pears

congrats to everyone who's gotten interviews and admits! this thread inspired me a bit, so i treated myself to a new bastard file and a marshalltown margin trowel (a gift to myself for my first acceptance)! plus, a cold beer, of course.. standard archaeologist for ya

great minds think alike.. i'll pretend my beer is from you too! part of me wishes all the weekends this month would hurry up and be done, but part of me is so happy that i have time scheduled into my life that i have to use for relaxing and not thinking about this stuff.

twelve apostles (most beautiful roadtrip ever)

sending you hugs, good vibes, and tasty beers through the interwebs!

third eye

story of my life right there! and ditto to all the comments about significant others putting up with our mood swings- my better half is a blue collar guy who couldn't get his AS fast enough and thinks i might as well be queen of the nerds, so it's hard for him to understand where i'm coming from when i'm having my moments of stress and doubt! plus, we both do seasonal work with the forest service (it's how we met), but he has an injury that could make it hard for him to get hired again. the BLM and USFS have started reviewing applications for summer temps today, so, on top of the stress about my grad apps, now we're both stressed about jobs, too! c'mon, universe.. gimme some good vibes!

woof. what the heck! i wonder what it is that prompts programs/schools to do that kind of thing? i'm envisioning some sort of horrible mishap in the past of somebody getting the wrong email, misreading an email, or something along those lines that would make them want to be very clear about their decision.. but it still sounds pretty unpleasant. i've heard a lot of horror stories about admissions email snafus, but i've never heard one that sounded like it was justified or handled well.

i had something similar happen, although it was a different school- i mailed out my packet of hard copy materials, confirmed their arrival at the department with usps, but 3 weeks passed with no update to my status. i tried contacting admissions by phone and email- no response, even after i left a voicemail (which ticked me off). i contacted my POI there, who said that there was a lag between when they receive materials, alert admissions, and admissions processes them. they're a big school so they probably get swamped with applications, even when the deadline is far away (i submitted my materials 6 weeks before the deadline). in sum, if stanford gets a lot of applicants, they might just have some serious lag in processing the materials between departments, i.e., communicating between your department and admissions to confirm the arrival of materials on all ends. i would try calling your POI directly or emailing the admissions general account (and calling if you don't get a response within a few days) to see what's up.

hairy chest

thank you so much! i did the same short field school twice- maritime/historic stuff off the coast of NH/ME. i followed up the second one with an internship in the same place that helped me pay for it. simply put, i never had the money to afford a longer field school or one outside of the states, so i did the short one twice, and tried to compensate with internships. that's part of why i decided to give myself a year as a buffer zone- i felt like i needed to make up for lost time and opportunities with experience. plus, who doesn't like an excuse to travel to beautiful places and meet new people when they're 22? that's awesome, congrats! one of my favorite undergrad professors (totally brilliant and snarky guy) did his grad work there and loved it. sounds like a fantastic program. best of luck!

digging this one back up from the depths because i'm curious about what the standard protocol is, and i didn't see a topic like this one anywhere near the top of the pile (apologies if there is one!). does anyone else have advice on this? i received an email telling me that a decision was available on the application website; the letter was a clear official acceptance, & said "You need to contact Professor (POI) at (email) for advisement." should i contact my POI, then, to let them know i've received my acceptance but am waiting on responses? or should i simply keep waiting, either for their response or responses from other schools? thanks all! & sorry if there's another topic like this already at the top!

hey there! i'm in a totally different field of study (archaeology), but our numbers are surprisingly similar. i coasted in high school, so the toxic combo of "hey, i have friends and parties now!" and "well, i didn't need to try hard then, so why should i try hard now?" ruined my GPA for my first 2 years. i worked my buns off my last 3 semesters, & ended up with a 3.2.. salvageable, but not ideal. GRE scores were 164V/154Q/5.0W, major GPAs floated somewhere around 3.5. nothing totally out of this world, but at least i had some numbers to show that i wasn't totally ashamed of. i've been using this year as downtime to get more work experience and suss out my exact interests, which has paid off a lot. i decided on a terminal MA because i'm still weighing some academic choices (in sum: i like bones, but i like stuff, too), and it would give me a chance to compensate for the poor undergrad GPA before launching into a PhD. i applied to 7 schools, and honestly, i probably could've shaved it down to 5 or 6, but i was nervous that my weak GPA would leave me with a lot of rejections or waitlists. my LoRs, SoP, and writing sample were all strong. i got my first response this morning: an acceptance, and my POI (a nerd idol of mine) seems to be my advisor. they've got a really strong program for one of my specific interests, so i was expecting.. well, anything less than an acceptance. awesome, awesome, awesome. as long as you feel confident about the rest of your app materials, i bet you'll be fine too!

ah, what a lovely email to wake up to! "The University at Albany has made a decision on your graduate application" as a subject line gave me a minor heart attack, despite leering at it through one very sleepy eyeball, which very quickly turned into one less sleepy eyeball with a tear of joy in it. my assigned adviser is one of my nerd idols, so i'm beyond happy! ciistai- leave it to an archaeologist to call classical archaeo "boring," hah! a lot of my undergrad coursework centered around classical, just because of the nature of our department, so i've got a soft spot for it. i wish i'd learned more about exactly what you're studying, actually- somehow we spent weeks on augustus, but just a few lectures on pre-romans. powertorest- more stuff i wish i'd learned more about! & holy whoa, kenya. super envious. i wish my field school had been somewhere that cool! best of luck to all! given the results postings, i think everyone should start hearing back soon. fingers crossed.

hi friends! long time lurker, first time poster. i'm officially driving myself completely nuts, so i finally caved & decided to post. i applied to 7 different terminal MA programs (can't decide if i like bones or stuff better, or whether i want to throw a law degree in there, too). i'm mostly interested in contact period stuff of western north america (pacific nw, norcal, great basin). all things repatriation = my jam. belize is sweet, too. still waiting on all of them, but like powertorest said, seems like decisions are starting to creep in. all of my apps were in by the first week of january, so maybe i'll start hearing soon..? in the meantime, what's everyone else's field of interest, & where did everyone else apply?