Fall 2013 Application Sweat Thread

JonMLTR · Post by **JonMLTR** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 12:17 pm

marco wrote:Ohhh the silence! Ohh the horror!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2xUMiUrCs8

If you can...

Gasquet · Post by **Gasquet** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 12:19 pm

Okay folks, let's make things interesting. I would like to see who is good enough to figure out who I am(Name, facebook etc.). If you could get to Manyfolds, I should be an easier 'target'. Anyone up for the challenge? Lurkers welcome too. Mods not welcome, of course.

virgo wrote:Lol, how would they find out your name? Btw, if any of the regular posters wanna friend me so we can chat on fb feel free to. Just pm me first. I need more people to talk to about this stuff!!!

I am always ready to talk about admission related stuff.

But I'd rather do it via PM here, and not on FB.

@JonMLTR: When I saw the youtube link, I immediately assumed that it was a link to Enjoy the Silence.

virgo · Post by **virgo** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 12:25 pm

Gasquet wrote:Okay folks, let's make things interesting. I would like to see who is good enough to figure out who I am(Name, facebook etc.). If you could get to Manyfolds, I should be an easier 'target'. Anyone up for the challenge? Lurkers welcome too. Mods not welcome, of course.

virgo wrote:Lol, how would they find out your name? Btw, if any of the regular posters wanna friend me so we can chat on fb feel free to. Just pm me first. I need more people to talk to about this stuff!!!
I am always ready to talk about admission related stuff. But I'd rather do it via PM here, and not on FB.

@JonMLTR: When I saw the youtube link, I immediately assumed that it was a link to Enjoy the Silence.

I accept that challenge.

Gasquet · Post by **Gasquet** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 12:44 pm

virgo wrote:I accept that challenge.

Happy digging.
Hints available via PM.

P.S. If you really believe in astrology, there is no way a virgo could do it

JonMLTR · Post by **JonMLTR** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 1:07 pm

Gasquet wrote:Okay folks, let's make things interesting. I would like to see who is good enough to figure out who I am(Name, facebook etc.). If you could get to Manyfolds, I should be an easier 'target'. Anyone up for the challenge? Lurkers welcome too. Mods not welcome, of course.

virgo wrote:Lol, how would they find out your name? Btw, if any of the regular posters wanna friend me so we can chat on fb feel free to. Just pm me first. I need more people to talk to about this stuff!!!
I am always ready to talk about admission related stuff. But I'd rather do it via PM here, and not on FB.

@JonMLTR: When I saw the youtube link, I immediately assumed that it was a link to Enjoy the Silence.

yeah I guess it comes to mind of those who know the song. It is also one of the songs I enjoyed a lot.

But I can not say I am enjoying the silence right now. I got a reply from two of my favourite universities.

One of them from a poi stating that he can not give any information on the decisions until they are officially out. The other one was from the department secretary stating that decisions will be made in the first week of April !!!! I can't be optimistic and still having to wait in this state of mind is putting too much stress on me.

marco · Post by **marco** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 1:16 pm

It seems that there will be no UMD news today...

Gasquet · Post by **Gasquet** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 1:32 pm

This might sound like a silly question to many of you, but I believe I'm not the only one who would have it. Many international students are not aware of the jargon used by Americans.

What does POI stand for? Googling it led me to a thread on the gradcafe forum which has some nice options:

Primary Opium Introducer
Pithy Orangutan Instigator
Perching Orange Intimidator
Person Oppressing Imagination
Pathological Optimism Incinerator

By some of the posts here, especially in this thread, the last seems pretty likely. Okay, so seriously I guess some people use it for Person of Interest, but that just has a huge criminal vibe to it. The other possibility is Professor of Interest, which sounds pretty weird in itself.

So, which one is it?

JonMLTR · Post by **JonMLTR** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 1:52 pm

Gasquet wrote:This might sound like a silly question to many of you, but I believe I'm not the only one who would have it. Many international students are not aware of the jargon used by Americans.

What does POI stand for? Googling it led me to a thread on the gradcafe forum which has some nice options:

Primary Opium Introducer
Pithy Orangutan Instigator
Perching Orange Intimidator
Person Oppressing Imagination
Pathological Optimism Incinerator

By some of the posts here, especially in this thread, the last seems pretty likely. Okay, so seriously I guess some people use it for Person of Interest, but that just has a huge criminal vibe to it. The other possibility is Professor of Interest, which sounds pretty weird in itself.

So, which one is it?

Professor of interest sounds best for me and that is what I meant by poi. This is the professor you are interested in working with. Person of Interest may also sound fine but it doesn't fit well to the graduate admission context, for example the person of interest maybe a girl you want to date with.

