rising_star

Am I ever *NOT* in the top 10? Also, way to go, bgk. You're not often that active.

I don't know what it's like, but I'm the child of someone that pursued a PhD after having her third child. Whenever I complain about grad school, my mom points out that she always made time for us and that I do have time for things, I just manage my time poorly. So, time management is key. It helped that my father was working full-time and making good money when my mother went for her PhD (and also that they had been making less a few years before when my mother was working full-time while my dad went to law school). Also it helped that she had a supportive dissertation advisor and a fellowship for her coursework years (later she was an RA for her advisor, who is still a family friend). That said, my mother did only apply to one graduate program because it wasn't possible for our family to relocate. She actually wrote her dissertation as a single mother (long story, it was a rough year), which certainly delayed completion. FWIW, I think fathers and mothers face different issues when it comes to graduate school, in part due to "traditional" parenting roles and perceptions of which parents should be the primary caregiver.

Expect that professors will be treating you like junior colleagues and have higher expectations than your undergrad professors had. That each one will be different and be looking for slightly different things in assignments. Expect that they want you to do well. Depends on the students, depends on the program. Graduate students are people pursuing advanced degrees. That's about the only generalization that I'm willing to make. Again, depends on the program and your funding situation. My department requires 9 credit hours for students with a TA or RA position; 12 credit hours for those without. What you choose to fill those hours varies: I usually take a combination of lecture and seminar courses; other students take 1-2 courses and enroll in independent study for the remaining hours. Depends on how your work, the workload of your program, whether you have to do research/write grants independently, etc. Poverty depends on stipend levels in your program and/or your ability to secure a part-time job.

Actually, the descriptiveness of course titles varies from one university to the next. In my MA program, all the courses are "Seminar in X Subfield", "Seminar in Y Subfield", etc. so they don't say much about the course content. For example, the seminars on social justice, critical race theory, and political ecology all use the same course number and basic name. In such a case, sending a list of relevant coursework is useful since the label "Seminar in X" is wholly undescriptive of what was actually studied in the course. That said, course titles on the transcript from my undergrad are all very descriptive of the course content. Even so, I still pulled out the most significant of those and listed them under relevant coursework (I'm in an interdisciplinary field and I wanted to make it clear to them that I've taken courses in related areas, which gave me insight into the literatures and methodologies used in my own subfield).

It's really not a big deal as long as you earn the degree before beginning your graduate coursework. Seriously. I switched my MA graduation from May to August (to accept a TA position) and no one even blinked. They just said to make sure I had transcripts showing the date the degree was awarded sent ASAP (and yes, I got to register for fall semester without them).

I did everything via email. I think in two rounds of applying, only two professors ever requested phone appointments prior to getting accepted. Actually, it might have only been one. So yes, you can get away with doing things strictly via email. If the prof would rather talk on the phone, s/he will say that in a reply.

The answers to your questions really depend on the school. At some schools, junior profs are involved, at others they aren't. Sometimes individual professors get to pick their students, other times decisions are made by a committee. At some schools, applications go through both (ie, adcom selects top applicants and then forwards those along to the professors named in the application). Your best bet is to present a competitive application that will entice someone that isn't in your subfield. The only other thing to worry about is whether the assistant professor will be able to get tenure and what will you do if s/he does not.

YES! Start by listing your education, then include things like your thesis (perhaps with a 3-4 sentence summary if you have the space), publication(s), the research grant, and awards. I had even less than that and managed to make it fill 3/4 of a page. Hell, that's more than I had when I applied to PhD programs while doing my MA.

First, let me just say that I totally disagree on the terminal MA thing. There are many excellent geography departments that offer a MA but not a PhD (Miami of Ohio leaps to mind), provide funding to MA students, and have great faculty. Second, you aren't the only geographer with a entertainment background! Don't worry about your lack of a geography undergraduate degree. Programs know that lots of students come in with not much of a geography background, in large part because so few schools (relatively speaking) offer geography courses. Third, you might try checking out the journal Political Geography to see where folks are working. Or just search department webpages. There's been some faculty movement since that guide was published.

I wouldn't worry too much about cost-of-living as stated by calculators. A better thing to do would be to talk to some current grad students and ask if they are able to live ok/comfortably on their stipend and what they do if not. (Oh, and ask more than one person since people often have widely different lifestyles...) As for loans, there are lots of reasons for taking out subsidized loans. Several people I know used them to purchase a vehicle after moving to a place where not having a car was basically impossible. Others use them to pay off credit card debt, greatly lowering their monthly payments. I don't see what's wrong with taking out some or all of the subsidized amount to ensure you can live comfortably (ie, eat healthy food, sleep on a comfortable mattress, see doctors/dentists when you need to, etc.).

