There’s a lot of stress and anxiety in the grad school application process. From doing research on schools, programs and PIs to writing your essays and sending in your app. But one anxious aspect of the process where I feel like people don’t really talk about is the waiting in radio silence for decisions.
It’s actually ironic that we stress over this bit, cos once you send in your application, your part is done and there’s nothing you can do about anything anymore. What is left after that is to get busy with your life and patiently wait for review and decisions from the adcom.
I think what makes many people especially anxious is the radio silence treatment they’re receiving from schools they applied to,even though they’re reading Reddit and GradCafe posts of other applicants getting offers and interviews from those same universities.
Succumbing to the anxiety, most people start contemplating the option of emailing graduate program coordinators to ask about the fate of their applications.
I’ve come to learn that even though this (mailing graduate program coordinators) is not a terrible thing to do, it doesn’t speak well of applicants. Which actually baffles me, cos in emails following the submission of your application, they (graduate programs) advise that after X time, you could email the graduate program coordinators to inquire about the status of your application if you still haven’t heard back yet.
The reason this is considered a bad look (according to my findings, lol) is that the programs expect that graduate students should be confident and patient enough in their applications to wait for decisions. In a twisted way, this made sense. It sounds much similar to how programs expect you to waive your right to see your letters of recommendation because that adds credibility to the authenticity of the letter. Even though graduate programs leave it at your discretion to decide whether you can see your letters after or not, they just expect that you’d choose not to.
As bad as mailing grad coordinators go, some people step it up a notch by mailing them on holidays like Christmas when everyone just wants to spend some time away from work with their families. As I’ve come to understand reading from the perspectives of adcom and faculty, this doesn’t speak well of you or your application if you can’t understand that to wait a little until after Christmas to do your follow ups, because in the end, they’re human too and deserve some time off.
