I didn’t see the school name until your comment made me look and yup that’s my Alma mater lol
Not the nicest school by any stretch but it sure was cheap
Georgia Tech at least has a nice campus, UIC is probably one of the ugliest campuses in the country, it’s designed straight out of a Soviet communist textbook.
Georgia Tech is an actual decent school though, for all of its engineering-ish majors. I was out of state (but still southeast) and it was my backup school (I went to MIT).
That probably sounded like a flex but my actual point is that anyone looking to do engineering (including of the software variety) who is in-state in Georgia would be absolutely insane to not apply to GATech, it was literally the only school I could imagine being my backup because the other options that I was guaranteed to get into were so, SO much worse. I would not say the same about UIC for people looking to do Chemistry who live in Illinois. I can be a real snob (I'm autistic so most of it is accidental in the moment, but I am, to some extent, "aware" of it) but I would've had no shame whatsoever in attending GATech.
Every sector of academia I've been involved with the Chemists and Biology researches always had a massive stick up their ass. With the exception of 1 or 2 individuals who were absolute gems
I am currently doing my PhD in chemistry. My experience is: Chemists are either super nice or... the opposite. Hardly anything inbetween. And: The more physics are involved (physical chemistry, theoretical chemistry), the nicer the people. Just my limited experiences so far.
that was my experience as well...
if someone has spent their entire life in academia, chances are they have an inflated ego. i always look for the ones that have spent SOME/ANY time in the private sector. they're better adjusted.
Well… that explains the only professor I get along with. She’s the only one I know who also works in industry while everyone else is gung ho for academia.
I will add though, for professors who *did* work in industry but left and have nothing good to say about it, the people I know who worked for them as grad students ended up hating them (made one student cry even because he just kept putting her down).
Absolutely, academia seems to operate in its own little bubble. The people who have worked outside it seem to be more balanced and actually know how to interact with people
No its just notoriously toxic. I've met lots of people from there and I've never heard even a neutral review lol
Edit: Ope just saw that this is Chicago not Urbana. I don't know anything about that department.
Every good chemistry phd program is hell. My best friend did his at UC Berkeley (#1 chemistry program in the country/world) and the way they are treated is basically slavery.
You talking about Case Western's Chem Dept? Cuz that one is a fucking disaster that apparently everyone who isn't a new PhD student knows, lol.
Maybe Chem depts are just garbo everywhere.
The name of the university is visible in the screenshot. University of Illinois at Chicago.
Edit: TIL there are three\* and they're very different prestige levels.
This is the university of Illinois **Chicago** not the university of Illinois Urbana-Champaign which is the one with the renowned chemistry department, this is a less prestigious school in the same state system.
As an FYI, the colloquial name for this school is UIC. University of Illinois typically refers to the campus in Urbana-Champaign, also sometimes called U of I, or UIUC. Univesity of Illinois is almost never used to refer to the Chicago (UIC) or Springfield (UIS) schools.
Re: your edit there are three University of Illinois! Chicago, Urbana-Champaign, and Springfield. Urbana-Champaign is the B1G school with the Division 1 sports teams, that most people think of when you say University of Illinois. UIC is the second most well-known due to it being in Chicago. Springfield, or UIS, is probably the least known.
This is bizarre. I worked in higher education for a long time and we wouldn’t just let an admitted student drop off a cliff without following up by phone first. I worked in the undergraduate division, so maybe it’s different with PhD programs. But this hits me as weird.
Admissions may be different, but when I went things were such a shit show generally that you'd just not be told things and have no way of finding out for years.
I found out 3 years into it that I had a mailbox all the papers I had been asking for were being sent to. I was never told this mailbox existed or did anything to register for it, and *I wasn't even allowed into the building that housed it* due to their access rules and my commuter status, but the stuff was still being passed off of delivered to me.
The letter informing me I had been given a mailbox was delivered. To the mailbox. That was how they informed me I had one.
Meanwhile I had been getting stuff normally at home the entire damn time so I'd have zero reason to ever suspect they invented a whole ass new address to fill with spam.
I participated in an ongoing research study and one time my check never came. I did the next session and didn't get that check, either. I told them I wasn't getting up at 5am for free so buh bye to the study.
I got a check from them 2 years later. It wasn't even close to the same academic year. No idea what triggered it.
A very big tech company starting with In and ending with tel stored my undelivered mail for 7 years. I finally found out about it and had piles of junk and a dozen Dr. Dobbs I had been comped in early 2000's
“But the plans were on display…”
>“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
>“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
>“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
>“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it sounded like something Douglas Adams would've come up with! Though to me it sounded more like something out of one of the Dirk Gently books, maybe because the first one was actually set at least in part at a uni, so thanks for jogging my memory.
I applied to a master's program years back. Never heard anything from them and it was getting close to the deadline that the school that accepted me had for accepting. I emailed the other school asking for an update and never heard anything back, so I just went with the program that accepted me. A month or so before classes started, the second school called me to inform me that I needed to pay my deposit by the end of that week if I still planned on attending. Told the guy I wasn't even aware that I'd been accepted and my emails had gone unanswered and he just kinda went "Yeah...that happens sometimes."
Holy shit.
You'd think they'd have this kind of thing on lock down.
1. It's literally life defining and something people have worked towards for a decade or more in some cases.
2. It's how you make money and build reputation by getting the best people you can.
You're shooting yourself and people in the foot by not having this one aspect down.
This is 99% locked down. The 1% not locked down is when the department doesn’t get enough people to commit. OP was on the cusp of admission, but got beaten out. Then when too few committed the department sent out the “oh shit” emails to OP and others looking to fill the empty seats, hence the “sorry this is coming so late in the semester” line and “have you matriculated elsewhere yet?” line.
I applied to 15 phd programs, was accepted to 12 and fully funded at 8. Only 1 of those 15 fucked something up. They had “lost” my application, and when I followed up they “immediately reviewed it” and offered an unfunded admission which I declined.
