Quigley

Well time is running out for you to bargain, but you can say "I was also accepted by x school, but I prefer your program for these reasons and believe it is the best fit for me. X school offered me _____, which will be difficult to turn down, but I believe this decision is too important to be made based on three or four thousand dollars per year. Does your department have any flexibility to come closer to x school's funding offer?" I was accepted by two schools. They each offered me about the same size academic-year stipend but School A offered me an additional guaranteed summer fellowship for four consecutive summers, beginning after my first full year. School B offered no such guarantee but said that some summer funding is available, usually in the form of TAships. When I asked school B about matching the guarantee for summer funding, they offered a matching summer fellowship (for the first summer only), increased my first-year stipend (by a significant amount), and waived my first-year TA responsibilities. I still accepted at school A, but I'm glad that the decision was made based on department fit, not $3,000 per year.

Excellent advice from UVaSpades.

This is a very personal decision that will come down to you and your wife weighing and comparing your priorities. For me, this is truly the only career where I can visualize myself being happy for the next 40-50 years without dejectedly crossing off the days until the weekend, my next vacation, retirement, etc, so despite the tradeoffs, this was an easy decision for me. I was advised not to pursue this by one of my LOR writers who shares your concerns, but I decided that you only live once and I didn't want to look back in 10, 20, 30 years with the regret of knowing that I never tried. I decided that I would apply far and wide and attend the program that would best prepare me to get a desirable job in the end. But everybody's definition of a "desirable" job is different. I realize going into this that not everybody lands a TT at Stanford. I'd love to land at an R1 flagship or large, prestigious private school, but I would also be happy at a mid-tier LAC if that's where I end up. But not everybody would. I'll be attending a top-15 that's top 10 in my subfield and it's my hope that if I work hard, publish, etc, that I'll land somewhere afterwards. In my opinion, there are worse things than getting paid a modest stipend to live in a fun town with a low cost of living and young demographic for the next 5 years while I become an expert in my field and earn a debt-free PhD. I'm 5 years out of undergrad, divorced, living in a small city where it seems that everyone else is over 40, and I've spent the past 5 years working at desk jobs from 8-5 every day. So the changes that my life will undergo this August are very attractive to me, despite the fact that I'll need to make some lifestyle changes to make ends meet. My income will be cut in half for the next 5 years, but I feel that's a small price to pay for the benefits of a great education and a career that won't make me feel like I've wasted my life doing some insipid job that eats my soul. I have a number of friends who have said "well that sounds fun, but it's going to take 5 years?? Don't you just want to work and make money?" Sounds like a recipe for long-term happiness if I ever heard one... If you truly think that living in a small town will make you and your wife miserable, then perhaps you should consider re-applying. 5-6 years is a long time to hate where you live. It would be terrible to drop out of your program halfway through because you were so unhappy. On the plus side, however, small towns often have a more favorable stipend-to-cost of living ratio (not always true of course - Minneapolis, Nashville, Austin, etc are all quite affordable). And attending a strong program in an undesirable city for 5 years might mean that you can land a job in a desirable location for the balance of your career. Whatever you choose, I wish you the best of luck in your decision. I'm sure you'll get a lot of opinions and advice from your friends and family but only you can know what is best for you. Good luck!

soggy bottom

I turned down an offer at UC Davis.

Anyone care to make predictions about what we'll see in the updated USNWR rankings tomorrow?

Gee... who killed the conversation???

I have been told by adcom members at two schools that they read this forum. Edit: grammar

For those of you also waiting indefinitely for Minnesota, my application is finally under "final review" whatever that means. Anyone else?

You can probably assume that only two acceptances from Princeton means that anyone who hasn't heard should not expect the worst.

kerosene lantern

Also wondering myself.

Seems like there are a lot of us who never heard one way or the other from Minnesota.

vampire bat

Thought so. I'll let you know.

Has anyone who is still in limbo checked in with UCLA this week?

Well that certainly killed the conversation.

I'm always stunned when I stumble across semi-constructive threads, but even then they usually devolve quickly.

cough syrup

I would really love to just get closure on UCLA before the weekend. Are most public universities open on Presidents Day?

Oooooooooooooh.... I didn't know about this feature. I like it!

Thank you!

I have received nothing yet, either. If you call and find anything out, please let me know?

There's still a ways to go.

Sigh. Can someone please claim a Stanford admit already if they are legit? I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing is related to someone having the guts to ask about Stanford admissions on PSJR yesterday: http://www.poliscijobrumors.com/topic.php?id=87007 So if it is a troll, I'm sure I speak for at least some others that you succeeded in causing the reaction you were probably hoping for, so good job. You apparently also have no life.