katja454

I'm sorry to say that I don't know anything specific about what the wait list tends to look like here... I do know that one person got accepted from the wait list last year, so it does happen. Sorry I can't be more helpful!

Hi there! I don't know specific details about the visiting day for Davis this year, but I'm a first year in the PhD there now, so I can speak a little to what mine was like last year and answer any other questions you (or other folks) might have! There's a sort of "student panel" where you can ask current PhDs about their living situations/experiences/etc., last year we were able to sit in on a class and meet with professors that we had particular interest in working with, a tour of the campus... and then at night there's a get together with visiting and current students as well as professors. Lots of delicious food, haha. It's all kind of a jet-lagged blur for me, but feel free to ask more questions!

Just my 2 cents, since I negotiated a bit last year and it definitely worked in my favor. Since this is grad school and not a job, funding is a slightly different animal than the work that you actually do. So, while you might not be able (or not feel comfortable) just asking for more money, you might decide that it would be worth asking for less teaching one year, or some sort of TAship rather than teaching comp., etc. Depending on your circumstances, that could be just as important; it won't do much in terms of cost of living, but you can also be thinking about how quickly you want to move through the program and how you're able to balance coursework/research with teaching responsibilities.

^ my brain

Just PMed you - thanks ahhjudy!

Yes! Thanks, proflorax - it was very helpful

Hello folks! A request for help. For a variety of reasons, I find myself deciding between University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Boston College when, before, I wasn't really considering going to UIUC. I didn't have the opportunity to go to the visiting day because I was on another one at the time, and I certainly can't take off more time to work between now and April 15 to visit. So, to people who know the program/visited, can I ask your help? I've learned a fair amount from emails with students and professors, but how was the visiting day? What was the feeling you got from the program? A friendly, not too-big feeling program is really important to me, so it worries me that I might accept there and be unpleasantly surprised in some way! Really, any information would be super helpful and greatly appreciated. Feel free to PM me if you don't feel like posting a response. Thank you!

Hi Proflorax - not to hijack the Maryland thread, but I couldn't make it to the UIUC visiting day (I had already committed to visiting Missouri), so I'd love to hear your impressions! I can start a new thread or you can send a PM. Enjoy!

This is just my gut reaction, but I wouldn't advise your professors to do so. If they have a lot of really amazing things to say about you, then they'll write them, however many pages that ends up being. However, they could write equally amazing things about you and not write a book, so why pressure them to do so? I didn't see my letters either, so I can't speak for exactly what they said or how long they were. All that I did was make sure I asked professors to write my letters who I knew very well and had worked very closely with and talked with each of them about my plans for the PhD

Yep! I'm going too! I've asked a current student but haven't gotten an answer yet - do you know what the TA situation there looks like? Do you teach discussion sections as well as sitting in on the lecture? I'm trying to figure out how heavy the TA load is that first year.

I'm so glad that other people are a mess like I am. It's such a great problem to have, but I'm really hoping that these visits clarify a lot for me. I could legitimately see myself happy at any of my top choices. On a related note, NowMoreSerious, are you visiting Davis, either on the visting day or otherwise?

Just declined Maryland's offer and managed to feel incredibly guilty about it. Hope the spot goes to someone who will love it there!!

I was also inexplicably nervous about this. I had arranged to talk on the phone with the DGS at a school that I'm very interested in, and because he seemed very friendly, I felt comfortable asking him about the coursework waiver/exemption. I was nervous that it would seem like - hey, I haven't even started there yet, and I already want to get out of doing things! - but I asked whether students incoming with an MA usually take advantage of this. He didn't react as if it was an awkward question and said that yes, most of them do, since it's a question of getting through your coursework in a reasonable amount of time and getting through the "time sink" surrounding your preliminary exams. I'm sure it's different for different programs, but I just thought I'd share my good experience with the same question! Hope that helps!

Me too! I think they must have psychically felt me post on here. I just got the same E-vite and also have heard nothing else from the department and am now in a tizzy. I guess both of us can't be a mistake??

Does anyone have any idea what's going on with Indiana? I've seen a few acceptances go up... so are they done? They're the last school that I'm really waiting on (the rest are implied rejections, at this point), and my intense dislike of uncertainty means that my brain really wants to make a decision on the others soon. However, if Indiana comes into the picture, they'd definitely be a serious consideration...

Ditto on the Indiana anxiety! It and UC Davis I think are the best fit for me program-wise, so I'd love to know whether they think the same thing...

I'm another of the Maryland admits! I would love to go visit, but I'm trying to manage other school visits with wanting to remain gainfully employed... It's hard to find subs at my school for personal days. Anyway, is anyone else looking to go to Maryland from the New York area? Dr. Ray mentioned the train when we spoke on the phone - does that seem like a good idea to anyone else who maybe knows the area better?

Congrats to you too, cicada!! Did you just get the email from Laura Tanner? Are you planning on visiting BC? I might try and go when I'm in Massachusetts the week of March 18-22, maybe to sit in on a seminar, but mostly to express really inappropriate amounts of affection to my professors from the MA program who wrote my recommendation letters.

In at U of Maryland!!! Too freaked out/excited to call back yet.

Seconded. I think you all would appreciate this: http://www.amazon.com/Weird-Things-Customers-Say-Bookstores/dp/1468301284. My parents gave it to me after I worked in a bookstore for a while...

dazed, get out of my brain! I'm having the same exact thoughts about BC and Davis right now. Maybe make the decision for both of us? Thanks!

Lots of yes. I haven't talked to the people at the places I've gotten in about how they perceived my CV - in reality, it's so jumbled because a.) my current research interests took a while to evolve, so I've been interested in lots of other things along the way, and b.) I just like researching and writing about different things. I'm a Victorianist who wants to focus on animal & food studies, but the two pieces I used for my writing sample, sometimes together, depending on what the program wanted, were a reading of phrenology in Villette (traditional Victorian) and an analysis of humanity/animality in a contemporary Finnish novel. On top of that, my one publication is on a Romantic era Irish novel and concerns none of my interests... it was just an idea I got really interested in in a grad seminar. In my CV, I just let the jumble stand, but in my SOP, I tried to pull things together into a semi-coherent narrative of my interests, so maybe it actually sounds like I know what I'm doing? But yeah, so this is all to say that, from my experience anyway, you shouldn't need to shy away from experiences and interests that don't quite fit with your stated focus. Hope that helps!

Of course, as I'm anxiously waiting to hear back from 6 more schools, I am also receiving a seemingly record number of spam emails to give me false alarms. I guess at least if programs don't want me, all of these lonely people with their webcams do.

Yep, it's possible! They admit some of their top MA acceptances with a first-year fellowship and then anyone can apply for a teaching fellowship your second year

Oh, and cicada, I did my MA at BC, so I know a little about the PhD program from friends and a fair amount about the department and the area. Happy to answer any questions that you might have, if I can!