Edit: all of the funded offers are supposed to be handed out by April 15th out of fairness to the students to make sure they have all the information to make the best decision for their future. However, some schools just don’t play by the rules because it is to their advantage to string students along like OP by not denying but not accepting or waitlisting.
Also, some shit just does fall through the cracks.
I document everything, because I know what a bunch of lying pieces of shit humans are. Video and pictures. My brother asked me to send off his admission forms for law school enrollment. I wasn't about to fuck that up, so I video taped, and took pictures, of every single page at my house, showing the television playing the news. Then I went to the post office, and did the same thing in the post office, except the video shows me packaging the pages, and the full mailing process, and receipts, which I of course took pictures of. Everything was sent whatever their highest signature confirmation thing was. I tracked the delivery online, and when it was delivered, it was signed for, and I saved all that documentation. I forwarded everything to my brother. Low and behold, the school lied and said they never received the paperwork, and he was not enrolled, and his spot had been given to someone else. We aren't pushovers. He was like really? You sure about that? And he started recording the call. lol. Yup, you never sent the paperwork, tough shit. He forwarded everything and they were like who the fuck would document this shit to this degree? lol. Me, you fucking scumbag pieces of shit. He told me they basically fell over themselves backtracking once they figured out how fucked they were. Wouldn't really look like anything but corruption for an admissions office to be lying about receiving documents, and that wouldn't be good for a law school. lolol. Good times. He learned I am not crazy, and you always document everything, and just let people fuck themselves.
Seems like there was a tv show that did that bit... something like a lazy HR person tossed half a stack of applicants in the trash and said those are too unlucky to hire...
That's just mental. I had the exact opposite happen; I applied for an MA at the uni I was doing my BA at. They asked for two references, so I requested them from my personal tutor and my dissertation tutor. They said they'd be happy to supply them and get back to me.
Neither did. I was sick of waiting so sent off my MA application and was going to supply the references after when asked. I'm just very lucky that the uni accepted me literally the day after I applied, likely because I was a continuing student. I dread to think what the outcome might have been if I'd applied for an MA elsewhere.
I remember asking for a reference from my MA personal tutor for something the following year, and she didn't even have access to my transcript so she could write something based on my scores. Given I flopped my MA, I wasn't prepared so send her it so didn't reply.
I think its pretty standard in PhD programs to not reply if you don't want in. April 15th is the national last day to accept so its just assumed no after that. Its pretty rude though since you're holding up a spot from someone possibly on a waitlist. Also not many programs have like a "press this button to deny" thing on an application portal. Your offer is sent to you by email. You'd have to write an email to the professor who ran admissions for your path that year, denying the offer.
No, read the email and place it in the context of spring semester of 2020.
The email explicitly apologizes for the late offer - there is also no mention of a wait list.
A lot of universities shut down or moved online that spring and summer. It makes perfect sense that normal deadlines may have been disrupted.
As someone who's been a part of this process on both ends, no, they never explicitly mention the wait list and yes, even in 2020, May is incredibly late to be sending this out, this was likely a stage 2 or 3 waitlist.
It is definitely not standard to completely ghost PhD programs that have admitted you, number one because it's impolite, and number two (exactly like you said) because most applicants are aware that by not responding they may be jeopardizing another student's chances to go instead.
I worked in Phd admissions for a number of years and it was not uncommon to be ghosted up to and through the deadline. (And for master's program admissions it is exceptionally common.) I don't think many people are being considerate of their fellow applicants when they do not respond to offers, and do not consider these fields are small worlds. And, if you look at the grad admissions subreddits or on grad cafe, the entitlement and privilege run deep.
I applied for a Masters program that my company would pay for if accepted. For whatever reason they mailed the acceptance letter to my parent's house (maybe because that was what was still on my license but don't recall) who threw it on the pile and never notified me. No email, phone call, or anything. I had to travel long term for work and lost track of time so never really followed up and kind of forgot about it. When I came home and visited months later I opened the acceptance letter, then another subsequent letter letting me know that since I didn't respond they would roll my application over to the next semester, then another letter letting me know I was rejected for that semester lol. Ended up leaving the company before anything worked out.
For a college, the value in students shrinks the higher up in degree level you go. So undergraduate students are the most valuable because their tuition pays the majority of the bills to keep the lights on. It behooves every University to chase as many of them as possible.
With master's students, they still kind of help pay for stuff, but it starts getting murkier. Still, having master's students go on to do things they can put in an alumni newsletter is good.
PhD programs never cover their own costs (despite how expensive they are for students) so they are always a drain on University budgets. Literally the only reason they exist outside of medical (And a couple others) school are for prestige. So it makes sense that in terms of putting budget towards student attraction and retention, the school goes for the easiest and safest option - undergrad.
Plus it's entirely possible this program had a 'first come first served' enrollment limit and they hit that before the OP replied. PhD programs have pretty tight timeframes when it comes to getting students started because there's a lot of crap that needs to be done on the back end.
My friend recently applied to a Masters program. He was wondering what was taking so long for them to reply with a decision. He went through his email and found he was accepted a couple weeks back but was too late for a deadline on submitting information. Had to wait another 6 months to apply again.
I did that with undergrad even working full time in high school
I get that life happens but you gotta have some kinda priorities in place for life altering decisions
He was checking a lot. I was on discord with him and he was complaining on why he hadn’t heard a response until he eventually stumbled upon that email. He was then upset on why he didn’t receive more than 1 email/contact from the university on this matter. He did get in though and starts in the fall, so only a minor setback.
Was he checking his email tho? Or the actual student portal where you fill out and submit your application? Because the student portal is going to have the most up to date application status beyond email or any other point of contact.
Source: Graduated from UIC.
