2011 Rejections

WhoaNonstop · Post by **WhoaNonstop** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 1:20 pm

giga17 wrote:
hamadahoda007 wrote:
cryingsun wrote:+2
+3
+4

+5

axiomofchoice · Post by **axiomofchoice** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 1:21 pm

+6

on Princeton. Not surprising at all, since the only professor there doing research close to the interest stated in my SOP is leaving this year for another place. I wish I know that earlier though, as the $90 application fee would be handy to pay for the parking ticket I got yesterday

Riley: the chance of you winning the hypothetical bet between us is getting smaller...

WhoaNonstop · Post by **WhoaNonstop** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 1:26 pm

axiomofchoice wrote:+6 on Princeton. Not surprising at all, since the only professor there doing research close to the interest stated in my SOP is leaving this year for another place. I wish I know that earlier though, as the $90 application fee would be handy to pay for the parking ticket I got yesterday

Riley: the chance of you winning the hypothetical bet between us is getting smaller...

Pfft, I shall triumph and you can send me some monopoly money.

-Riley

hamadahoda007 · Post by **hamadahoda007** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 3:08 pm

It is hard to get two top 10 rejections in two hours..

Chicago Rejection...

SSM · Post by **SSM** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 3:52 pm

Glad I didn't apply to Princeton, what the hell are they looking for in their applications? Apparently being perfect isn't enough.

grae313 · Post by **grae313** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 3:59 pm

It's a small department and there are a lot of "perfect" applicants.

WhoaNonstop · Post by **WhoaNonstop** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 4:06 pm

SSM wrote:Glad I didn't apply to Princeton, what the hell are they looking for in their applications? Apparently being perfect isn't enough.

How kind of you, but I'm far from perfect! ;D

-Riley

pymtab · Post by **pymtab** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 4:09 pm

SSM wrote:Glad I didn't apply to Princeton, what the hell are they looking for in their applications? Apparently being perfect isn't enough.

.

SSM · Post by **SSM** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 4:38 pm

grae313 wrote:It's a small department and there are a lot of "perfect" applicants.

Unlike Harvard, MIT or Caltech--some schools that applicants are getting into? I don't know how big their departments are actually, but I'm guessing they pick from a pool that's pretty close to uniformly perfect.

EDIT: Yeah I know not everyone on the forum got rejected from Princeton, I was originally trying to do some cheering up

bfollinprm · Post by **bfollinprm** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 4:47 pm

hamadahoda007 wrote:It is hard to get two top 10 rejections in two hours..

Chicago Rejection...

You've heard back from them? They told me that hadn't finished looking at all the applications....

cryingsun · Post by **cryingsun** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 5:43 pm

SSM wrote:
grae313 wrote:It's a small department and there are a lot of "perfect" applicants.
Unlike Harvard, MIT or Caltech--some schools that applicants are getting into? I don't know how big their departments are actually, but I'm guessing they pick from a pool that's pretty close to uniformly perfect.

EDIT: Yeah I know not everyone on the forum got rejected from Princeton, I was originally trying to do some cheering up

For me, I specifically said in my P.S. that I wanted to work with Paul J. Steinhardt. Although I did say that I would be happy with other professors, maybe I shouldn't have been so specific

I can't think of any other reason that my app got thrown into rejection pile.

bfollinprm · Post by **bfollinprm** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:07 pm

cryingsun wrote:
SSM wrote:
grae313 wrote:It's a small department and there are a lot of "perfect" applicants.
Unlike Harvard, MIT or Caltech--some schools that applicants are getting into? I don't know how big their departments are actually, but I'm guessing they pick from a pool that's pretty close to uniformly perfect.

EDIT: Yeah I know not everyone on the forum got rejected from Princeton, I was originally trying to do some cheering up
For me, I specifically said in my P.S. that I wanted to work with Paul J. Steinhardt. Although I did say that I would be happy with other professors, maybe I shouldn't have been so specific I can't think of any other reason that my app got thrown into rejection pile.

Always dangerous if you don't talk to the prof ahead of time. Sorry man!

TR137 · Post by **TR137** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 7:00 pm

-deleted-

tconklin · Post by **tconklin** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 8:05 pm

Rejected from UCB Astro. Not really going to complain much about that though, I set the bar a little too high. But I also feel with what I've heard back from other schools I have a chance everywhere else on my list

CarlBrannen · Post by **CarlBrannen** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 12:27 am

Rejected at Princeton. Still no acceptances...

