Note to 2012 graduate program applicants:

I receive too many queries about the status of graduate applications to respond to them individually. So here is some information for applicants for Fall 2012:

If you have not yet received notice of your status, please be patient - the department will notify you when a decision is made. Not all decisions and notifications happen at the same time, so just because your friend or colleague has heard does not mean a decision has been made yet on your application.

Once you have received notification, if you were not offered admission: please understand that I am not able to communicate to applicants the reasons why your application was not accepted. Here are the main things to keep in mind:

• Admission in our department is very competitive, moreso each year. There are many exceptional applicants who do not get accepted.
• Graduate (especially PhD) admissions is often more about the right fit than it is about the overall strength of an applicant. Faculty may be looking for some specific interest, expertise, or experience that an applicant has - and this may change from year to year.
• The number of PhD students a professor wants to admit may change at any time, even up to the day the final decisions are made.
• In general, an application has to first be rated highly by the admissions committee before a faculty member will seriously consider it. There are exceptions to this, but we're most interested in students who look exceptional to the committee and are of special interest to a faculty member.
• There is usually not an easy answer to the question "Why was I not admitted?" or "What can I do to improve my chances next time?" Every situation is unique, and the right fit may be different next year.

Finally, we were looking for very few new students for the Four Eyes Lab this year, so competition in this area was especially competitive.

Best wishes in your academic pursuits, and keep working hard toward your goals!

Matthew Turk