tistre

Well, as it turns out, it's a rejection for me! Disappointing as hell, but gotta move on..

Thanks! Hoping it works out.

Thanks, I will look at that stuff. All in all, I was happy applying to 4 schools though, and didn't apply to more because I didn't really want to. And I didn't want to spend more time and money on applications for schools I wouldn't really go to anyway. The only thing was that I was torn about not applying to the PhD program in my current dept and at UofToronto. But again, I wanted to leave Toronto so I'm glad I didn't apply there either. Oh well!

Well, congrats to you guys for having acceptances! I'm waiting to be off the waiting list one way or the other at Austin, and this is pretty much the only one that worked out for me out of a total 4 applications.

I didn't hear. So still waiting. In the meantime, I developed some sort of cold and sinus thing. So that's great.

Yes, you still can after April 15th. It's been known to happen quite late in the game sometimes, even as late as August. But for international students that's probably not realistic. The big deal around the date is that it is a sort of deadline for when first round admissions become confirmed. Those offered admissions will either accept or deny by this date. Some might get extensions and such, others might accept more than one school and then drop one of them later, so you can't really know what's happening. That's why things keep changing till the very end.

It's 3:47 pm EST. I hear within one hour or it's another night fraught with anxiety.

If I'm on an admissions committee, these are the questions that would be on my mind before I look through applications -- and keep in mind that I'd be reading many formulaic statements. I'd probably also be a prof who has x, y, z ideas about what the next batch of IR students from that program should do. - What is this person's investment in IR? Why IR in particular and not something else? Why IR here (this dept)? - Are they rehashing the same things happening in IR or are they suggesting something innovative/interesting/productive? - Are they realistic in their plan of research (you can ignore this if this doesn't apply to you, but I'm thinking things like fieldwork ala anthropology) - Are the goals stated realistic, do they display adequate academic experience and insight? etc. I am a firm believer in starting right into what you want. A narrative is great, as long as it's extremely specific and relevant to what's proposed. If it's going to sound formulaic at all, axe it. It's worth including a narrative if it immediately and powerfully communicates something about your proposed work in a way that nothing else quite can. Towards the top, maybe mention things like your background *relevant* to the research, and state how you're building on that. I realize this is a draft, but there's a lot of unclear and clunky wording in here. Consider something like awareness instead of cognizance. Your awareness of speaking fluent Japanese? Not clear. Also, if you do speak Japanese and this knowledge will come in handy in the particular research you propose, then you should include that, but do so in a more efficient manner. Perhaps you can read Japanese, and this will be handy to you in accessing Japanese journals or other materials? Include that in a part of your SOP where you highlight the intellectual and material resources available for your project, to demonstrate that it is a convincingly doable project. As has already been pointed, it's not clear what the "strong passion" refers to. You were passionate about the context/condition under which crimes are committed? Are you interested in the individual motivations behind crime? Since you're not citing any kind of structural explanation for it, it would seem as if you think that "why people commit crimes" is being set up to be a major motivating question in your research. That could come across as naive, too. SOP for PhD programs are very academic statements. You would benefit from pointing out things like, "X scholarship has contested notions of Y within IR, and building on that...." or "In response to trends of Z.." So I'd say get into details and situate your research, then write an intro that leads into that. Also, be prepared to write many drafts. Good luck!

Did you really have to bold that? Makes it all seem much more fateful than it already was. But in all seriousness, tomorrow is the earliest that some of us will hear. Not the latest. But I'm still really anxious. I'm supposed to be writing but I can't focus at all.

I'm completely unfamiliar with what it's like to be in a four-field anthro department. I did my undergrad at UofT in a very interdisciplinary program, and I only took a few upper-year anthro courses, so I really didn't get a sense of what kind of narratives around studying anthropology the department had. For my MA, I came to an exclusively social anthro program with a couple of archaeologists in the mix. I don't know a thing about archaeology, let alone biological anthro or linguistic. Did this influence anyone's decision to apply to schools? My sense of what anthropology is is quite isolated from the other subfields. I'd like to hear more thoughts on this from others. And to those who are currently graduate students in four-field programs -- what is that like? Other than taking requisite core courses and so on, what is the level of interaction you have with the other subfields?

I don't think every PhD applicant they reject gets an offer to do an MA. I think technically that would be impossible, and yeah, totally lowers academic standards. I think they do that as a way of recruiting students that they think are not quite prepared to enter their PhD program. I don't know too much about this though. I think some big schools might also recruit students to do newly established, interdisciplinary MA programs, both to make money, and also help get a good name for that program by getting students that they think are qualified. Ultimately even public universities basically run themselves like businesses.

Writing and teaching, mainly, and making a modest income out of it. Tenure-track if I'm lucky, but adjunct is okay as long as I'm doing it at a place that has unionized contract faculty, like York. I'd like to be somewhat accountable to the political implications of what I research without taking myself way too seriously. I never want to be one of those anthropologists that describe their field of research as "my area" or "my people". And if academia doesn't work out, I'd like to be teaching and involved in politically progressive research in other contexts.

Have you searched the results page for any posts about the programs you applied to? Sometimes that can give an idea? If they have sent out letters and haven't contacted you still, there's definitely hope that you are being considered for admission.

I only did 4 applications, and right now the only prospect is moving off the waiting list at Austin. So my thread is thinner than yours. I pretty much want Austin or else a year off from grad school. I hope I bounce back quickly if I get rejected because I still have to finish my MA thesis with due diligence. :/

I'd say put maximum weight on faculty and curriculum. Faculty first, then curriculum. It's really hard to tell about curriculum by looking at it. Sometimes course proposals great on paper, but depending on your cohort, the prof teaching it, a course could be a total waste of your time. Faculty is a better bet. If they're interesting to you, if they're engaging in a field within IR that you want to engage in, or if they seem like someone that you could ask very particular questions to that you're interested in, then go for it. Keep in mind that it is an MA, a short degree. So maybe you'll be in a place that's kind of boring, or a place where we typically imagine is full of "hicks" or something. So? Sometimes it's good to challenge ourselves and our assumptions. And I think it's always interesting to take on people's wack political assumptions rather than just ignore them or categorize them as 'never-talk-to.'