I briefly entertained the idea of applying for this assistantship for a 3 year dual-master's program. It would've meant that I'd have three master's degrees, two of which would be in related fields. I actually might still apply since the deadline is in January but I doubt my PhD advisor would be happy (plus, it'd mean leaving ABD only to take 2.5 MORE years of coursework).

If you make it clear that you're doing the MA to narrow down your research interests, I think you'll find that profs are fairly responsive. They know you don't have it all figured out, whether you're applying for the MA or the PhD (because, if you did, you wouldn't be headed to graduate school). I was pretty vague with my interests when I applied to MA programs, and in the emails I sent before applying. I did identify some potential areas for my research and what I was hoping to learn more about in school. I'd say the strategy worked ok as I got into 4 of the 6 programs to which I applied.

I don't think it's necessary for professional master's programs, unless you're planning to complete a thesis and will need a supervisor for it.

I would try to get a TA position at the university, which would likely be teaching freshman comp. The experience will help you decide if this career is the right one for you and give you valuable teaching experience so you aren't thrown off when you have to TA as a PhD student. As for living expenses, are you in an expensive area? Because your budget for living expenses are more than what most PhD students (outside of NYC and maybe Chicago) make in a month... If you plan to continue on to the PhD, you'll have to cut down your living expenses if you plan to live even close to what your stipend is.

I agree with everyone that's said that you aren't too old to start graduate school. My mom started her PhD program at 33, and finished 8 years later. BUT, she doesn't have a career in academia (never wanted one) so I can't say anything about trying to get a TT job.

I would write something in line with your research interests (the research you want to pursue in graduate school). A lengthy personal statement would not be appropriate if they are asking for a separate writing sample.

UCSD is basically a comparative literature program without the name. Though they don't say this explicitly, they're expecting applicants to have two non-English languages generally speaking. So you'd be taking graduate seminars not only through their department (which would be in English) and then graduate seminars in Spanish and possibly another department. And, FWIW, I know one of my friends who spent four years living and working in Mexico City found graduate seminars in Spanish challenging not only due to the volume of the reading but also the difficulty of reading things like literary criticism in another language. Of course you don't need a BA in literature to apply but if you don't have one, you'll need to convince the admissions committee of your ability to do graduate coursework in literature. Also, it's not common for comparative literature programs to require the English Lit GRE because it focuses on things that most comparative literature students (and faculty) do not. Just so there's no doubt, UCSD is an incredibly selective PhD program and they also weed students out by flunking them on their comprehensive exams (so the competition doesn't end when you get in).

Yep, my program will likely admit only 7 or so students this year, instead of the usual 15 (MA and PhD), due to funding constraints. I'm at a flagship state university and I imagine other universities have the same budgetary troubles.

I sent a CV to every school I applied to, whether they asked or not. Given that when I was applying to PhD programs my CV was only a page, I doubt it really annoyed anyone. That said, I never sent a writing sample, except for the one program (out of 7) that required it. Don't think it hurt me. Just make sure the SOP is well-written.

A lot of people using GIS for that kind of research can be found in geography departments.

http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php

You can't. I wouldn't even worry about it. The most important thing in the letter is what it says *about* you. If there are grammatical/typographical errors, that reflects poorly on the prof but not on you.

I haven't actually put this but I would put something like "Stay-at-home mother" or "Homemaker" or something like that.

coyabean, I recommend looking through the survey results to see when programs notified last year. As for a range, I heard back by Jan 20 from a school with a Jan 1 deadline, and as late as the last week of March from a program with a Jan 15 deadline. So yea, definitely a range. (And don't take this part the wrong way but I wouldn't be surprised if in your case you heard earlier, rather than later. Mostly because the program has to admit you if they want to nominate you for University-wide awards [like diversity fellowships], whose decisions are usually made in mid-March or so.)

There's no such thing as safety schools, imo. You shouldn't apply anywhere where you wouldn't want to enroll. Now granted, you may learn more after applying or on a visit that makes you not want to go somewhere but you shouldn't spend money applying to some place that's a backup and/or that you don't think you'd be happy at.