Thirty Days

There are exactly thirty days remaining until I must make my final decision about graduate school and submit a binding contract to guarantee a funded spot for the fall. In some ways, the idea of making a decision is quite formidable. But at this point it looks as if there will be no decision to make-- I only have one acceptance.

I still have five schools from which I have not heard, but I found out pretty early on last year that in biological sciences acceptances are made long before rejections. I plan on being more persistent this year, though. If I still haven't received notifications (one way or another) from the remaining five schools by the end of this week, I plan on contacting them all for an update. I simply can't afford to wait around anymore. If I receive a funded acceptance it's going to be pretty important for me to make a visit to the program before I make my decision, and with the Council of Graduate Schools' April 15th deadline looming on the horizon, the time left in play for such visits is becoming shorter by the day.

For some reason, I've found it hard to be excited about my acceptance to West Coast University. It makes little sense-- I've spent the past two years trying to get into grad school and I finally received a funded offer from a decent school. It was an early acceptance, too. I wasn't just a third- or fourth-go candidate. I was a top pick. I like the current grad students in the lab, I like the city. Hell, I even have friends in the area. I think the professor and I would get along, and I'd be given plenty of flexibility in choosing exactly what I want to research.

So why is it that I'm not happy about it?

I have no idea. Really. Early onset impostor syndrome? No-acceptances-last-year-and-only-one-this-year feelings of psychological inadequacy? Not-the-perfect-fit disease? Or perhaps it's the fact that during this whole process, when I was accepted to West Coast U, the interview at my top-choice program, Metro U, was still ahead. I became so emotionally invested in the idea of attending Metro U that everything palled in comparison, and nothing was as good as, or could be as good as, an acceptance there.

Then, of course, I received my rejection from Metro U. After a few days of deep-seated unhappiness, I started trying to reevaluate and come to better terms with West Coast U. And slowly, very slowly, I've begun to feel inklings of something like happiness about the acceptance, and I have every hope that eventually I'll be just as excited about West Coast U as I did about Metro U.

I still haven't heard from my second- or third-choice schools. So perhaps there is still a chance that I'll get to make a decision, after all. I'm counting down to April 15th. A whole host of new challenges and difficulties will await me after I've signed the contract off. But at least I won't be waiting on damned admissions notifications anymore.