Although there are much similarities between the two (especially in rejections), at least the "waitlist" is signalled better in the graduate applications and you don't get emails after rejection asking you "how you are doing"...

1lovingsister · Post by **1lovingsister** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 2:14 pm

Gasquet wrote:Okay folks, let's make things interesting. I would like to see who is good enough to figure out who I am(Name, facebook etc.). If you could get to Manyfolds, I should be an easier 'target'. Anyone up for the challenge? Lurkers welcome too. Mods not welcome, of course.

virgo wrote:Lol, how would they find out your name? Btw, if any of the regular posters wanna friend me so we can chat on fb feel free to. Just pm me first. I need more people to talk to about this stuff!!!

I would make the same offer, but I'm so easy to find I'd have to make the goal to google my username WITHOUT finding out who I am. I should have been more sneaky about choosing a username on here. haha.

Manyfolds · Post by **Manyfolds** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:04 pm

All else equal, would you guys rather win a Fields Medal or be a billionaire?

1lovingsister · Post by **1lovingsister** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:08 pm

Manyfolds wrote:All else equal, would you guys rather win a Fields Medal or be a billionaire?

Fields Medal....without a doubt.

allemanau · Post by **allemanau** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:20 pm

First AMSC acceptance has been posted on GradCafe. Time to sweat, I guess!

wickerfurniture · Post by **wickerfurniture** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:44 pm

my theory of the lone acceptance is that maybe they emailed a few esp qualified people to offer them extra incentives, and are waiting to make their big emails of acceptances/waitlists a little later.

marco · Post by **marco** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:53 pm

I'm definitely starting to sweat man...oh how this sucks!

Nr · Post by Nr » Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:55 pm

Manyfolds wrote:All else equal, would you guys rather win a Fields Medal or be a billionaire?

I think this is not a good question for this forum.
As everybody here is into math everyone will say Fields.
Right guys ?

Nr · Post by Nr » Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:56 pm

Wow, this is crazy !!!
More than a thousand posts here !!!
That's quite a lot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DiscreteGuy · Post by **DiscreteGuy** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:05 pm

Received an acceptance from Ohio State this morning!

Glad to finally be in somewhere, and hopefully this means that this will be a good week for everyone.

1lovingsister · Post by **1lovingsister** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:08 pm

Nr wrote:
Manyfolds wrote:All else equal, would you guys rather win a Fields Medal or be a billionaire?
I think this is not a good question for this forum.
As everybody here is into math everyone will say Fields.
Right guys ?

I should hope so or you aren't applying to the right grad program. If I had wanted to make money I would have gone for a PhD in computer science.....or gotten a job. haha.

BYA · Post by **BYA** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:11 pm

I was hoping to make the 1000th post. You guys are so fast

.
Now imagine the waiting to get my first admit and the added longing to make the 2000th post.

Next year Fall applicants will have no problem waiting as even wading through this thread will take them days.

(Okay, I will admit that what I am really after is the 1729th post, everybody knows the importance of this number, right?)

Nr · Post by Nr » Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:19 pm

1lovingsister wrote:
Nr wrote:
Manyfolds wrote:All else equal, would you guys rather win a Fields Medal or be a billionaire?
I think this is not a good question for this forum.
As everybody here is into math everyone will say Fields.
Right guys ?
I should hope so or you aren't applying to the right grad program. If I had wanted to make money I would have gone for a PhD in computer science.....or gotten a job. haha.

Yeah, financially speaking we are just wasting our time here.
So many hours spent understanding abstract complicated stuff.
You could have made a lot of money in the meantime ...

Nr · Post by Nr » Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:24 pm

BYA wrote:I was hoping to make the 1000th post. You guys are so fast .
Now imagine the waiting to get my first admit and the added longing to make the 2000th post.

Next year Fall applicants will have no problem waiting as even wading through this thread will take them days.
(Okay, I will admit that what I am really after is the 1729th post, everybody knows the importance of this number, right?)

I don't think this thread will make it to 1729 ...
Obviously most of the "sweating" is over in a few weeks
leaving a lot of people happy and (unfortunately) some not.

Unless you make lots of funny posts to increase the number of posts artificially ...

BYA · Post by **BYA** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:33 pm

Nr wrote:
BYA wrote:I was hoping to make the 1000th post. You guys are so fast .
Now imagine the waiting to get my first admit and the added longing to make the 2000th post.

Next year Fall applicants will have no problem waiting as even wading through this thread will take them days.
(Okay, I will admit that what I am really after is the 1729th post, everybody knows the importance of this number, right?)
I don't think this thread will make it to 1729 ...
Obviously most of the "sweating" is over in a few weeks
leaving a lot of people happy and (unfortunately) some not.

Unless you make lots of funny posts to increase the number of posts artificially ...

