dr. t

I usually start e-mails and the like with "Professor," . It works ok in conversation, too. The exception is, as r_s mentioned, when they tell you explicitly that they would like you to call them by their first name.

I had a friend whose mother told them the day they graduated from Harvard was the worst day of her life, because now they would never be a good wife to a decent man. Family can really be shit sometimes. In my own experience, active assertion of your independence has the best results - either they come over to your side of things or they end up leaving you alone on way or another. You don't have to seek out confrontation, but don't do the soft sell when it finds you. "Yeah, I'm in school for X. No, my personal finances aren't much of your business."

Not that you haven't considered it, but my first question is always is it worth it to drop the car? Many universities are eminently walkable, and services like zipcar (often subsidized for students) work out to be cheaper than owning.

"You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do." - David Foster Wallace

It was OSU's main campus - you should double check on the details, as I didn't take the offer. I can tell you that Brown offers a $700 subsidy to any graduate student that doesn't take Brown health insurance (which is 100% covered by the university).

I've not heard about this at any institution, private or public, including my own. I was offered exactly this sort of subsidy as part of my package at OSU. A $36,000 fine is peanuts to a university that's already spending $3.1 million on health insurance. This sounds like a load of nonsense. I suspect someone's playing politics.

A disinterest in language acquisition is a bit of a (true) stereotype for Americanists. It can even cause some problems in Americanist-dominated departments, where many of the professors don't understand why their counterparts in other fields take so damn long to finish their degrees. I think it is always worth the time to acquire reading fluency in at least one other language. You gain access to theory and arguments you would otherwise miss.

My first major piece of graduate level writing (in my MA) came back with 5,000 words of comments on a 6,000 word essay.* Without comments, you can't improve. That's how writing works. * It also included the note: "I would usually not recommend that a student with this level of writing ability continue to PhD-level graduate work." This comment was specifically designed to do what it did - enrage my contrarian instinct and improve my output. That professor had my number right good.

To be blunt, this is not a great answer. I'm not a psychologist, so I can't help you over that hurdle. However, given the job market, not to mention the fact that some of the professors might well be a better fit and that very few of the schools on your current list have strong funding packages, it's a hurdle you really need to get over.

As GSC just said, apply to where you want to go, not to where you think you'll get in. For example, are there are no professors at any Ivy or similar (Stanford, UChicago) who study what you want to study?

Unless you're hoping there's a forum member who both has deep knowledge into the inner workings of your departmental power transfer AND can somehow instantly recognize your school from the description above, I'm not entirely sure what sort of insights you expect.

You know, I've been told A-S studies is a snake pit. And wow, that is indeed a review.

"A graph representing this dependence on p. 36 is most helpful, although the arrows in the drawing seem to be pointing in the wrong direction."

Oh dear. That's... special.

I can only think to link this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/sexist-peer-review_n_7190656.html

Having German and French is really good. Russian would help you if you wanted to look at Byzantium. You could probably make a decently competitive application with what you have, provided you had a persuasive reason for your switch in your SOP and had a good writing sample in your new area. However, adding Latin to your repertoire would certainly strengthen your application. How you would go about doing this would depend a lot on where you're geographically located (if you want to keep that private, you can PM me and I'll see what I know), but it would also provide a decent amount of time to start practicing your German and French reading skills. There are often summer archaeology expeditions where professors take undergraduates and need some graduate students to supervise. If you have any contacts at your MA or BA institutions, you might see what they're doing. Otherwise, you're probably out of luck unless you're independently wealthy.

I tried, and I do not.

"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes." It may be that your supervisor was a bit of a jerk. He certainly sounds like one from your retelling. However, in my own personal experience, nothing aids intellectual maturity so much as growing older. I would at least give it a try again. But: can you quantify "lackluster"?

That's pretty deep into the Dot. General rule: the further south and west you go, the less safe it is until you cross the Neponset. Melville (to) Park (streets) is kinda in the middle of gentrification, so it's a border area. Check out http://www.universalhub.com/, specifically http://www.universalhub.com/crime/dorchester.html . I would expect what you've found to be acceptable, given your options.

Which neighborhood of Dot? It's important

Well guess which email platform my institution uses (and doesn't have the option enabled).

...how does one do this?

If you're walking distance from a red line stop in Dot, no, it will be pretty smooth, 20-30min. Except if a train breaks down during rush hour, which will turn your whole commute into a waking nightmare. It's ok though - that only happened twice this week . Fortunately, you should have the ability never to commute during rush hour, which I strongly suggest you take advantage of.

I've never escaped without paying all 3. Once, I paid a realtor's fee on top of that. $6,000 just to get the keys. Welcome to The Suck.