VioletAyame

Oh I'm so sorry to hear that. Now I truly feel lucky to have supportive people in my life, even though they're not entirely sure what it id I'm not getting myself into Maybe your mom just needs a bit of time to warm up to the idea. A friend of mine just told me that she's waiting for her mom to start speaking to her again after getting so mad because my friend wants to go on a cross-country trip by herself! If the situation is not the same, I'm sorry for being a little presumptive. Either you can always celebrate with us! We'll be totally psyched for you!

Do you really? And what point is that? Hint: my favorite quote from a certain brilliant, misanthropic and fictional doctor: "People don't get what they deserve. They just get what they get."

I beg to differ. OP, is it a program within the Annenberg School? It has a great reputation regarding Comm programs! But it also offers several options regarding Masters programs, and I'm not sure which one you got in or nor am I familiar with what Columbia offers, but if's a professional (Strategic Comm, Global Comm, PR, etc.) the location of the school might matter for networking purposes. So you should take that into consideration as well.

No!!! There are people who aren't happy for you when you get into your program(s)? I mean my friends got a bit annoyed when I was whiny/braggy but I always tried to keep it in check so they also kept their annoyance in check

Why aren't you having cancer? Why aren't you a victim of sex trafficking? Why aren't you in Ukraine right now not knowing what the next day would be like? Why aren't you illiterate and not allowed to vote? Do you need me to go on?

I love this post so much! Not in Lit but I can totally relate and it has lent a hand to help me achieve my inner peace about this whole decision process so to speak. I vote for it to pinned or at least reposted each year for the Decisions, Decisions subforum! But you've never been the guy who stays before, how can you compare? I don't like to leave, but for some reason I've always ended up as the one who's leaving. My friends aren't behaving weirdly since most of us are international students and we've always known someone will stay and someone will leave. But still, it sucks to leave it all behind.

It is incredibly terrifying and nerve-wrecking decision to make, and I can relate as I did not think I would get it anywhere and now I myself am going through the same decision process. I'm gonna tell you the same thing I just told my friend who is about to apply next fall. We both came from a ordinary state school without an MA, and my first 2 years I went to a community college to boost. When I was about to transfer, I thought about going to a more prestigious schools like U Mich or UT Austin but it didn't work out. So I went to this state school, having no idea that I'd want to go to grad school until I graduated. When I was applying, I was worried that would harm my chances compared to other candidates, but it didn't turn out to be the case. So here I was, worried and stressed again about where I should go; then I woke up one morning and realized that they're all excellent schools, excellent places to pursue my PhD, and I'm gonna be fine no matter what. I know it's a cliche, but I've experienced it: it's less about where you go and more about what you do while you're there. That is not to undermine the importance of fit, funding, faculty availability, support, placement, and many other factors that will guide your decision, but I feel that there is no single right or wrong decision, one that will grant you a tenure track position or one that will ruin your life. That is, the decision doesn't end the moment you make it; all the stuff you do after will factor into it as well. This realization allows me to stop feeling panicked and paralyzed every time I think about choosing a program, and I hope it'll help you too. About not feeling more excited, I found this thread on the Lit subforum and it is extremely helpful. It's more about the post-decision feelings, but it just goes to say that it's totally normal to not feel over the moon every moment of every day. I think it should be pinned somewhere or reposted each year during this time ETA: About your class, I don't have a lot of experiences but it seems the posters above made some very good point. Contact the DGSs if you want to find out, but don't worry too much. Good luck!

Ah let's get back to ranting about the F1. I can understand where the OP is coming from. Now I also get that F1 is not intended for residency but there are some legitimate complaints there. For example, I understand why there is a work hours restriction but for international grad students who are partly funded or lacking in summer funding, it makes it very hard for them to pick up summer jobs to fill in that gap, and I don't think we're qualified for student loans either. I think most of us at the graduate level are serious about our study and are not using the F1 as a shortcut for illegal jobs, and a little bit of flexibility would go a long way. And regarding OPT, I know STEM fields get the extra time as it reflects what the US job market desires and it's only fair, but sometimes it sucks for the non-tech-or-maths-gifted people not to have any love! Also, considering the economy right now and the difficult H1B process, not a lot of F1 holders can make it through anyway, why not give us 2 years or so to have time to find a job and build our resumes before we leave? Now my biggest pet peeves is actually the travel restriction side effects that come with the F1. I know for other countries that expiration date of their F1 can be longer depending on their treaties, but for my country, the F1 is valid for only 1 year. Now I'm eligible to stay as long as I'm a full-time student in the program stated in my I-20, which is not hard to do, but after that 1 year, if I set foot outside the US (except for Canada and Mexico) I have to pay a fee to renew my visa to be able to enter again. Not to mention while technically I can do that at a US embassy in the country to which I travel, they strongly recommend doing it in my home country and there's no guarantee otherwise. So in order to ensure I can get back to continue my program, I would have to plan to travel within 1 year since my visa is granted or fly back to my home country to have it renewed. So inconvenient. I agree with this sentiment (of course). I think there's actually some talks in the legislature to change the law and make citizenship easier to acquire for PhD holders. But since it's Congress we're talking about and this is nowhere near anyone's priority, I'm not holding my breath.

