natsteel

For an Americanist at Yale with no need to go abroad, it is highly possible to do more than two semesters as a TA if one so desires. They expect you to TA in years 3 and 4, but you can also teach in year 5 if you don't take the University Dissertation Fellowship until year 6.

I am a CUNY undergrad that has friends at the GC and I've taken classes there and the above is exactly what the GC expects. In the History Department, the fellowship requires a 2/2 load in which you are effectively another adjunct among many in the CUNY system. CUNY is notorious for using graduate students as an exploitable labor force. It's a big part of the reason the avg. time-to-degree at the GC is more than a year longer than the national average. Their lack of funding and graduate teaching loads, I believe, are a big reason for their relatively low ranking. They have decent facilities and being in the city means there are great resources available and the faculty is for the most part very good. Of course, if you look at the bright side, students graduating from the GC will have much more real-life teaching experience than someone who has TA'd a few classes at a much better school which could stand you in good stead when seeking jobs at certain types of teaching-focused institutions.

We should make a distinction between R1 and SLACs. A research university will likely be more interested in a candidate's research and publishing production, while smaller liberal arts schools focus more on teaching. Someone with very limited teaching experience will be at a slight disadvantage compared to someone with more extensive teaching experience when applying to these types of institutions. And, because jobs at R1 schools are increasingly scarce and you can't possibly predict where you will be competing for jobs 6-7 years from now, it's probably smart to try to find some sort of balance. Obviously, your research has to be of a certain quality, but likewise you must also have some real teaching experience (i.e., more than just 1 or 2 classes as a TA).

I had a similar issue. I got accepted to my top choice and knew immediately I would be attending despite not having heard from 4-5 other schools at the time. However, all my professors told me to wait until after the campus visit to accept the offer, which I did. The campus visit is a chance to be wooed by the school, but if you have already accepted there is no reason for them to woo you. Or, at least, this was my professors' reasoning.

I'm not a drinker either and, in fact, went many years without even touching it. However, in social situations with professors or whatnot, I have "taught myself" to drink the occasional small glass of wine, though I'm not especially fond of it. At a campus visit last week, I drank a small glass of wine and half a beer and probably didn't walk a perfectly straight line back to the hotel. But that's just me... if you really just can't stand it at all, don't drink. These people are adults (for the most part) and will not judge you and, certainly, won't think less of you for not being a social drinker. There is NO shame in drinking water or soda at a social event. Worry about what will make YOU comfortable and not what you probably wrongly think those around you expect of you.

I would've been in the same situation having scored 45th percentile on the Q.

I went to the Yale visiting day this past week and almost everyone wore jeans and sneakers, men and women. It was quite informal even at the seemingly more formal-type events like the welcome dinner or whatnot. I had originally thought of wearing a sport coat and shoes, but even that would've put me way outside the norm. Just my .02...

So I sent them an email yesterday and received a reply this afternoon saying, "Decisions are still in progress. You will be notified via email within the next ten days."

I'm in a somewhat similar position. I will be going from a regional public university to an Ivy program in the Humanities. All the other admittees I met during the visit were from other Ivies or public Ivies and they were quite an impressive group of characters. I feel like I am less worried about the amount and/or challenging nature of the work (I've already seen syllabi) than I am about how (or if) I will fit in with the rest of my cohort. But, either way, the program would not have chosen you if they didn't fully believe that you could handle it. That right there is a huge vote of confidence which you should seriously take into account.

I posted 3 weeks ago when my top choice accepted me and then just the other day when I officially accepted the offer. If anyone was "offended" or off-put by it, I couldn't care less.

A big congratulations, history_PhD!!! @Emerson McConville told me that he could take one student in our field at the most, meaning even that was not guaranteed because of the lack of funding. From some other resource, I remember the stipend being quite small-for Boston, especially, but I can't remember where I saw it.

Why can it only apply to one group in one way? Since when can a word have only one meaning?

Obviously she's also too stingy to pay for internet or a bus to the library.

I don't have much of a decision yet, but actually the bigger school has really been making me feel wanted. My POI first notified me of my pending acceptance three weeks ago. I then received emails from 2 different professors in the department encouraging me to accept the offer and wanting to talk with me when I come for Campus Visit Day. Also, my POI took my wife and I out to dinner (along with my mentor) and sent me info a day or two later about the various school districts in the town (I have two young boys just about school age). All in all, they've done such a fantastic job of making me feel really wanted that I had mentally committed myself to the program before hearing from any possible contenders. Of course, the fact that their standard financial package was unlikely to be exceeded by anyone else helped a bit too.

And only one senior faculty member as well.

Just be honest... tell P1 that you had been in contact (briefly?) with P2 before the deadline. It's not as if you have made some kind of commitment to P2 or even could have done.

I think it's more standardized by field than by school or specific adcomm... I should have specified that I'm in the Humanities, so it may very well be quite different in a STEM field.

I was just talking to one of my mentors about something like this the other day. She's read graduate applications and LORs for many years now and she was saying how you'd be surprised at how many professors hurt their students by not understanding how to write an LOR or the "code" involved. LORs have suffered the same fate as inflated grades. If you don't praise a student by saying they were one of the best students you've ever had, it is assumed that the professor is not putting their full recommendation behind the student. Even if everything they wrote was praiseworthy and true but not hyperbolic, it will be interpreted as being a middle-of-the-road recommendation. She also said she wished she could email these professors to tell them that they were doing their students a serious disservice by not writing the letters "correctly." Unfortunately, there are no "Writing LOR" seminars in grad school...

I'll be heading to Yale, as well, for a PhD in early American History.

Actually, that makes sense. Either way, nothing to do but wait. Best of luck to all of you.

I am assuming not having heard yet means a rejection as well.

Did you check the application website to see if your decision is there?

Same here...

This is how I am approaching it. In emails, I will use Prof. xxxx, until they tell me in person to call them by their first name. Then I would use the first name in emails as well. It's always better to err on the side of formality, especially in the beginning. Besides, you've got the next five years (at least) to call them by their first name...

I know a poster above said "Never," but one of my mentors told me that something like this goes on, at least between top programs (and this person has many personal contacts at those programs). They said that top programs might not admit someone that they know, from those types of communications, has a better offer (not just financially) from a competing program. I am not making a claim of veracity for this statement. Personally, I find it a bit unlikely, but I just wanted to say that I had been told something from a reliable source that contradicts the previous poster's response.