jmu

Contacting Dr. Holloway is still a good idea. I had a great conversation with him about my application and where I stand in terms of being officially accepted. My situation was that the people who are my best options for POI are not taking new students and others that I mentioned that are somewhat related have a number of students who want to work with them way more closely related to their work than I am. On a separate note, I've decided to accept the offer to stay at FIU. My first semester is going to be theory heavy but I'm really excited about the program.

The reason they changed the scoring was to make it so people didn't seem farther apart than they actually were from other individuals as well between skill sets. While on the old scoring it may appear that you were way more skilled in math than verbal, in the new one it shows that you were about equal in each of those in terms of how you did. Although, because the percentile is different between the two and still being calibrated the numbers will change. I would encourage people to aim for percentiles rather than scores. If you are about 60-70% in each you should do fine.

It is spring break time too.

UGA decisions have been made. If you haven't heard either way I would email either Steve Holloway or the graduate secretary about your application. They have a sort of unofficial waitlist going but individual prospects for getting off of it depend on your POI being available and willing to take you on.

This is only partially true. With the current economic climate funding is being cut back dramatically and different schools are handling it different ways. Some are accepting the same number of students but funding less, some are accepting less students and funding the same percentage, etc. Rutgers Geography, for example, only offered funding to people admitted to the PhD program if they already held a master's degree (this is, at least, what I have been told by multiple people at Rutgers.) Anyone else who was admitted was not offered funding but instead told they would be eligible for competitive funding after their first year (completing 12 credits in the Fall, you can apply for competitive funding in the Spring for the following Fall semester.) The situation varies and even if you aren't offered a TA-ship, fellowship, or comprehensive funding package it is worthwhile to contact people in the department and see if they are taking any RAs that may not have been mentioned. Getting enough funding to complete the PhD is rare. You are expected to be writing and applying for external grants and fellowships usually by your 3rd or 4th year. In addition, most schools have special fellowships and grants specifically for students that are, or are close to being, ABD. These are not included in any funding packages I've seen or heard about but are applied for later either by the student or via department nomination.

In my subfield (it overlaps between anthro and geography) there aren't many schools with a number of people doing it so I had to look carefully at each program and see how my interests overlapped with everybody else's. This was also important because there is no one actually looking at what I'm interested in at all so there is no "perfect fit." I first looked to see if they had at least one person with the same regional interest and if this person had similar interests in the goings on of the region. Then I looked to see if they had a person in my subfield and I looked at their most recent research to see what they were doing and if it would be mutually beneficial. I also looked in other departments to see if there was overlap. I considered all of these factors combined and talked to my professors about the programs and the people I was interested in to get their thoughts. I ended up with a list of about 10 schools. Deciding I wanted to stay in the US to make family visits easier narrowed that to 7. Two of the programs were a really big reach for me so I decided to only apply to one as money was a factor. I didn't get my materials ready in time for one (the website I was looking at was out of date and the deadline had been moved forward by over a month) so that was eliminated. I applied to the remaining five. A DGS I spoke with described the whole process perfectly: alchemy.

It depends how the school operates but that could be a good sign. If the admissions advisor works for the graduate school and not the department it could be that they were making sure you are eligible and want to see all of your credits before offering you admission, since your app was already sent to the committee. It could also just be housekeeping. Either way, good luck!

I think we're at a point that, for any pre-Feb 1 applications it is safe to send an email to DGS or grad secretary asking about status. I've done it with two schools and have received really great responses in both cases.

I have a pretty easy semester with only two real classes. I'm also taking an independent study to make sure I have a good historical background for my research question and an intro class I never took but that is required for graduation.

Most programs I've seen (in the social sciences, generally) provide a limited amount of travel funds to each student per year. Often these have some kind of requirement attached to them after you return from the conference but they are never really a big deal. I've yet to see a department that covers 100% of the costs but it makes it easier for sure.

Avatar is Peter Kropotkin, a hero of mine.

MA offers came out later than PhD, from my understanding. My issue is that they like my application too much to reject me, but I'm not a perfect fit for anyone taking on more students. About to decline Rutgers offer. After calculating, even taking the full Stafford loan I wouldn't be able to cover my tuition and fees for the first year.

UGA has made it's "first round of TA offers." If you haven't heard from them yet you might be on a waitlist or, like me, in a sort of limbo state.

I just received a waitlist this morning and am not too worried, actually. I figure it's because I have other offers even if I don't hear anything from them.

Waitlisted at Syracuse (MA). Sounded like all MA offers were funded.

Thanks for the update and congrats!

I applied there. It is one of the top human geography programs in the country and is fully funded so it's really competitive. I did not get in.

Masters or PhD? I know I made the first cut for masters, the grad secretary told me that when I called about something else. Other than that I haven't heard anything. There was an acceptance by email posted but that seems to be against their MO.

The portion of the stipend that is used for room, board, and personal items is taxable. The university will not take out taxes, though, so a portion should be saved to ensure you are able to pay your taxes each year.

It's a public university so their internal funding has been cut repeatedly the past few years. There aren't as many long-term, high dollar research projects in human geography and those that do exist are usually really expensive to run so the money isn't used as much to fund grad students as it is to cover travel and research expenses.

Since most of these are negative/cynical/ambivalent, here is a positive one: I presented at a conference this weekend and a member of the adcomm at a school I applied to approached me; she recognized my name from my name tag. I talked to her for a minute about the school and its financial situation before she said "I loved your application. You're going to be a fantastic geographer." After hearing a bunch of weird/negative things over the past few weeks, it's nice to be recognized.

I briefly spoke to Amy Trauger today and she told me that UGA is reviewing apps right now but she mentioned that funding money is tight.

I had to email Dr. Schneider to find out.

I would be as cordial as possible. Remember, these are people in your field that are still going to be colleagues. They could also be in a position to give you a post-doc or job. I would email them, thank them profusely, but politely explain why you can't take the offer and that you appreciate maintaining contact with them in the future. I know Rutgers wants a formal rejection sent to the UGS and on the form they ask why, so I would include it in emails. It's probably helpful to them to some degree.

No funding from Rutgers, but my top POI would be my advisor and my second POI is also interested in working with me. Time to start looking for external money, though I doubt I would be able to get any this late.