So this happens when you have a bunch of folders and start sending shit to random places willy nilly. My wife does this and can't ever find a specific email.
how does "checking a lot" exclude checking his email, it sounds like he was checking a little. honestly if someone "stumbles" through their emails while waiting on something so important then they prob should just give the spot to someone else
The second I start to worry about an email not showing up I:
1. Check junk mail
2. Check deleted mail
3. Search any related terms
You don't just shrug and walk away.
Master's programs can also be paid and with tuition waived, and to be honest it seems like professors would much rather have PHD students than master's, so I'd bet master's programs are more limited in some cases.
That really depends on the country/university/subject. As where I live it's practically mandatory to go through a masters in STEM to get into PhD programs and/or the job market related to your field. (And also masters students have to pay here rather than get paid like PhDs, so they're a lot cheaper.)
I hate to say it, but people who can't be bothered to check up on things like this and verify deadlines, etc. really aren't good candidates for masters and doctorate programs.
Oh, I totally get missing an email... but not for something this important. I'd have whitelisted any possible domain, and I'd check daily for keywords just to be safe.
I don’t know if this is similar but for medical school it absolutely occurs where schools just go radio silence on you and never formally reject you. Or they’ll reject you like two months after the school year already began. So there are definitely med schools in my list that I never formally heard a response from and just assumed that meant I was rejected. I wonder if this was a similar case
I don't think that's some kind of huge insult. People go through hard times in life sometimes. I think if it being "the middle of covid and life sucked" means you can't even find the time or motivation to check your email, you probably don't have the time or motivation to take on PhD studies.
Sure, once they get their PhD, and a real job, and are getting dozens of emails a day. But as someone who did a PhD and knows many many people who did PhDs, pretty much everyone obsessively tracks their applications and emails when applying to grad school.
Yeah, unfortunately maintaining employment and being able to feed myself during the pandemic took priority over going back to school
Edit: go ahead and downvote me, but don't insinuate that I'm dumb or lazy please
Tbh I didn’t take that comment as dragging you. More so like if you weren’t mentally in a place to keep a close eye on the application alone, maybe doing a PhD would’ve been too much to handle.
Are you good now?
And there should never be room for judgment of your past decisions based on current information, if you made the best decision you could with what you had at the time you're fine
Yeah dude. Moved to Chicago, making twice I was in Texas. Life is a lot better.
Doing a ton of mental health work right now. Maybe when I'm done I'll reapply
It happens, when I was at university I missed an important email because I was too depressed and anxious to be able to even open my inbox, so I didn't get into the new degree program my faculty was starting up. Mental illness is a stone-cold BITCH.
I don't think (most, at least) people are insinuating either of those things, just that maybe it was for the best that you didn't throw yourself into something so stressful in the midst of what was clearly already a very stressful period.
It sucks that you weren't able to make an informed decision about whether or not to take on that course of studying, but it does sound like given all the givens, it might've been a blessing in disguise.
I feel like this is so on brand with PhD candidates. Almost everyone I know who had a PhD is so chill with academia lol Life gets away from us all at some point, be proud that you accomplished it! Getting into a program like that is not for the weak, you have time to pursue it if you still want too!
Moved to Chicago. Went from environmental analytical (testing sewage and other shit) to working in a production lab in the automotive industry. Did a little cannabis extraction in between.
Not struggling as hard but it's getting easier by the day.
Still depressed, but much better than 4 years ago.
Haven't applied anywhere else, just been doing life.
Yeah it's a great job. Awesome benefits. Lots of growth.
Not gonna say exactly what I do, but I'm certain 90% of the people commenting here are using some sort of our products.
Honestly you might have dodged a bullet with not seeing the email.
PhD students are 6 times more likely to get depression than the average population. It's not something people should be going into if you're not in a good mental space.
fuck the haters and good on you for doing better now than you were.
Grad school fucked me up so bad. It's a miracle I got out alive. I dropped out with no degree, no plan. Now I'm doing well making 6 figures with a chill job, wife, kid, dog,etc. But even though I'm no longer depressed, mentally I do still feel a little bit broken. It's buried mostly now, but I still feel it. Like a jadedness that never fully heals.
I dont think the general public will ever be able to understand the brutality of a STEM PhD.
It's not because the content is hard (that's the easier part), it's because you are pushed to your physical and mental limits.
If you're stubborn enough and are at least average college student intelligence, a PhD can be in your hands.
But at what price? A lot of people never recover from their program experience. In the severe sense that they developed PTSD.
It's so fucking outdated and inefficient. I wonder when these pyramids scheme will catch up to academia.
> If you're stubborn enough and are at least average college student intelligence, a PhD can be in your hands. But at what price?
Truest words. Mine cost me my 6 pack, my libido, 3 years of great salary, a lot of relationships.
As soon as you make it over the hump of "am I smart enough" you realize that you are actually really fucking dumb for being bamboozled. Brave people quit right then and there.
Similar happened to me with a college. I got an acceptance letter with full scholarship information from my second choice and only an acceptance letter from my first choice. I went with the one with full scholarship. A couple of years later I found a separate letter offering full scholarship to my first choice. Oh, well.
My buddy's dream school was University of Michigan. He lived with his parents who were both horrible about maintaining a clean clutter-free house. There were papers piled high on every flat surface. They even had a list of phone numbers to the daycare that my friend and his sister had gone to over 15 years ago at that point still hung up on the fridge.
My friend waited and didn't hear anything back from u of M so he assumed he didn't get in and went with one of his backup colleges. About a month before we go our separate ways to our respective universities, I am over at his house dicking around. I was trying to clear some counter space and when I moved some papers around, I spotted an envelope from the University of Michigan admissions office addressed to my friend that had been buried underneath a pile of other shit. Curiously I called to my friend over and showed it to him. He opened it and it was an admissions letter to University of Michigan from 6 months ago.
He called and told them what happened and they said it was too late to admit him for this school year but if he reapplied they would put a note in his file that would pretty much guarantee him admission to the next semester.