-----------------------------------
P.S. Still no acceptances. If someone knows of a department who needs a hot shot electronics engineer / grad student, PGRE = 990, please send them my way. I'm easy to find on the web. Works cheap. House trained. Doesn't shed much. Theory or experiment. I'm fighting depression by writing a paper on how to derive the weak hypercharge and weak isospin quantum numbers from Hopf algebra:
http://brannenworks.com/E8/HopfWeakQNs.pdf

YodaT · Post by **YodaT** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 3:25 am

SSM wrote:Glad I didn't apply to Princeton, what the hell are they looking for in their applications? Apparently being perfect isn't enough.

grae313 wrote:It's a small department and there are a lot of "perfect" applicants.

I know where I'm not applying too, lol.

Kaumz · Post by **Kaumz** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:08 am

WhoaNonstop wrote:
giga17 wrote:
hamadahoda007 wrote:

+4
+5

I too got a reject from Princeton

postman · Post by **postman** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:13 am

+2 rejections from Princeton.

Astro-K · Post by **Astro-K** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 4:16 am

Rejected from UW Seattle astro on Friday, while I was at another school's open house weekend. Takes some of the sting out, I suppose.

t2kburl · Post by **t2kburl** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 8:49 pm

Rejected by UW-Madison Astronomy program. 3 up, 4 down, 5 to go.

et · Post by et » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:24 pm

Just got a Stanford rejection. Not surprising considering how many acceptances went out yesterday.

bfollinprm · Post by **bfollinprm** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:31 pm

et wrote:Just got a Stanford rejection. Not surprising considering how many acceptances went out yesterday.

Me TOO! I've heard Palo Alto is smelly, and has cuties. I didn't really want her anyway.

cryingsun · Post by **cryingsun** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:14 pm

Rejected by Stanford

The_Duck · Post by **The_Duck** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:42 pm

Rejected by Stanford as well. Now I'm just waiting for MIT to work up the nerve to respond...

CarlBrannen · Post by **CarlBrannen** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 8:01 pm

Stanford. (I'm doomed.)

bck2school · Post by **bck2school** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 1:58 pm

bfollinprm wrote:
et wrote:Just got a Stanford rejection. Not surprising considering how many acceptances went out yesterday.
Me TOO! I've heard Palo Alto is smelly, and has cuties. I didn't really want her anyway.

heh I believe you mean cooties

.

bbsmitz · Post by **bbsmitz** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 3:15 pm

Rejected by Yale Applied.

bfollinprm · Post by **bfollinprm** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 3:21 pm

bck2school wrote:
heh I believe you mean cooties .

So i did. so i did....

WhoaNonstop · Post by **WhoaNonstop** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 3:59 pm

Wonderful..

Got my email from Applied Physics at Yale. Very surprised that I was rejected. Obviously my unknown undergraduate school completely screwed me over, considering my belief was that I had as strong or stronger an application than people who were accepted in the past. I'm actually kind of pissed about this, cause I was sure I'd get into this program. With Cornell and Princeton it was a reach, so it wasn't unexpected, but I'd sure like to know the underlying reason that I didn't get accepted here. Wish I could transfer my application to the regular physics program but I'm sure it is too late for that.

-Riley

bfollinprm · Post by **bfollinprm** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 4:07 pm

WhoaNonstop wrote:Wonderful..

Got my email from Applied Physics at Yale. Very surprised that I was rejected. Obviously my unknown undergraduate school completely screwed me over, considering my belief was that I had as strong or stronger an application than people who were accepted in the past. I'm actually kind of pissed about this, cause I was sure I'd get into this program. With Cornell and Princeton it was a reach, so it wasn't unexpected, but I'd sure like to know the underlying reason that I didn't get accepted here. Wish I could transfer my application to the regular physics program but I'm sure it is too late for that.

-Riley

Probably, but worth trying anyway. Also, go ahead and email and ask why you didn't get accepted. It might take a while, but they'll respond. I'm actually pretty sure they have to tell you if you ask because of FERPA (as long as you weren't rejected because of a bad LoR (and you waived your right to view)).

For what it's worth, a professor at my university has connections to yale, and seems to think their application committee is a bunch of pretentious pricks.

cryingsun · Post by **cryingsun** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 4:32 pm

rej by yale.

liutian_min · Post by **liutian_min** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 4:37 pm

WhoaNonstop wrote:Wonderful..

Got my email from Applied Physics at Yale. Very surprised that I was rejected. Obviously my unknown undergraduate school completely screwed me over, considering my belief was that I had as strong or stronger an application than people who were accepted in the past. I'm actually kind of pissed about this, cause I was sure I'd get into this program. With Cornell and Princeton it was a reach, so it wasn't unexpected, but I'd sure like to know the underlying reason that I didn't get accepted here. Wish I could transfer my application to the regular physics program but I'm sure it is too late for that.

-Riley

Sometimes the selection is a bit irrational. I have friends who got into a better schools but rejected by weaker ones. Perhaps you should have applied to more schools at similar level to Yale applied physics.

