb., is all hope lost?

I have yet to hear anything from PSU, UCSB, UMD and UW Milwaukee (though the last of those was just due this month, so they're behind). I guess this means I'm stuck for a year.

mhazelm wrote:So now that we're at the end of Feb., is all hope lost?

I have yet to hear anything from PSU, UCSB, UMD and UW Milwaukee (though the last of those was just due this month, so they're behind). I guess this means I'm stuck for a year.

I don't think hope is lost yet, at least for UMD. I don't think anyone has heard back from Maryland yet.

so I wonder if i should consider myself rejected at rochester considering today starts their visiting weekend and still havent heard anything

Another day here. Will we hear anything today?

We could compose physics sonnets to pass the time.

In fact, sonnets are looking like a slightly more lucrative career plan then physics right now.

Did anyone hear from Berkeley after the last post on this board? I believe the last one was pretty early on in the week...Monday or so.

Still no word for me from 10 schools. I wonder if they are just ignoring me, annoyed that I wasted their time in applying.

still no word from 10 schools for me either. I feel like im going crazy wondering if they lost my application or if they forgot about me. I feel so helpless too i hate it. ugh and now its the stupid weekend very little hope of hearing now. I'm so sick of everyone asking me if I've heard anything like if i had i wouldnt tell everyone or something. I really thought id hear from at least one place this week.


@astrofan: it says on the profile page that you've heard from 6 of your 10 schools??

@evilclaw2321: not to brag but I am so much more deserving of self pitty than you. I have 3 rejections, 1 known waitlist that is a definite rejection - uc davis - and the rest, 6, I'm in the dark. Not to sound arrogant but I am so much worse off than you are .

In all seriousness I hope some of these institutions have a bit of pitty on us soon and tell us if there is any real chance of getting accepted.

@happymonkey: I agree with you that right now you have alittle more to complain about. I haven't been rejected from anywhere yet which is good, but I know I will have a very good fraction of my 10 schools be rejections, they're just the rejections that like to wait till the last minute. I'm sorry you haven't been accepted yet, hopefully you'll have one coming soon.

mhazelm wrote:I'm still waiting on UMD @ College Park.

I sure hope I get in. I know they got the best version of my personal statement. I also just sent them a new CV about a week ago... Good luck to all of us.

<fingers crossed> UMD said Ill get an Email next week ~_~ </fingers crossed>

Zilch from UIUC
I assume the worst

Now its the weekend and i have to wait 2 more agonizing days
Id rather tear my brain out and throw it out the window

you guys, i have found the ultimate solution to out problem! we should freeze ourselves!
If we freeze ourselved, then in two or three weeks, when all results are announced, those guys who already got an admission can unfreeze us. So the wait will seem instantaneous to us...

babazula wrote:you guys, i have found the ultimate solution to out problem! we should freeze ourselves!
If we freeze ourselved, then in two or three weeks, when all results are announced, those guys who already got an admission can unfreeze us. So the wait will seem instantaneous to us...

This sounds eerily like what Eric Cartman does when he is waiting for the Wii!!

unstudmaddu wrote:

babazula wrote:you guys, i have found the ultimate solution to out problem! we should freeze ourselves!
If we freeze ourselved, then in two or three weeks, when all results are announced, those guys who already got an admission can unfreeze us. So the wait will seem instantaneous to us...

This sounds eerily like what Eric Cartman does when he is waiting for the Wii!!

and it did the trick, ain't it i guess we should do the same...

it is the last day of February, and it seems Berkeley and UCSB have not released the second wave of admission. Isn't that odd?

The conventional wisdom on this site is that schools tend to admit students in waves... I don't really understand this phenomenon. It makes sense that the first acceptances and rejections would go out in a bunch, once the admissions committee has made decisions. However, later acceptances are contingent upon earlier acceptances being turned down in higher-than-expected numbers. It seems to me that schools would work down their list and accept people individually as required until they narrowed in on their target class size.