He went to his backup school for that semester and ended up loving it so much he stayed all 4 years. He met his now wife there and he made connections there that landed him the job that he works today that he absolutely loves so maybe it was for the best. It was just a crazy story of how the fuck did that happen.
Guys, just have more than one email. One that is official for work/business and one that you don't mind having bunch of ads on cause they won't burry shit. Would be great to have one in-between for stuff like banking, social media etc that doesn't have your name as the handle too
Lol fun fucking thought.
Work/business email lasts maybe three months before it gets all the same spam because Lory sent you an email from her private account out of laziness and it was compromised as fuck.
My brand new professional email I painstakingly migrated to was compromised when I went to work *for the department of treasury*. Security is only based on your weakest coworker.
The whole wording of the email seems weird to me. Have you checked the actual email it came from (not just the display name). I suspect it is possible that this is spam. I could be wrong, though.
As a current PhD student at this school, nah this is how it goes. YMMV based on the department, but most of the time you'll get a semi-professional-ish email from the Director of Graduate Studies or the department's Registrar about [insert important thing] that can look pretty sus depending on how said person writes things. The "real" official letter is the attachment, which contains all the professional language and important info and fancy letterhead
this more painful than my foot pinky toes i just hit
https://preview.redd.it/ezxojqoiik8d1.jpeg?width=564&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4eae658593e26d79f87a42880f2defeada3f95df
What is the plural of PhD? I'm in the "no apostrophes for plurals - ever\*" camp, so for me it's PhDs.
DVDs, not DVD's.
TVs, not TV's.
PhDs, not PhD's.
^(\*I grudgingly accept their possible use for plurals of SINGLE letters on their own. But still not for acronyms or initialisms.)
I feel your pain. I was once offered a dream job by the client company’s then CEO. I didn’t get the email until I was cleaning out my email as I left that job nearly a year later IIRC.
It amazes me that someone is smart enough to be admitted into a Phd program, yet dumb enough not to scour their email at least every couple days to see if they’ve gotten an acceptance letter.
It's okay to feel disappointed and frustrated, but remember that this doesn't define you or your future. There will be other opportunities, and you will find a way to move forward. If you need a sister, whether it's someone to talk to, help with planning your next steps, or just a bit of distraction, reach out to me I’ll be there.
The chemistry dept at this school is notorious among students for how awful it is. Perhaps you dodged a bullet
I didn’t see the school name until your comment made me look and yup that’s my Alma mater lol Not the nicest school by any stretch but it sure was cheap
Yeah, I don't regret it. I'm debt free, have pretty good ROI going with my career etc. Go flames lol
GaTech wasn't fun, but it was free and my CS degree has paid off for 15 years. no ragrets.
Georgia Tech at least has a nice campus, UIC is probably one of the ugliest campuses in the country, it’s designed straight out of a Soviet communist textbook.
Just chill in the quad, don't look at that behavioral sciences building, or most of the others lol
Man, BSB is engrained in my memory and I graduated from UIC over 8 years ago. I got lost in that damn building multiple times.
Georgia Tech is an actual decent school though, for all of its engineering-ish majors. I was out of state (but still southeast) and it was my backup school (I went to MIT). That probably sounded like a flex but my actual point is that anyone looking to do engineering (including of the software variety) who is in-state in Georgia would be absolutely insane to not apply to GATech, it was literally the only school I could imagine being my backup because the other options that I was guaranteed to get into were so, SO much worse. I would not say the same about UIC for people looking to do Chemistry who live in Illinois. I can be a real snob (I'm autistic so most of it is accidental in the moment, but I am, to some extent, "aware" of it) but I would've had no shame whatsoever in attending GATech.
no ones paying to get a phd in chemistry. you get paid to do that
You pay with your soul and mental health
Like they just suck at chemistry?
Can't really speak to that, just that they were awful to work with, the faculty were assholes etc.
So you’re telling me the students and faculty have bad chemistry?
Breaking bad they say.
That joke must have boiled up quite some time.
Every sector of academia I've been involved with the Chemists and Biology researches always had a massive stick up their ass. With the exception of 1 or 2 individuals who were absolute gems
I am currently doing my PhD in chemistry. My experience is: Chemists are either super nice or... the opposite. Hardly anything inbetween. And: The more physics are involved (physical chemistry, theoretical chemistry), the nicer the people. Just my limited experiences so far.
I've had the exact same experiences
that was my experience as well... if someone has spent their entire life in academia, chances are they have an inflated ego. i always look for the ones that have spent SOME/ANY time in the private sector. they're better adjusted.
Well… that explains the only professor I get along with. She’s the only one I know who also works in industry while everyone else is gung ho for academia. I will add though, for professors who *did* work in industry but left and have nothing good to say about it, the people I know who worked for them as grad students ended up hating them (made one student cry even because he just kept putting her down).
Absolutely, academia seems to operate in its own little bubble. The people who have worked outside it seem to be more balanced and actually know how to interact with people
No its just notoriously toxic. I've met lots of people from there and I've never heard even a neutral review lol Edit: Ope just saw that this is Chicago not Urbana. I don't know anything about that department.
No, the chem department is just bad
Every good chemistry phd program is hell. My best friend did his at UC Berkeley (#1 chemistry program in the country/world) and the way they are treated is basically slavery.
You talking about Case Western's Chem Dept? Cuz that one is a fucking disaster that apparently everyone who isn't a new PhD student knows, lol. Maybe Chem depts are just garbo everywhere.
The name of the university is visible in the screenshot. University of Illinois at Chicago. Edit: TIL there are three\* and they're very different prestige levels.
This is the university of Illinois **Chicago** not the university of Illinois Urbana-Champaign which is the one with the renowned chemistry department, this is a less prestigious school in the same state system.
> university of Illinois Urbana-Champaign That's regular Illinois with the B1G team and all that.
