Kicked in the Head by Contingency

It may be that the best response to an unpredictable environment is to vary one’s actions and put out as much variety as possible until something “clicks”. That said, I feel somewhat foolish about having spent so much money on applications to grad schools recently. Speed of rejection seems to correlate fairly well with “quality” of school, with Harvard, UCLA, Stanford, Wisconsin and Berkeley all firing off “thanks, but no thanks” letters pretty quickly.

Right now, I’m in some kind of strange limbo — having gained acceptance to an MA program at the school I’m at now, and still waiting to hear on a few other places I’d rather go (if only they’d pay me — thanks a lot, Washington). No doubt I’ve been placed on waiting lists, meaning that I’m waiting to see if the first-choice people decline their offers, at which point the schools have to look for someone else.

Needless to say all this makes putting forth a good effort in one’s last month of one’s last year of one’s degree somewhat difficult. The hardest thing is that This Does Not Fit The Pattern. History has not taught me to fail well.

Perhaps if I’d created a hierarchical linear model predicting of my chances of getting in, I’d be less disappointed.