hdunlop

well played

By the way when they taught me math it was that mean, median and mode were all methods of finding the average. I'm certainly not "on board the quant train" but that's what they were teaching in high school in the 1990s (and on Wikipedia to this day).

TJ's pays 3x minimum wage? Jesus, that ain't bad.

I haven't gotten either acceptance or rejection from UVA. Not sure what's going on there.

I finally got my formal Chicago rejection... and also just got the Levy scholarship for law at UPenn, a full ride there. At least I can get into something!

Well, four, and two rejections (one accept is art history). But I'm thinking so too. Three to five seems to be the standard GradCafe Cornell cohort from previous years. If so, pending a last-second twist from UVA (where I survived both the acceptance and rejection waves), I'm settling at 0 for 6 this cycle, up from 0 for 3 last time around. At least this time I can say I put my best foot forward. I plan to reach out to some POIs (many of whom I met this fall, most of whom were warm and all of whom were helpful) for their comments, but most likely -- against some of your recommendations -- I'm looking at law, a field that is blessedly more numbers-driven. When a person is 0 for 9 at one thing and 6 for 6 at another (including two funding offers so far, and with luck, two more on the way) at some point it's hard not to read the writing on the wall. That said, two of the three schools I'm seriously considering (and two of the two I've been admitted to thus far) are at or near the schools I applied for history at, so I may yet take one more crack next year! If not, there's always the late-in-life vanity degree. I'm going to write my damn dissertation come hell or high water - ha!

What's the deal with Cornell? Seems like they're onsie twosie POI admits, but do we think this is the wave and that's it or will they continue to trickle?

Was Rumsfeld a theorist or philosopher? To find the answer to this known unknown, one must look east, west, south and north somewhat. Man. That 2003-2006 period really feels like a dream sometimes.

I'm no MBA but it seems that, even as an extreme anti-capitalist, you embrace the notion of supply and demand.

Didn't get a UVA acceptance when they went but didn't get a rejection today either. Wacky.

Some additional very helpful thoughts re. my situation, guys (e: just in case: folks) -- thank you.

Thank you czesc and thedig for the pep talk re. the PhD -- I do need it. This round (my second) isn't over yet, and I remain hopeful if not optimistic. If I bust out I do think I'm most likely going to start with the JD (the goal was always joint) and consider another shot at the PhD as I pursue it. There's no doubt law's easier to get in, not least because you usually have to pay, but full funding offers do exist. They're incredibly competitive but I've at least made it to the "please interview/write an essay/whatever to compete" stage which is further than I've made it with the PhD applications so far!

I'm now 0 and 4 with PhD programs and 4 and 0 with law schools. Starting to think this choice is being made for me. And then there were two...

Actually the seeming randomness of the boat is the one thing that makes me think it's something that really happened. Broadly, though, the idea is that the boat keeps taking your money, whereas the others are one-off purchases, over the top as they may be. Diamond rings are overpriced by at least two orders of magnitude for reasons that can be summed up as "consumerism/capitalism," but the nice ones are beautiful as hell so I wince at worthless. And I say this as someone who went with a sapphire for the lady.

I can't believe no one liked my boat story. I think that's the greatest story.