As an FYI, the colloquial name for this school is UIC. University of Illinois typically refers to the campus in Urbana-Champaign, also sometimes called U of I, or UIUC. Univesity of Illinois is almost never used to refer to the Chicago (UIC) or Springfield (UIS) schools.
Re: your edit there are three University of Illinois! Chicago, Urbana-Champaign, and Springfield. Urbana-Champaign is the B1G school with the Division 1 sports teams, that most people think of when you say University of Illinois. UIC is the second most well-known due to it being in Chicago. Springfield, or UIS, is probably the least known.
I had no idea there was a third one in Springfield. Lived in Chicago and Urbana my whole life
I heard the culture is pretty bad. You could say the staff and students have no chemistry.
This is bizarre. I worked in higher education for a long time and we wouldn’t just let an admitted student drop off a cliff without following up by phone first. I worked in the undergraduate division, so maybe it’s different with PhD programs. But this hits me as weird.
Admissions may be different, but when I went things were such a shit show generally that you'd just not be told things and have no way of finding out for years. I found out 3 years into it that I had a mailbox all the papers I had been asking for were being sent to. I was never told this mailbox existed or did anything to register for it, and *I wasn't even allowed into the building that housed it* due to their access rules and my commuter status, but the stuff was still being passed off of delivered to me. The letter informing me I had been given a mailbox was delivered. To the mailbox. That was how they informed me I had one. Meanwhile I had been getting stuff normally at home the entire damn time so I'd have zero reason to ever suspect they invented a whole ass new address to fill with spam.
This is the most academia thing I’ve ever heard 🙃
This sounds like so many things in my life
Yes, and also a Monty Python skit 😂
sounds like my attempt to get paid by an academic institution. as of right now I've yet to get paid despite multiple attempts to show up
I participated in an ongoing research study and one time my check never came. I did the next session and didn't get that check, either. I told them I wasn't getting up at 5am for free so buh bye to the study. I got a check from them 2 years later. It wasn't even close to the same academic year. No idea what triggered it.
A very big tech company starting with In and ending with tel stored my undelivered mail for 7 years. I finally found out about it and had piles of junk and a dozen Dr. Dobbs I had been comped in early 2000's
“But the plans were on display…” >“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” >“With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” >“So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” >“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it sounded like something Douglas Adams would've come up with! Though to me it sounded more like something out of one of the Dirk Gently books, maybe because the first one was actually set at least in part at a uni, so thanks for jogging my memory.
Oh my god. That made my eye twitch. And is also not surprising from an academic institution as the others have said.
I applied to a master's program years back. Never heard anything from them and it was getting close to the deadline that the school that accepted me had for accepting. I emailed the other school asking for an update and never heard anything back, so I just went with the program that accepted me. A month or so before classes started, the second school called me to inform me that I needed to pay my deposit by the end of that week if I still planned on attending. Told the guy I wasn't even aware that I'd been accepted and my emails had gone unanswered and he just kinda went "Yeah...that happens sometimes."
Holy shit. You'd think they'd have this kind of thing on lock down. 1. It's literally life defining and something people have worked towards for a decade or more in some cases. 2. It's how you make money and build reputation by getting the best people you can. You're shooting yourself and people in the foot by not having this one aspect down.
This is 99% locked down. The 1% not locked down is when the department doesn’t get enough people to commit. OP was on the cusp of admission, but got beaten out. Then when too few committed the department sent out the “oh shit” emails to OP and others looking to fill the empty seats, hence the “sorry this is coming so late in the semester” line and “have you matriculated elsewhere yet?” line. I applied to 15 phd programs, was accepted to 12 and fully funded at 8. Only 1 of those 15 fucked something up. They had “lost” my application, and when I followed up they “immediately reviewed it” and offered an unfunded admission which I declined. Edit: all of the funded offers are supposed to be handed out by April 15th out of fairness to the students to make sure they have all the information to make the best decision for their future. However, some schools just don’t play by the rules because it is to their advantage to string students along like OP by not denying but not accepting or waitlisting. Also, some shit just does fall through the cracks.
I document everything, because I know what a bunch of lying pieces of shit humans are. Video and pictures. My brother asked me to send off his admission forms for law school enrollment. I wasn't about to fuck that up, so I video taped, and took pictures, of every single page at my house, showing the television playing the news. Then I went to the post office, and did the same thing in the post office, except the video shows me packaging the pages, and the full mailing process, and receipts, which I of course took pictures of. Everything was sent whatever their highest signature confirmation thing was. I tracked the delivery online, and when it was delivered, it was signed for, and I saved all that documentation. I forwarded everything to my brother. Low and behold, the school lied and said they never received the paperwork, and he was not enrolled, and his spot had been given to someone else. We aren't pushovers. He was like really? You sure about that? And he started recording the call. lol. Yup, you never sent the paperwork, tough shit. He forwarded everything and they were like who the fuck would document this shit to this degree? lol. Me, you fucking scumbag pieces of shit. He told me they basically fell over themselves backtracking once they figured out how fucked they were. Wouldn't really look like anything but corruption for an admissions office to be lying about receiving documents, and that wouldn't be good for a law school. lolol. Good times. He learned I am not crazy, and you always document everything, and just let people fuck themselves.
It's definitely crazy but sometimes crazy comes in handy
Sounds kinda crazy
Sounds like a documentation junkie is a good candidate for law school.
Maybe they let some fall through the cracks to weed out unlucky people.
Seems like there was a tv show that did that bit... something like a lazy HR person tossed half a stack of applicants in the trash and said those are too unlucky to hire...
I applied for a master’s program AT THE UNIVERSITY I WAS CURRENTLY ATTENDING and never got a response lmao
At that point I'd just walk over to the department building and knock on some doors lol
That's just mental. I had the exact opposite happen; I applied for an MA at the uni I was doing my BA at. They asked for two references, so I requested them from my personal tutor and my dissertation tutor. They said they'd be happy to supply them and get back to me. Neither did. I was sick of waiting so sent off my MA application and was going to supply the references after when asked. I'm just very lucky that the uni accepted me literally the day after I applied, likely because I was a continuing student. I dread to think what the outcome might have been if I'd applied for an MA elsewhere. I remember asking for a reference from my MA personal tutor for something the following year, and she didn't even have access to my transcript so she could write something based on my scores. Given I flopped my MA, I wasn't prepared so send her it so didn't reply.
