Have you met any admissions deans? They do appear to come from a distant planet!
12 attended interviews...12+ deans.....They couldn't be more different, at least the side that were chosen to shown to the applicants. Some are very business and officious. Some kind and benevolent. Some were humorous and self-deprecating. One dean was very sentimental: rumor has it that once someone on the waitlist of his school wrote a sonnet every week to this dean to ask for admission. In the end the dean wrote a sonnet to the adcoms and got the guy off the waitlist.
My n is larger than your n!
Have you ever gotten a new job? Did you use a resume with a bunch of sweet positions at companies you've held to give yourself worth and leverage to deserve the new job? Do you think if all you had was mowing lawns you would get the job at Google? Or if you said you are currently working at NASA? Which gives you more leverage? "Hey I'm currently mowing lawns in Virginia, but I would love to come work at Google! I loved 'The Internship' movie and it looks like a great place to work!". Or how about, "Hey, I build spaceships at NASA but would love to come to Google because my family lives in Mountain View and I've always wanted to work with you for xyz reasons."
Did you negotiate salary at your new job based on prior or current salaries that you held or hold? If starting pay was 17/hr, do you think they would give you a raise if you said, "My current job I make 10/hr but I really want to make 20/hr with you guys?" Or, "My current job I make 22/hr, but I would be willing to work for 20/hr with you guys because I love Google?"
It sounds all good and dandy to "get your name seen again" or "tell them how much you love them" but in the real world it is a two way road and you need to have something to offer in return in order to bargain your way to an acceptance with a LOI.
The laughable part is that any comparison is necessary at all, but for some reason so many still don't understand... people will continue begging schools to accept them or promising 8 schools that they will come if accepted. What it does is ruin the entire purpose of the letter of intent to the point that they start losing their value for all applicants all together.
I don't intent to speak of my experience or my guessing as truth. And when N1>>>>>>>>>N2, I say
What's the difference except the fact it's used in different stages? They all say, "I love you and here is why you should please love me back!"
Letter of intent is saying: If you accept me, I will come to your school. It should be 100% binding no questions asked no exceptions. Therefore, it is silly to send such a statement to schools that already know you will come if accepted. Ex: it would be stupid for me to write Harvard a letter of intent... they already know I would come, duh!
It's not binding. A reason, as @gyngyn commented numerous times, makes Letter of intents to be treated not very seriously.
They will see where you are accepted in two weeks.
Letter of intent is not a promise, it's an intent as the name suggest.
Your second paragraph defends the submission of letters of intent no matter what relative rank the school is, but everything else you said contradicts that. So which one is it? Schools know exactly that people will come to their school or not? What about people who want to go to a "lower ranked" school more than one they are waitlisted at, but they are waiting on financial aid or something like that? Are schools supposed to assume these people still want to go to their school over the lesser ranked one?
I was being genuine when I sent mine. And I am a man of my word, so I do consider it binding personally. It's a shame that too many applicants have abused sending LOI's such that mine might not be viewed positively.
Precisely. I haven't sent any LOI for this reason.
I guess here I should exit the debate because I can't argue with native speaker on the strength of a word. I have no authority.
so much rank based talking, who are you? a premed?
I guess here I should exit the debate because I can't argue with native speaker on the strength of a word. I have no authority.
so much rank based talking, who are you? a premed?
I've said the same thing the whole time... they are only useful when an applicant is holding an acceptance to a better school but wants to go to the "lower" school. Otherwise you are just begging.
Ex: I'm accepted to Baylor, but want to go to Arizona. Baylor is better that Arizona so Arizona will prob assume I will be going to Baylor and accept someone else who they think will come.
I can't keep explaining the same thing... last time I was this frustrated was when I tried to teach Spanish to a hamster. Good luck with all your letters and future decisions! I won't be writing any myself as I am content with my cycle.
I thought only schools which have accepted you can see what other schools you are holding an acceptance from in Feb/March. If you're on the waitlist won't they have to wait until April 30th to see all your acceptances?
National Acceptance Report are released to schools on April 1st in previous years.
You could always send a LOI because according to faulty logic, you have leverage since you got accepted to "better schools." But then, of course, there's the risk of LOI's not helping because they've been "devalued" due to applicants sending them everywhere dishonestly.
I sent one to Cornell recently since they apparently don't make final decisions until they've finished interviews (and they finished last week). Someone on the interview trail told me that's a good thing to do if you interviewed way earlier in the game (I interviewed back in November).
Yes, eventually all schools have access to the acceptances.
Schools that have accepted you can already see where you have also been accepted. In a couple of weeks we will see where the students we have waitlisted are holding acceptances. Eventually everyone will see acceptances.
So that means schools that never offered an applicant an interview can see where the applicant has been accepted as well? Is that before the April 30th deadline?
Eventually. I believe it populates late in the cycle, though. We don't use it until next cycle. This is how we discover when a re-applicant was previously accepted.
