The Waiting Game

The time span between January and mid-April last year was one of the worst I've ever experienced, simply because of the uncertainty surrounding graduate school applications. Schools give rough guidelines as to when to expect admissions decisions, but each school deviates from these, and sometimes individuals are notified much earlier or later than the dates stated on schools' websites, depending on funding, waitlisting, committee meetings, and a myriad of other factors. There wasn't a day that went by last year that I didn't think to myself, "Maybe today will be the day." It's surprising how fast your confidence starts to dry up when February passes and you haven't heard anything. By the middle of February last year, I was pretty well convinced (although not entirely without hope) that I wasn't going to be accepted anywhere. And I was right.

I'm trying not to do that this year. It will be tough, and I'm already failing to some extent. I haven't yet reached the point where I'm obsessively checking my inbox, but I have been thinking about it a lot. I just hope this year that I'll get good news early and can chill out a little and let things run their course afterward. My ultimate goal is to get accepted (with funding) somewhere, but what I'd really like is to have a choice as to where I end up. Even if it's just between two schools, I think the decision-making process will go a long way in helping me transition into grad school, and in knowing I'm headed to the place that's right for me.

I applied to 8 schools:

-New England University
-Midwestern University
-Large Western University
-West Coast University
-UC Somewhere
-Eastern University
-Metropolitan University and
-Old University

As of today, I've only heard from one school, Metropolitan University, where I was invited to interview in February. There's every possibility that I'll interview and won't be accepted (I found out the department is interviewing around 50 candidates for 10-16 spots), but it's a step in the right direction nonetheless. I did receive a somewhat-promising-yet-still-circumspect email from one professor at West Coast University, but he reiterated that final admissions decisions won't be made until the beginning of February. So I suppose for now I'll be planning my trip to MetroU, waiting to hear something definitive, and trying to stay sane.