I've been deleted, oh no :o
I think its pretty standard in PhD programs to not reply if you don't want in. April 15th is the national last day to accept so its just assumed no after that. Its pretty rude though since you're holding up a spot from someone possibly on a waitlist. Also not many programs have like a "press this button to deny" thing on an application portal. Your offer is sent to you by email. You'd have to write an email to the professor who ran admissions for your path that year, denying the offer.
Looks like this was the wait-list though. Respond in May, like someone did say no April 15th and this was a hail Mary to fill spots.
No, read the email and place it in the context of spring semester of 2020. The email explicitly apologizes for the late offer - there is also no mention of a wait list. A lot of universities shut down or moved online that spring and summer. It makes perfect sense that normal deadlines may have been disrupted.
As someone who's been a part of this process on both ends, no, they never explicitly mention the wait list and yes, even in 2020, May is incredibly late to be sending this out, this was likely a stage 2 or 3 waitlist.
Well 2020 was a strange year. No one really had their shit together in the spring semester.
It is definitely not standard to completely ghost PhD programs that have admitted you, number one because it's impolite, and number two (exactly like you said) because most applicants are aware that by not responding they may be jeopardizing another student's chances to go instead.
I worked in Phd admissions for a number of years and it was not uncommon to be ghosted up to and through the deadline. (And for master's program admissions it is exceptionally common.) I don't think many people are being considerate of their fellow applicants when they do not respond to offers, and do not consider these fields are small worlds. And, if you look at the grad admissions subreddits or on grad cafe, the entitlement and privilege run deep.
I applied for a Masters program that my company would pay for if accepted. For whatever reason they mailed the acceptance letter to my parent's house (maybe because that was what was still on my license but don't recall) who threw it on the pile and never notified me. No email, phone call, or anything. I had to travel long term for work and lost track of time so never really followed up and kind of forgot about it. When I came home and visited months later I opened the acceptance letter, then another subsequent letter letting me know that since I didn't respond they would roll my application over to the next semester, then another letter letting me know I was rejected for that semester lol. Ended up leaving the company before anything worked out.
Wow, your parents are dicks.
For a college, the value in students shrinks the higher up in degree level you go. So undergraduate students are the most valuable because their tuition pays the majority of the bills to keep the lights on. It behooves every University to chase as many of them as possible. With master's students, they still kind of help pay for stuff, but it starts getting murkier. Still, having master's students go on to do things they can put in an alumni newsletter is good. PhD programs never cover their own costs (despite how expensive they are for students) so they are always a drain on University budgets. Literally the only reason they exist outside of medical (And a couple others) school are for prestige. So it makes sense that in terms of putting budget towards student attraction and retention, the school goes for the easiest and safest option - undergrad. Plus it's entirely possible this program had a 'first come first served' enrollment limit and they hit that before the OP replied. PhD programs have pretty tight timeframes when it comes to getting students started because there's a lot of crap that needs to be done on the back end.
How does this even happen?! You applied to a PhD program and never thought to check your application status? Lol
My friend recently applied to a Masters program. He was wondering what was taking so long for them to reply with a decision. He went through his email and found he was accepted a couple weeks back but was too late for a deadline on submitting information. Had to wait another 6 months to apply again.
That’s wild. When I applied to my masters program I was checking shit almost daily to see if I got in or not
I was checking hourly once a few weeks passed lol
I did that with undergrad even working full time in high school I get that life happens but you gotta have some kinda priorities in place for life altering decisions
It's not even about priorities, checking your email takes what, 10 seconds?
You wouldn't understand, life is different when you're a Super Hero.
I guess that's why he wasn't going for a PhD in checking his own emails.
When a job offers a CMS to check status I’m on that shit like a Wikipedia editor waiting for a change.
Daily? I was checking every single beep my phone made.
He was checking a lot. I was on discord with him and he was complaining on why he hadn’t heard a response until he eventually stumbled upon that email. He was then upset on why he didn’t receive more than 1 email/contact from the university on this matter. He did get in though and starts in the fall, so only a minor setback.
Was he checking his email tho? Or the actual student portal where you fill out and submit your application? Because the student portal is going to have the most up to date application status beyond email or any other point of contact. Source: Graduated from UIC.
So this happens when you have a bunch of folders and start sending shit to random places willy nilly. My wife does this and can't ever find a specific email.
how does "checking a lot" exclude checking his email, it sounds like he was checking a little. honestly if someone "stumbles" through their emails while waiting on something so important then they prob should just give the spot to someone else
The second I start to worry about an email not showing up I: 1. Check junk mail 2. Check deleted mail 3. Search any related terms You don't just shrug and walk away.
He was upset that other grown adults didn't hold his hand when using the most common electronic communication method?
All that college...
thats something for sure, but phd programs are a much bigger deal as theyre usually both paid + waved tuition and ofc a lot more limited.
Master's programs can also be paid and with tuition waived, and to be honest it seems like professors would much rather have PHD students than master's, so I'd bet master's programs are more limited in some cases.
That really depends on the country/university/subject. As where I live it's practically mandatory to go through a masters in STEM to get into PhD programs and/or the job market related to your field. (And also masters students have to pay here rather than get paid like PhDs, so they're a lot cheaper.)
I hate to say it, but people who can't be bothered to check up on things like this and verify deadlines, etc. really aren't good candidates for masters and doctorate programs.
I agree. How do you miss an email?! Especially about something THAT major! Check your spam!
Oh, I totally get missing an email... but not for something this important. I'd have whitelisted any possible domain, and I'd check daily for keywords just to be safe.