SSM · Post by **SSM** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:44 pm

Also rejected by Yale Applied. Note to future applicants: don't *** up your interview

WhoaNonstop · Post by **WhoaNonstop** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 6:44 pm

bfollinprm wrote:Probably, but worth trying anyway.

Already received a response:

"Physics finished its graduate admissions about a month ago. Even to wait list someone for physics is now impossible. "

-Riley

ramathorn · Post by **ramathorn** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:08 pm

graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar.

This is not in response to anything from any school, but rather in response to the overwhelming, stultifying ennui arising from no words from any schools.

The only way to receive satisfaction will be to write a Kafkaesque novel about a starving young gentleman-scholar who applies to schools and sits awaiting a response for seventy-five years, until he is rejected on his deathbed. With the proceeds from said novel I'm going to start my own school which will flood the market with underqualified theorists like myself, which will basically shut down academic physics as we know it. At least it will mark an end to theory.

This will create a bilayer stratified system among physicists, the Eloi(experimentalists) who will receive all grant money and do all meaningful work, and the Morlocks(ramathorn-theorists) who will dwell underground at community colleges, occasionally rising up to feast on the ripe flesh of the effete, pampered experimentalists.

HappyQuark · Post by **HappyQuark** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:28 pm

ramathorn wrote:graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar.

This is not in response to anything from any school, but rather in response to the overwhelming, stultifying ennui arising from no words from any schools.

The only way to receive satisfaction will be to write a Kafkaesque novel about a starving young gentleman-scholar who applies to schools and sits awaiting a response for seventy-five years, until he is rejected on his deathbed. With the proceeds from said novel I'm going to start my own school which will flood the market with underqualified theorists like myself, which will basically shut down academic physics as we know it. At least it will mark an end to theory.

This will create a bilayer stratified system among physicists, the Eloi(experimentalists) who will receive all grant money and do all meaningful work, and the Morlocks(ramathorn-theorists) who will dwell underground at community colleges, occasionally rising up to feast on the ripe flesh of the effete, pampered experimentalists.

Your description created a mental image in my head of you checking your application status for the millionth time with no updates and reacting in the following way.

ramathorn · Post by **ramathorn** » Sat Feb 26, 2011 12:03 am

When I was living in Ukraine there was an abandoned shipyard nearby, and to vent frustration it was common practice to bring a six-pack of beer there, consume it, then throw the bottles at the unfinished schooner still hanging near the water. There must've been over five hundred broken bottles floating at the mouth of the thing. I am going to try this somewhere here tonight, results to be posted when bail is posted.

mfedderke · Post by **mfedderke** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 11:09 am

[deleted]

et · Post by et » Mon Feb 28, 2011 2:34 pm

MIT rejection by email just now! Unsurprising after how many acceptances they already sent out.

TR137 · Post by **TR137** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 2:40 pm

et wrote:MIT rejection by email just now! Unsurprising after how many acceptances they already sent out.

Just got this email too.

bbsmitz · Post by **bbsmitz** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 2:46 pm

+1 MIT

bfollinprm · Post by **bfollinprm** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 2:50 pm

From grad cafe, circa 2009:

!!! Received a rejection in the mail last week so I emailed to ask why I was rejected and they reconsidered! Seriously! Apparently my rejection was a mistake, so sweet!

So, it's certainly worth sending enquiry letters when you're rejected. It makes them look at your application one last time.

Jackadsa · Post by **Jackadsa** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:04 pm

+1 MIT

Dreaded Anomaly · Post by **Dreaded Anomaly** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:11 pm

Another MIT rejection here.

RabiFlops · Post by **RabiFlops** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:23 pm

yet another MIT

ticklecricket · Post by **ticklecricket** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:28 pm

MIT as well. I really thought I had a chance since I already work there. Oh well...

WhoaNonstop · Post by **WhoaNonstop** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 4:08 pm

ticklecricket wrote:MIT as well. I really thought I had a chance since I already work there. Oh well...

Can I say I got rejected by MIT too so I can fit in?! =O

matto07 · Post by **matto07** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 4:18 pm

bfollinprm · Post by **bfollinprm** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 4:20 pm

WhoaNonstop wrote: Can I say I got rejected by MIT too so I can fit in?! =O

I thought about sending them an email asking if I'd been accepted, just so I could get the email telling me I wasn't. I see 3 options: (1) either they give me the standard rejection letter, (2) they panic, say they've lost my application, and ask me to send another ASAP, or (3) they email me the following:

Dear bfollinprm,

Stop wasting my time.

-Almighty God

matto07 · Post by **matto07** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 4:28 pm

UCSB