I'm about to go nuts waiting on mine. Every day that goes by without any contact from the schools I applied to makes me that much more worried I won't get in anywhere. Had one interview so far, but damn... I'd really feel better if I managed to get a few more...

Anyone else on pins and needles like I am? More importantly, how long after the application deadline is "too long to expect a positive response"?


Aye... I can't take this shit...

3/1/2011 10:28:07 AM

I wasn't accepted into NCSU's grad school till two weeks into the semester.
I was teaching undergrad classes, and was taking a full course load, but there were 'paperwork problems'.

3/1/2011 10:31:09 AM

I'm at Wake Forest in BME grad program and we just sent offers this week. They shold be coming in very soon. You should hear by the end of March.

3/1/2011 10:42:06 AM

The grad program I applied to contacted me less than 2 weeks after I applied and told me I got in. It probably helped that I knew some of the professors though.

Response time depends entirely on the school/program, so you will just have to endure the agony

Drinking heavily helps

3/1/2011 1:18:53 PM

Our help can be a little more successful if you let us know which program.

I recently applied to a variety of MBA programs. So far (2 out of 3) I have received a confirmed positive response. NCSU took approximately one week to arrange the interview and a total of 3 weeks to admit. Duke was a month from submission to acceptance.

That being said, most of my applications were done during the first round, which is much easier. During which round of admissions did you apply?

3/1/2011 1:44:44 PM

I applied to four schools in Dec 08 - Jan 09. I had one school reject me summarily. I received that notice in about 10 days. Who'd want to be a friggin' terrapin anyways.

Two schools accepted me with support. One I heard from end of feb/beginning of march (about this time of year, but the support offer didn't come until about May). One I heard from about a month later, with a support offer. One school hadn't decided what to do with me by end of April, and when I contacted the people I had talked to earlier, was informed they were waiting to decide how funding would work. They hadn't rejected me, but would only accept me if they paired me with a funding source. After a conversation about my funding needs, they accepted me, and I received official notification a few days later.

3/1/2011 3:23:50 PM

I applied twice to grad school. The first year, heard from one school for an interview by mid-late February and had the interview in early April (the application deadline was early February). The second year, most of the apps were due by mid January or February 1st (1 was due December 1st). I had heard by everyone by about the 3rd week of February... The one great thing about genetic counseling programs is they all collaborate to make "Match Day," so you get all your offers on the same day. Then you have a week to decide so if you're wait-listed you'll at least have a definite answer sooner than later.

3/1/2011 9:22:55 PM

if you applied to a department that funds its students, a lot of faculty right now are waiting on a budget resolution before they can get grant money that they've been awarded from gov't agencies, namely NSF, DOD and DOE.

just for reference, i've heard from 4/6 schools so far... so you probably should have heard something from one or two by now. then again i have no idea what type of program you're talking about.

3/1/2011 9:46:07 PM

Quote :

"Our help can be a little more successful if you let us know which program. "

3/2/2011 10:22:22 AM

I'm more curious about your use of the word "Aye"

is this 1627?

3/2/2011 10:24:02 AM

I'm guessing it was like "aye-yay-yay".

Have you tried calling the Administrative person at whatever programs you've applied to? It's not going to hurt.

3/2/2011 12:25:50 PM

my friend is waiting to hear back from her grad schools. this website seems to help her alot http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php
people post on there when they hear back from schools that they are applying to; kinda good because you can see when people start hearing back.

3/2/2011 12:58:44 PM

the first people to hear back are the best

then the second tier

then if they are under cap space based on people decling offers, they send out more letters

but it is different based on program, what program is this?

3/3/2011 12:12:13 AM

do not get caught up in the grad cafe!

3/3/2011 8:27:05 AM

Still waiting to hear back from the places I interviewed at. It's nerve wrecking.

3/13/2011 12:53:08 PM

Okay, I got caught up in the grad cafe.

And I cannot believe the number of people trying to get PhDs in philosophy from UNC-CH.

What in the world!

3/13/2011 6:37:46 PM

Just got accepted to the Genetics Dept at State. Pretty excited. It was my first choice. Can't wait to move back to Raleigh.

4/13/2011 9:33:38 PM

Congrats!!

4/13/2011 9:48:12 PM

Quote :

"Is deferment (waitlisting) handled differently at different schools / for different programs? IE - what does being "on hold" for an NCSU grad program mean, in terms of acceptance probability, etc?"

Apparently these questions are inapplicable in the other thread

3/20/2013 8:44:38 PM

didn't someone answer that? it's totally by department.

3/20/2013 10:21:09 PM

Kind of. But also:

Quote :

"so I can't really shed any light on the details of your deferment status."