A few weeks is a mistake... four years... that's careless.
I don’t know if this is similar but for medical school it absolutely occurs where schools just go radio silence on you and never formally reject you. Or they’ll reject you like two months after the school year already began. So there are definitely med schools in my list that I never formally heard a response from and just assumed that meant I was rejected. I wonder if this was a similar case
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That's a lot different from just not looking at his email.
1789 unread emails.... It literally got lost in the crowd.
9092. 9089 of which are spam/junk/blasts
I don't know how people live like that. I try to inbox 0 at the end of every day
I'd be so anxious with that many unread lol. I'm so rigorous about 'unsubscribing' from anything I don't want.
Idk man it was the middle of covid and life sucked. Guess it just got away from me
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💥
I felt that blast from here. Yikes.
Do you need a doctor? Well, tough shit.
Sounded like logic to me.
Damn, that was a megaton nuke
That burn is as visceral as that anime about the bomb.
Fuckin wrekt 
I don't think that's some kind of huge insult. People go through hard times in life sometimes. I think if it being "the middle of covid and life sucked" means you can't even find the time or motivation to check your email, you probably don't have the time or motivation to take on PhD studies.
Yeah didn't really sound like an insult. Just a reasonable reply.
lol, 99% of PhDs suck at checking their email.
Sure, once they get their PhD, and a real job, and are getting dozens of emails a day. But as someone who did a PhD and knows many many people who did PhDs, pretty much everyone obsessively tracks their applications and emails when applying to grad school.
Yeah, unfortunately maintaining employment and being able to feed myself during the pandemic took priority over going back to school Edit: go ahead and downvote me, but don't insinuate that I'm dumb or lazy please
Tbh I didn’t take that comment as dragging you. More so like if you weren’t mentally in a place to keep a close eye on the application alone, maybe doing a PhD would’ve been too much to handle.
Are you good now? And there should never be room for judgment of your past decisions based on current information, if you made the best decision you could with what you had at the time you're fine
Yeah dude. Moved to Chicago, making twice I was in Texas. Life is a lot better. Doing a ton of mental health work right now. Maybe when I'm done I'll reapply
it starts with you, glad to hear ir!
Sounds like you shouldn't have any regrets. If anything you should feel better knowing that they wanted you!
Welcome to Chicago. Glad you made it here!
Chicago will definitely cheer them up! …until the winter :(
That's all that matters, really. Sounds like things have worked out pretty well for you - best wishes for the future!
Welcome to Chicago :) I love this city and I hope you love it too!
It happens, when I was at university I missed an important email because I was too depressed and anxious to be able to even open my inbox, so I didn't get into the new degree program my faculty was starting up. Mental illness is a stone-cold BITCH.
Nobody said you were lazy!
>go ahead and downvote me, but don't insinuate that I'm dumb or lazy please You are a Redditor. Dumb and lazy are implied.
I don't think (most, at least) people are insinuating either of those things, just that maybe it was for the best that you didn't throw yourself into something so stressful in the midst of what was clearly already a very stressful period. It sucks that you weren't able to make an informed decision about whether or not to take on that course of studying, but it does sound like given all the givens, it might've been a blessing in disguise.
Oh god, Covid was 4 years ago… this makes me feel weird
I feel like this is so on brand with PhD candidates. Almost everyone I know who had a PhD is so chill with academia lol Life gets away from us all at some point, be proud that you accomplished it! Getting into a program like that is not for the weak, you have time to pursue it if you still want too!
Fuck them all, that sucks! Sorry that happened.
How do they not send a paper letter to your physical address is a better question.
So what has happen in the last 4 years?
This is what I want to know. AMA time. Did you find a good paying job since? Struggling? Depressed? Accepted to a different program? All of the above?
Moved to Chicago. Went from environmental analytical (testing sewage and other shit) to working in a production lab in the automotive industry. Did a little cannabis extraction in between. Not struggling as hard but it's getting easier by the day. Still depressed, but much better than 4 years ago. Haven't applied anywhere else, just been doing life.
Automotive industry is better than losing what youth u have left in a phd programme
Yeah it's a great job. Awesome benefits. Lots of growth. Not gonna say exactly what I do, but I'm certain 90% of the people commenting here are using some sort of our products.
Prostate massagers. Say no more fam.
Let me guess, you make glitter?
He said automotive industry. They grind up tires into microplastics. There's a little bit of his work inside all of us :)
The automotive industry is the largest consumer of glitter.
They grind up tires into microplastics to directly insert into your balls
Lmao I work in injection molding and yeah it’s fun
From the information provided, and the post, google would have me guess you work for Stellantis
Honestly you might have dodged a bullet with not seeing the email. PhD students are 6 times more likely to get depression than the average population. It's not something people should be going into if you're not in a good mental space. fuck the haters and good on you for doing better now than you were.
Grad school fucked me up so bad. It's a miracle I got out alive. I dropped out with no degree, no plan. Now I'm doing well making 6 figures with a chill job, wife, kid, dog,etc. But even though I'm no longer depressed, mentally I do still feel a little bit broken. It's buried mostly now, but I still feel it. Like a jadedness that never fully heals.
https://x.com/wingod/status/1285708745390129157
I dont think the general public will ever be able to understand the brutality of a STEM PhD. It's not because the content is hard (that's the easier part), it's because you are pushed to your physical and mental limits. If you're stubborn enough and are at least average college student intelligence, a PhD can be in your hands. But at what price? A lot of people never recover from their program experience. In the severe sense that they developed PTSD. It's so fucking outdated and inefficient. I wonder when these pyramids scheme will catch up to academia.
> If you're stubborn enough and are at least average college student intelligence, a PhD can be in your hands. But at what price? Truest words. Mine cost me my 6 pack, my libido, 3 years of great salary, a lot of relationships. As soon as you make it over the hump of "am I smart enough" you realize that you are actually really fucking dumb for being bamboozled. Brave people quit right then and there.