That's a good addition to the count, Nr! Way to go.

If posters do not open new threads to discuss which universities to choose to attend, there maybe a chance to reach 1729.

Legendre · Post by **Legendre** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 5:09 pm

Manyfolds wrote:All else equal, would you guys rather win a Fields Medal or be a billionaire?

Will definitely prefer to be a billionaire.

Why?

Because then you can fund your own research group, do the research you want, and hire postdocs or PhD students to do all the grunt work. No more grant/funding applications!

Even with a Fields Medal, you still have to partake in the "ugly" side of academia: getting tenure/hired, grant/funding etc. And you'll still be expected to "publish or perish". The pressure is even greater as a Fields medalist to continue to publish "ground breaking" work.

I'll rather sit back and relax on a pile of money and enjoy all the maths I want without having to worry about all these.

Nr · Post by Nr » Mon Feb 25, 2013 6:05 pm

Tomorrow UIUC will send out results...
hahahah

PS. Don't think I have any clue it's just a feeling paired with a little bit hope and the fact that they sent out results on a Tuesday last year !!!

marco · Post by **marco** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 6:12 pm

Anyone on this forum received news from AMSC today?

IIIII · Post by **IIIII** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:08 pm

marco wrote:Anyone on this forum received news from AMSC today?

Yes, admitted with Maryland's standard TA plus 2-year fellowship. Check your PM.

allemanau · Post by **allemanau** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:17 pm

@IIIII: Any new information in the email about how/when decisions will be coming out?

ParsleyX · Post by **ParsleyX** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:37 pm

marco wrote:Anyone on this forum received news from AMSC today?

Marco, did you hear anything?

m_s · Post by **m_s** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:38 pm

marco wrote:Anyone on this forum received news from AMSC today?

I received an e-mail with TA and 2-years fellowship too. There was no mention about decisions, rather that formal notification will arrive soon.

(there is no change in my APRA page)

marco · Post by **marco** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:39 pm

There is another admit from AMSC on grad cafe. From what I can gather the admits made today are unofficial and are probably made to the applicants they want the most. I'm not sure though. I haven't received anything.

wickerfurniture · Post by **wickerfurniture** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:46 pm

hopefully thats as you said, just "the applicants they want the most" and not "most of the applicants they want"

congrats to those admitted today

ajrasmus · Post by **ajrasmus** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:53 pm

Still no results from University of Washington? Stony Brook?

atomspatz · Post by **atomspatz** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:54 pm

Nr wrote:Tomorrow UIUC will send out results...
hahahah

PS. Don't think I have any clue it's just a feeling paired with a little bit hope and the fact that they sent out results on a Tuesday last year !!!

I received the official letter today. Try to minimize unfounded or misleading statements, for the sake of everyone's anxiety...

Nr · Post by Nr » Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:06 pm

atomspatz wrote:
Nr wrote:Tomorrow UIUC will send out results...
hahahah

PS. Don't think I have any clue it's just a feeling paired with a little bit hope and the fact that they sent out results on a Tuesday last year !!!
I received the official letter today. Try to minimize unfounded or misleading statements, for the sake of everyone's anxiety...

yeah you're right
but actually the fact that you got a letter basically supports it i think

ParsleyX · Post by **ParsleyX** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:14 pm

marco wrote:There is another admit from AMSC on grad cafe. From what I can gather the admits made today are unofficial and are probably made to the applicants they want the most. I'm not sure though. I haven't received anything.

I toured UMD and spoke with a few AMSC faculty and they explained their application process this way (I'm sure it's the same for a lot of schools):

- Typical acceptance of ~12 - 15 applicants out of hundreds.
- The initial screening is to identify students they'd like, as well as students they think are likely to accept
- ~20 - 25 offers are made, with the assumption that not all will accept.

No way of knowing where we stand, but with no request for additional information, nor unofficial offers, I'm not holding my breath. I ain't even mad, just wish they'd indicate my probability of hearing from them.

IIIII · Post by **IIIII** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:20 pm

RE: AMSC

In the email there was no context whether this was part of a first wave of admissions. The 5-year TA + 2-year $5000 Fellowship seems somewhat standard (based on last year's AMSC offers on GradCafe). It was not formal admission, but said I had been recommended to the graduate school. However, it did come from the department secretary, not from a professor of interest. This indicates that the release of the decision is more centralized, rather than only a professor tipping off a potential student ahead of schedule. Based on a phone conversation last week, I believe most decisions will come out by the end of the week.

Good luck everyone!

ParsleyX · Post by **ParsleyX** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:25 pm

While I understand your skepticism (don't count your eggs...) I highly doubt a program would contact an applicant with financial details and and fellowship offers if they didn't plan on accepting you.