3/20/2013 10:23:53 PM

i mean, i can shed some light on it: your chances aren't good. w/o knowing anything about the department, i've never met anyone at two different schools that got in after being waitlisted. also, if this is a funded position, that's even worse, b/c funding is an absolute clusterfuck right now (and probably until the system collapses; either economic or educational, they're both dinosaurs).

i'm actually starting to get a little nervous after reading in the other thread about NASA letting people know that they're not going to receive promised funding due to the sequester.

[Edited on March 20, 2013 at 10:30 PM. Reason : sorry, no one wanted to say that. also, that sequester is some scary/exciting shit.]

3/20/2013 10:26:40 PM

Good luck Erios!

3/20/2013 10:53:57 PM

^ Check the time stamps of posts. It's sometimes important and keeps you from looking silly.

3/20/2013 11:08:15 PM

Sooooo glad I got in/graduated/found work

it's only gotten harder to get into grad school over the last few years...

3/20/2013 11:12:30 PM

Oh, haha.

3/21/2013 12:40:12 AM

if OP was applying to engineering/science programs and hadn't heard back by March, you're not getting in. I did my Ph.D. in CHE, and all my acceptance letters came in by mid January. Only the dreaded declines came in march.

[Edited on March 24, 2013 at 8:13 PM. Reason : timestamps...like he said]

3/24/2013 8:12:12 PM

Quote :

"if you applied to a department that funds its students, a lot of faculty right now are waiting on a budget resolution before they can get grant money that they've been awarded from gov't agencies, namely NSF, DOD and DOE."

I plan on deferring my acceptance to either UNCC or NCSU until the spring semester of 2014. One of the criteria's I wanted to to use to decide which school I wanted to attend was my ability to get funding via a RA, TA, etc position.

Is this viable would I need to be signed on as funding does not clear until too close to the start of the semester???

By the way i'm going to grad school for ECE.

[Edited on March 26, 2013 at 12:27 PM. Reason : a]

3/26/2013 12:27:03 PM

I wouldn't expect to not be offered funding, and then to sit out/defer a semester, and show up to get funding. If you aren't there, doing classes, connecting, lining up research, you won't be at the top of the list to get whatever might show up.

That said, I can't recommend paying for it yourself, unless you can justify the cost as recreational. It isn't a good ROI if self-funded.

Find someone doing something you'd like to work on. Connect with them _now_. Volunteer to work in the lab, for free and no credit, now and over the summer. Make yourself a valuable enough person that they'll want to find money to keep you. Make sure they know you need some level of funding to make it work. Don't be coy about the money. It IS about the money. They know this, you know this, talk about it.

3/26/2013 12:52:06 PM

well i'm not holding out a semester for funding money. My thoughts were I was going to build my war chest until the end of the year and start in spring, especially if I were to move back to Raleigh. I had a brief unemployment period that I needed to make up some money from.

I suppose my question is more of do you tend to get set-up for the RA/TA positions once you are actively involved in the grad program or is it something you need to apply for before arriving for school. NCSU is a better program but living in Charlotte I have already had the opportunity to interact with a professor who is my faculty contact for the EE program here.

A semester out of pocket would be no big deal, if I had to so while i became acquainted with the grad schooll faculty even in I came back to NCSU. thanks for the advice.

3/26/2013 1:26:25 PM

When going to graduate school in a research based program, is est one where you are granted assistantships, you're not really applying to a school or a program. At least, you shouldn't be doing that. What you should be doing is shopping for an advisor; a boss. You generate a list of who you want to work for based on their expertise and your interests. You contact those people, communicate their interests, determine if working for this person is something you want to do for the next 2-6 years (you really don't want to work for an asshole), and solicit an assistantship offer. If they're interested in having you as a student, apply to the program in question and your potential advisor will look for you application in the pool that departments receive. Get an offer and writing and do not agree to attend a school without an assistantship offer in writing. You would do the same thing with any other job. Don't treat graduate school differently. Also, talk to other students. Make sure they're happy. If they aren't look elsewhere.

Something potential graduate students should know, is that graduate admissions and departmental assistantship offers are 100% separate processes. By and large, graduate students can be offered admission with little to no input from departments. As for assistantships, TAs are assigned to either specific faculty members to assign for a given class, or they're assigned to a pool for large multi-section classes where they're assigned based on faculty need, department procedure (usually ad hoc and unwritten), and department politics. Faculty tend to squabble about TA assignments like petulant children since it's a great way to pay their students without expending their precious grant money.

RAs are based on how much grant funding a specific faculty member has available. Faculty give RA spots based on in they can afford it and if they need a student. Its not unheard of for a faculty member to only hire one new student every three years. Faculty tend to recruit based on recommendations from their peers. After that, they tend to recruit based on interested students contacting them personally. I would say that less than half of RA offers originate from a faculty member pulling some applications out of the department pool.

All this being said, YMMV and all departments and universities are different.

3/26/2013 2:06:01 PM