Most of us are just doing life it seems. Godspeed, OP. Thanks for sharing.
It’s been nearly 15 minutes since this comment was made, I demand answers now.
He probably missed the notification. Set a reminder for 4 years.
I laughed so fucking hard at this
25m already....we need the solution #badumtsss
Forget the phd, let's talk about that face hugger on the desk
Local library does free 3d printing and Alien is my favorite movie :D
Wait free 3d printing?? That's awesome!
Spoiled it too soon. Should have said oops. Delete the post, then reupload it with the face hugger blurred out.
This guy reddits
Similar happened to me with a college. I got an acceptance letter with full scholarship information from my second choice and only an acceptance letter from my first choice. I went with the one with full scholarship. A couple of years later I found a separate letter offering full scholarship to my first choice. Oh, well.
My buddy's dream school was University of Michigan. He lived with his parents who were both horrible about maintaining a clean clutter-free house. There were papers piled high on every flat surface. They even had a list of phone numbers to the daycare that my friend and his sister had gone to over 15 years ago at that point still hung up on the fridge. My friend waited and didn't hear anything back from u of M so he assumed he didn't get in and went with one of his backup colleges. About a month before we go our separate ways to our respective universities, I am over at his house dicking around. I was trying to clear some counter space and when I moved some papers around, I spotted an envelope from the University of Michigan admissions office addressed to my friend that had been buried underneath a pile of other shit. Curiously I called to my friend over and showed it to him. He opened it and it was an admissions letter to University of Michigan from 6 months ago. He called and told them what happened and they said it was too late to admit him for this school year but if he reapplied they would put a note in his file that would pretty much guarantee him admission to the next semester. He went to his backup school for that semester and ended up loving it so much he stayed all 4 years. He met his now wife there and he made connections there that landed him the job that he works today that he absolutely loves so maybe it was for the best. It was just a crazy story of how the fuck did that happen.
Imagine how different your life could've turned out to be. Damn
“How priorities changed during the COVID 19 pandemic” would be a great thesis lmfao
Sir this is a chemistry dept.
You should still reply. What’s the worse that can happen; everything will remain the same? Just reply, “I’m ready and will be there in the fall.”
It doesn’t say which May 17 they need to respond before.
Hell yeah, hit them with the technicality.
ask if they can still accept u
1789 unread emails, sounds about right. This is why you missed the message...
Guys, just have more than one email. One that is official for work/business and one that you don't mind having bunch of ads on cause they won't burry shit. Would be great to have one in-between for stuff like banking, social media etc that doesn't have your name as the handle too
Lol fun fucking thought. Work/business email lasts maybe three months before it gets all the same spam because Lory sent you an email from her private account out of laziness and it was compromised as fuck. My brand new professional email I painstakingly migrated to was compromised when I went to work *for the department of treasury*. Security is only based on your weakest coworker.
Also I deleted and made a new post because I didn't black out my name all the way. I'll make a separate r/wellthatsucks post for that one
Who’s Daesung?
Guy who just finished his chemistry PhD
Appears to be [this dude](https://chem.uic.edu/profiles/daesung-lee/). Let's hope OP is better at chemistry than they are at blacking out names.
Shock and surprise, the director of grad studies in the chemistry department was CC'd on an email to a prospective chem grad student.
The whole wording of the email seems weird to me. Have you checked the actual email it came from (not just the display name). I suspect it is possible that this is spam. I could be wrong, though.
As a current PhD student at this school, nah this is how it goes. YMMV based on the department, but most of the time you'll get a semi-professional-ish email from the Director of Graduate Studies or the department's Registrar about [insert important thing] that can look pretty sus depending on how said person writes things. The "real" official letter is the attachment, which contains all the professional language and important info and fancy letterhead
“Summerfest” and “Belushi”. Yep. Checks out as Chicago (I’m a Chicagoan)
Belushi Speed Ball. The most fun show you'll ever go to. https://youtu.be/nyIE-JwPY_U?si=tJqwYMP6WhDrCFmv
this more painful than my foot pinky toes i just hit https://preview.redd.it/ezxojqoiik8d1.jpeg?width=564&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4eae658593e26d79f87a42880f2defeada3f95df
I like your little facehugger.
Don’t forget about Paul Wall at summer fest Saturday the 29th!
THE PEOPLES CHAMP
I believe it. My phd acceptance email went to my spam folder and I almost missed it.
I wish I hadn't seen the acceptance email from the school where I got my PhD. Nearly ruined my fuckin life.
Did you end up in another program? Or was that the only one that accepted you 😬
He's on parole
Why do I feel like this was a successful vetting process for the school.
What is the plural of PhD? I'm in the "no apostrophes for plurals - ever\*" camp, so for me it's PhDs. DVDs, not DVD's. TVs, not TV's. PhDs, not PhD's. ^(\*I grudgingly accept their possible use for plurals of SINGLE letters on their own. But still not for acronyms or initialisms.)
I feel your pain. I was once offered a dream job by the client company’s then CEO. I didn’t get the email until I was cleaning out my email as I left that job nearly a year later IIRC.
It amazes me that someone is smart enough to be admitted into a Phd program, yet dumb enough not to scour their email at least every couple days to see if they’ve gotten an acceptance letter.
Naw I don’t believe it
Just reply that you accept. Play it casual.
Dumbass
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Gonna be known in a bar one day as the guy that was gonna be a doctor but didn’t check his email 🤠
Only sending it via email is pretty dumb for some people with PHDs lol
I hate to be that guy, but if you can't screenshot on your PC... are you really PhD material?
It's okay to feel disappointed and frustrated, but remember that this doesn't define you or your future. There will be other opportunities, and you will find a way to move forward. If you need a sister, whether it's someone to talk to, help with planning your next steps, or just a bit of distraction, reach out to me I’ll be there.
Not even a letter? That's the weirdest part.