IIIII · Post by **IIIII** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:37 pm

ParsleyX wrote:While I understand your skepticism (don't count your eggs...) I highly doubt a program would contact an applicant with financial details and and fellowship offers if they didn't plan on accepting you.

Perhaps my post was misleading. My (intended) implication was that although the admission was informal, it came from the secretary of the department. This suggests that more offers are likely to be coming soon. A professor might send an email a little early to a potential advisee notifying him of a decision, before the graduate chair or secretary does. A department secretary, on the other hand, is unlikely to send out a particularly early notification to only a single student, but no others. (i.e. This was an email that was sent out at the request of the graduate director, no earlier.)

ParsleyX · Post by **ParsleyX** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:59 pm

That makes sense - if you don't mind me asking, when did you receive your e-mail? I would think that a secretary would have a template or some other 'acceptance form' e-mail to spam out to the selected students. I don't think it would take more than...an hour?

I wouldn't mind if I've been waitlisted or rejected, I just want to know!

IIIII · Post by **IIIII** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 9:07 pm

ParsleyX wrote:That makes sense - if you don't mind me asking, when did you receive your e-mail? I would think that a secretary would have a template or some other 'acceptance form' e-mail to spam out to the selected students. I don't think it would take more than...an hour?

I wouldn't mind if I've been waitlisted or rejected, I just want to know!

Mid-afternoon Maryland time.

cooltrainer · Post by **cooltrainer** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 9:14 pm

How many people were requested for further information by Maryland AMSC, anyone knows?

IIIII · Post by **IIIII** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 9:26 pm

Of the posts on Grad Cafe for AMSC last year:

-8 were admitted throughout the week of 21 Feb - 25 Feb
-1 was admitted March 1st

No other admits.

So far there are 3 admits on Grad Cafe for 2013. There are likely more offers forthcoming.

ParsleyX · Post by **ParsleyX** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:05 pm

While we're at it, anyone know anything about Northwestern? I see a lot of rejections and only 2 acceptances. They do admit a smaller class, though.

Has that cat been let out of the bag yet?

123456 · Post by **123456** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:45 pm

Any updates on decisions for the following pure math programs: Berkeley, Yale, Penn, Cornell, Caltech, Columbia?

PNT · Post by **PNT** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 11:01 pm

What do you guys think is the best response to an email from the graduate director saying

"we expect to offer you a place within the coming week but we are just emailing to express our keen interest and gauge your interest before coming up with a financial package"

from a school that is, say a safety when you are still waiting on your preferred school to make decisions? they want to reply as soon as possible?

ParsleyX · Post by **ParsleyX** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 11:09 pm

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/ ... 20-319.png

1lovingsister · Post by **1lovingsister** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 11:48 pm

PNT wrote:What do you guys think is the best response to an email from the graduate director saying

"we expect to offer you a place within the coming week but we are just emailing to express our keen interest and gauge your interest before coming up with a financial package"

from a school that is, say a safety when you are still waiting on your preferred school to make decisions? they want to reply as soon as possible?

Maybe you could say something like, "Although I am waiting on final offers from several graduate programs, I am still very interested in graduate studies at [name of institution] because I think my research and educational goals mesh well with those of your department. After receiving your offer I will be able to make a more informed decision about where my skills can be best developed."

Just a thought.

PNT · Post by **PNT** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 11:55 pm

yea I think something along the lines of

"Yes I am interested but I haven't heard back from the other applications yet and I'm waiting until I have more information available to me until I make a decision."

Is best. I guess this is an opportunity to try and squeeze more $$? My turn to turn the gears so to speak

ApplMathProfile · Post by **ApplMathProfile** » Tue Feb 26, 2013 12:23 am

Edited

Gasquet · Post by **Gasquet** » Tue Feb 26, 2013 1:10 am

1lovingsister wrote:I would make the same offer, but I'm so easy to find I'd have to make the goal to google my username WITHOUT finding out who I am. I should have been more sneaky about choosing a username on here. haha.

Yep. You were too easy to find.

Manyfolds wrote:All else equal, would you guys rather win a Fields Medal or be a billionaire?

Fields medal. And it isn't close. I am of the same opinion as 1lovingsister. If I wanted to make buckets of money, I would have gotten an IT job.

Over a 1000 posts. Wow! I can imagine some of the applicants next year reading through the whole thread!

Getting back to the sweating(I don't want Nr to think that this was a funny post just to increase the number of posts artificially), has anyone heard back from Austin for applied math? There is one wait-list on GC and nothing else. It seems odd that a place that has only one department for math sends out a huge wave for pure math and almost nothing for applied even for the next two weeks.

Another acceptance from UIC, but for pure.

I posted here twice before about this and got no reply. Am I the only one here who applied to the UCSD CSME program?