The Good, the Bad, and the Confusing

I hardly know where to begin. Just when I had resigned myself to playing the waiting game as grad schools considered my applications, everything has sped up to a frenetic pace. Suddenly so many things have changed that I hardly know whether to be ecstatic or devastated.

The first big chunk of news came last Monday. I was napping after a really, really long day at my internship when I got this phone call. Now, I usually just turn off my phone and let anyone who wants to talk to me leave a message, but I was with Super Boy at the time, and he has this weird theory about cell phones. When they ring, he answers. Or, in this case, pokes me in the ribs and makes me answer.

And then suddenly there is this graduate coordinator, a real big shot in the criminology community, asking me how I am, if I'm not too busy to talk for a bit, would I have a few minutes to spare. I think I mumbled something. He might be a criminal justice institution, but he woke me up. He'll just have to deal with me half conscious. And as I begin to full understand what is happened, I realize he is saying things like "very excited," "hugely impressed," "teaching assistantship," "Presidential Fellowship," and "full tuition." And, because I am an IDIOT, I interrupt him and say, "Wait… wait… I'm sorry. What was that? I don't… what? You mean I'm in? Seriously?"

I am such a tool.

But yes, not only was I in, I was being offered the world. Tuition, fees, a salary, a shot at a prestigious fellowship. Out of everyone who applied to the school, I was it. I was the one they wanted. I was the homegrown girl, the state born, bred and educated rising star (or so they said, I am still convinced they had the wrong number). The only downside here? There's a clock on the offer. I have until March 13^th. And it's creeping up very quickly.

Now, I applied to four schools. Two are very far away, but my mentor made me apply (they are the two best criminology programs in the nation, so I kind of had to try). The one I just heard from is my back up plan, a safety school that is still one of the top 5 (and the longest established program in the country). But my top choice… it's an Ivy. The only Ivy with a PhD program in criminology. And I want to go there so bad I could cry.

So… now the bad. And the confusing. With the clock ticking on a very attractive offer from my second choice of programs, I needed to ask my first choice what they were thinking. So (with lots of guidance from my mentor) I send an email inquiring as to my current status, if I was in, did they want to meet me, could they give me some kind of clue. Because you see, they don't tell students until March 15^th.

These deadlines are all a game. A test to see how bad you want an offer, how much you really want to go somewhere. I don't play games. Especially head games. So now I am caught in the middle of two schools and I have more questions than answers.

But I didn't get good news from the Ivy. In fact, I don't even know if I got bad news. All I got was a short, nebulous email that really said nothing at all. They said that there were "only two to three applications" they were looking at to see if they "fit available faculty mentoring." What does that even mean? There are only 3 people getting in? Am I one of them? Or are they talking about some kind of assistantship or fellowship? Are they just letting me down easy? I don't know what any of this means, and neither does anyone else I ask.

After waiting so long I suddenly have too much information. How could so much good news be so bad? And what do I do now?