I don't understand; don't you have 4 more schools to hear from? Do you know if they've already sent out decisions yet? Have you been contacted by them at all?

Wow that's kind of amazing. Maybe you should post here "I have not received an acceptance yet" or something like that and see what'll happen.

Thanks guys. Let's see what it has to say about this crucial decision which I feel I'm not qualified to make on my own

Is it UCSF? I had to write something very similar to UCSB, albeit it's a different program too.

Congrats! That's awesome!

Aren't I? I've always suspected it, but never got the confirmation On a serious note though, you can set up that account early and use it to contact POIs, check admission info with the office and nag your profs about your LORs too. Everything in one exclusive mailbox

I don't know why but I've never been interested in Transfiguration. DADA for sure, both because it's practical and because I love Professor Lupin too damn much. I would minor in Potions I think, but I suspect I wouldn't be very good at it because you're right, one should be good at Herbology and CoMC too, and I don't enjoy either gardening or taking or are of animals in real life. And no mind reading stuff for me. I never want to know.

It's muggles. Muggles, damn it! Actually on second thought, witches and wizards are not immortal, so muggles can't be the equivalence of mortals. Wrong mythology.

In order to prevent these heart attacks, I have carefully set up a separate mailbox just for applying to grad schools. I thought since I did not use it for anything else, did not fill out forms or subscribe to things or sign up for accounts with it, it will be spam free and any notification I received must be school-related. I was wrong. I forgot that as a Gmail account, it is not exempt from random emails from Google plus and YouTube. Freaking Google plus and YouTube. Fortunately though, none of my schools sent me teaser emails. Some stories here sound horrifying.

Let's get this thread back to Harry Potter-related topics! I would prefer Hogwarts too (I heard Scotland is gorgeous) but I'm all about Charms. Seriously, I would be such a good Ravenclaw.

So beside predicting the future, can magic 8 ball give advice? Can I ask questions not beginning with "Will I" but "Should I"? Does it work that way?

I laughed hard at that. I've been reminded many times during this process how much it resembles the intricacy of courtship. Just with an enormous power imbalance.

That. Is. Gold. The question is, did he get nominated after that speech? That's true. It seems that political communication can resonant better with most people. But wouldn't a Ph.D in Fans & Air Conditioners Studies be super fancy? I agree. The meaning of "Communication" varies widely, not just between the popular idea and the academic one but also within the discipline. My undergrad degree was in Comm with a concentration in PR. In fact, our department offers PR, advertising, journalism, and visual comm concentrations, all under the umbrella of Communication, with Human Comm in a separate department. A lot of schools we're applying in have 2 departments/schools both using the term "Communication". It's such a wide field that we can study entirely different things and go on to get the same degree

I remember for some of the schools I was interested in, if you subscribe to their email lists for prospective students (usually found on the admission page) they will email and let you know when they start accepting applications. For deadlines around December - January, I think the app season usually starts around September - October. But if your schools do not do rolling admission, it will not matter when you turn your materials in, and you may potentially suffer from a long long wait, almost half a year in some cases. It didn't happen to me, but if you look around on this forum, you can see how hard it can be on people. In the meantime, you can spend time researching programs, contacting POIs, studying for the GRE, talking to your potential LOR writers, polishing you SOP and CV, etc. There's no shortage of tasks to do honestly. You can start the process early and still feel like you're running out of time at the end. Good luck with the process!

It's interesting that there was another thread like this from someone who was applying to Berkeley too, in history I think. I wonder if it's really Berkeley or just a coincidence. On the other hand, I really don't understand the sense of entitlement here. The frustration and disappointment, yes, the "how could this happen to me" but not "I deserve to get in! They're screwing me!". Well they didn't promise any of us anything except taking a look at our apps. I think most admission websites usually state righty under the criteria or successful applicants profile that it's just a guideline and in no way will guarantee admission. So you may be entitled to an explanation, and please ask nicely, but nothing else. Your POI encouraged you to apply; he did not promise you a spot. IMHO it's because you obviously don't want a PhD. Maybe you can apply to be a research fellow there (not sure if it's feasible without a PhD, I know) or establish some collaboration between the lab you're currently in with their lab to use the equipment. Just some thoughts.

Congrats Nate! That's wonderful news! So happy for you

-So do you go on the TV and talk or what? -You write/speak a lot right? -Oh I have a friend/cousin/person I know who works for [a cable/Internet provider] too! From talking to a lot of grad students and fellow prospectives/admits, I notice that we share the same problem every time people ask us what we study. No one seems to really know what "studying Communication" really means. Above are some of the responses I usually get, and my usual recourse is to talk about the media violence research being discussed during the gun control debate, tell them that I would do that, except not in that topic. Now I realized it's heavily in the domain of mass comm and doesn't apply to org and human comm folks, so while we're all waiting, I think we can have some fun by sharing stories about the responses you get and how you usually explain to people (or not).