2013 Applicant Profile Discussion

[lordbadri]

Dude I just find UW Seattle to be my safety school...

That was awful rich of you.

exactly!

[Lavabug]

Dude I just find UW Seattle to be my safety school... And it indicates that my investigation about safety school is a horrible failure.

There is apparently no good hidden variable theory for the graduate physics admission process.

I refer you to an anecdote that you may or may not find illuminating:

according to some academics I know are involved in selecting phd candidates, the selection process is not purely meritocratic, and that explains why people without perfect grades or GRE's get into very good schools every now and then. They aim to admit students they think would be happy at their institution, quite literally they said they don't want to admit someone who thinks they're too good for their school and feels like they should've gotten admitted at a better school. They also value other factors such as how badly does the student want to be a researcher, because if it's someone that can "afford to go back to their previous job", they won't have the same incentive to be as productive as someone who's putting all his eggs in one basket for an academic career, irrespective of grades. Their words, not mine, and these are people from a top 10 UK uni (and both did PhD's in the US).

[Tom Joad]

...have you gotten your financial package from Berkeley yet?

I got mine last week. It basically said that I've got a TAship.

And you got it in the mail? I'm super jealous! I just don't like not knowing.

I finally got the paper copy of the admission letter from Berkeley, and if you haven't gotten it yet: the reason we haven't heard anything about funding is because we were nominated for a fellowship and will be informed in the next few days or weeks whether or not we will receive it....they didn't forget about us!

[AprilMay4]

I finally got the paper copy of the admission letter from Berkeley, and if you haven't gotten it yet: the reason we haven't heard anything about funding is because we were nominated for a fellowship and will be informed in the next few days or weeks whether or not we will receive it....they didn't forget about us!

Thanks, yeah I did get that in the mail! Wasn't exactly all that exciting though. I mean, they email us to tell us they will send us the financial info, and then the package that comes in the mail says we will let you know if an undisclosed number of days what your package actually is!

[Tom Joad]

I finally got the paper copy of the admission letter from Berkeley, and if you haven't gotten it yet: the reason we haven't heard anything about funding is because we were nominated for a fellowship and will be informed in the next few days or weeks whether or not we will receive it....they didn't forget about us!

Thanks, yeah I did get that in the mail! Wasn't exactly all that exciting though. I mean, they email us to tell us they will send us the financial info, and then the package that comes in the mail says we will let you know if an undisclosed number of days what your package actually is!

Their next communication will be a snail mail notification that they have made the final decision on fellowships, and they will inform us by sending out the results in the next few weeks by horse and buggy. To be fair though, if a horse and buggy showed up at my door with a letter then I'd be pretty excited about it.

[Johnny Law]

I finally got the paper copy of the admission letter from Berkeley, and if you haven't gotten it yet: the reason we haven't heard anything about funding is because we were nominated for a fellowship and will be informed in the next few days or weeks whether or not we will receive it....they didn't forget about us!

Thanks, yeah I did get that in the mail! Wasn't exactly all that exciting though. I mean, they email us to tell us they will send us the financial info, and then the package that comes in the mail says we will let you know if an undisclosed number of days what your package actually is!

Their next communication will be a snail mail notification that they have made the final decision on fellowships, and they will inform us by sending out the results in the next few weeks by horse and buggy. To be fair though, if a horse and buggy showed up at my door with a letter then I'd be pretty excited about it.

You guys should get your fellowship packs pretty soon. Mine came in yesterday.