Can anybody provide an example of a school which clearly admits in waves? (Maybe with data from a past year at thegradcafe.com.)

I'm pretty sure that Berkeley is a good example of this. If you look on thegradcafe.com for last year, there was a group admitted around 2/21 and another right around 3/1. My guess is that they come up with a pile of "definitely accept" applications (less than the total number they want to accept) and send those out first, then look over the next group where it isn't as clear and make those decisions awhile later.

abeboparebop wrote:The conventional wisdom on this site is that schools tend to admit students in waves... I don't really understand this phenomenon. It makes sense that the first acceptances and rejections would go out in a bunch, once the admissions committee has made decisions. However, later acceptances are contingent upon earlier acceptances being turned down in higher-than-expected numbers. It seems to me that schools would work down their list and accept people individually as required until they narrowed in on their target class size.

Can anybody provide an example of a school which clearly admits in waves? (Maybe with data from a past year at thegradcafe.com.)

This wouldnt be practical because it depends on admitted students responding quickly which they dont. It would cause them to consistently hit below the class size they wanted instead of waves where they seem to on average hit their mark in terms of size.

I guess it raises the question of how many people get admitted in the first wave... do they admit only the automatics? Do they simply admit X people such that X * P = N (where P is how many students historically accept their offer and N is the desired class size)? Presumably it would be somewhere in between (method 1 would fill the class too slowly, method 2 could yield wild fluctuations in class size).

abeboparebop wrote:I guess it raises the question of how many people get admitted in the first wave... do they admit only the automatics? Do they simply admit X people such that X * P = N (where P is how many students historically accept their offer and N is the desired class size)? Presumably it would be somewhere in between (method 1 would fill the class too slowly, method 2 could yield wild fluctuations in class size).

That simple? One number of committee told me :"due to this year uncertain economy, it took us some time to figure out the number of students we could admit." Case Western..
Anyone know the answer?

evilclaw2321 wrote:still no word from 10 schools for me either. I feel like im going crazy wondering if they lost my application or if they forgot about me. I feel so helpless too i hate it. ugh and now its the stupid weekend very little hope of hearing now. I'm so sick of everyone asking me if I've heard anything like if i had i wouldnt tell everyone or something. I really thought id hear from at least one place this week.


@astrofan: it says on the profile page that you've heard from 6 of your 10 schools??

Must have messed up my post somehow, as the last 6 schools did not show up. Anyway, they are there now.

So my good friend from my department has now heard from 4 schools 2 acceptances both to schools to which i applied to and haven't heard anything (one she got this morning while i was talking to her). Its so much harder when its your friend cause it sucks for you but you have to be happy for them.

University of Chicago is flippin KILLING me with its snail mail responses. Just let me know something. Maybe today will be the day.

bryanwitha_y wrote:University of Chicago is flippin KILLING me with its snail mail responses. Just let me know something. Maybe today will be the day.

i emailed Chicago, and got a response regarding my status immediately. why do not you email 'em? You don't have to wait for the arrival of the letter...

babazula wrote:

bryanwitha_y wrote:University of Chicago is flippin KILLING me with its snail mail responses. Just let me know something. Maybe today will be the day.

i emailed Chicago, and got a response regarding my status immediately. why do not you email 'em? You don't have to wait for the arrival of the letter...

....I'm too skerrd.

I emailed Chicago last week and they told me that "my case will come up for the committee" today. So if you are still waiting impatiently it doesn't necessarily mean you are rejected, they are just behind.

Does anyone know anything about UWisc astro?? Seems relatively quiet...

What is the deal with UIUC

If it has to be a rejection, send it early and spare me the agony

Still waiting to hear from 13 schools .

Maxwell's Demon

Maxwells_Demon wrote:Still waiting to hear from 13 schools .

I got fed up waiting to hear form 10 and sent out a bunch of emails today, 2 responses so far-1 rejection 1 waitlist. I say email them and check, especially if you know certain ones have started notifying.