beanman

Fuzzylogician, I see your point. My perspective is that at my top 25 school I may not be able to get a job eventually, since jobs in academia are scarce, but with my debt, a top M.A. and eventually a top 10 PhD I would have a much greater chance. The M.A. program is awesome and with all that I learned this application process (not to sound cocky) but I think I could get into whatever program I wanted with it, if I went about applications better than I did this round. That's why I'm freaking out.

I seemed to have put myself in an awful position, and I would love any help and appreciate all of your feedback. I accepted an offer at one school, thinking that I was rejected from another (top choice) school. I got the email today that I was actually accepted to the other school, but that I had been waitlisted and they were just really bad at getting back to me. I need to decide what to do (and what I can do) between two schools. I want to go for my phd in humanities eventually, but do not have my MA yet. I really am in LOVE with the school I got accepted to today, not only for their program, but because they are considered the best in the country, where as the other school is ranked much lower. School 1 - M.A. Dream school. Very little funding. Will have to take out around $40K in loans. Amazing program with reputation for being able to set people up with good jobs/place them into good programs. Opportunity to get PhD at better ranked school thank School 2. School 2 - M.A./Ph.D. In love with my advisor at this school. Amazing funding (over $25K/yr stipend). Not well ranked. More tailored for my eventual interests. Since it is humanities, ivies matter and prestige matter, which this school doesn't have a ton of. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I'm freaking out. I already accepted the offer at School 2 and I will probably have to work with some of the scholars there, so I don't want to offend them. I also don't want to be a bad person and reject an offer that I already accepted. I know it's still before April 15, but I still don't know if that would be so offensive that I would have problems in the future getting jobs/working in the small field that I do work in. I also feel like I will be seen as a crazy person if I reject an offer from a top school like this, but this is such a hard situation.