growing19

Me too! Hey, sista.

The MA programs at Boston College and Villanova fund a group of students in each incoming class. Delaware funds all incoming Master's students.

Ann Arbor itself does not have the landscape of Burlington, but the fall season is still gorgeous! And you have the Arb for getting out into nature. If you have a car (although I don't think you need one), you can go Up North to enjoy some spectacular scenery and Lake Michigan. I'll be there myself in a month

Congratulations! Delaware has a fantastic program - I visited during the recruitment weekend and was very impressed by how warm and open the faculty are. I have been told by my professors, and sensed myself, that they do a great job of treating grad students as peers and cultivating community. I met Professor Larkin, of course, and Julian Yates. Both do very interesting research, I think, and both are teaching neat classes this fall (ask for the course list, if you haven't received it yet). The material culture program is very strong, so you're heading to the right place. Definitely check out the Lasner Collection - it's mostly Pre-Raphaelite, incredible stuff. The current students are really helpful with advice about the program and recommendations on where to live, etc., so be sure to connect with them before the fall. The campus is quite pretty, too. That's about all I can think of right now. I won't be attending, but I think the program is great and wish you the best of luck!

Horray! That's going to be a tough - but exciting - decision, especially considering the attractions of studying abroad. Keep me posted on your visit to BC.

P.S. Congratulations on your acceptance into a fantastic program!

Oh, my. I wish I could help you with suggestions for programs, but that idea never occurred to me until you brought it up. I may do some research and let you know. Alternatively, if your family situation wouldn't prevent it, could you rent your home and move closer to campus? I'm looking at both options (selling and renting) for my condo.

Hi stormy, I hope that you've received your letter by now and that it contains good news. My letter from BC was dated March 2 and arrived in DC on March 10, so it does seem that the Pony Express loves to tease us anxious grad students! You were right to seek the advice of your professors and to do your independent research on programs when applying; I hope that you will do the same in making your decision about what school to attend. While it's very important to consider the experiences that others have had, I agree with outofredink's suggetion that you make every effort to visit the school and see what your own feelings tell you about the culture. I'll be visiting BC next week to meet with the professors and current students. I've been treated very graciously by the department thus far. One thing that I hope to do, which you might consider, is attend one of the writing seminars taught by a grad student. It will give you a sense not only of how the teaching program works, but how it might be to work with the undergrads there. As an aside, while outofredink's experience is unfortunate, my anecdotal knowledge of BC comes from a good friend who went there for undergrad and is far from a trust fund baby (in fact, she was almost forced to drop out for financial reasons). She loved her time at BC and has never expressed, to me at least, a feeling of isolation or that the school lacked diversity. I'm just putting that out there as a different perspective. Best of luck with the rest of your admissions and your decision! Is anyone else considering the MA program at Boston College? I'd love to be in touch.

I hope it's all sorted out now, LateAntique. Best of luck! I struggled with whether to follow up as well, because I feel that it's my responsibility as the applicant to make sure everything is complete. I ultimately decided to be proactive. Only in one case did that involve contacting a school that requested applicants not to enquire; to be clear, it was because something major appeared to be missing on my status page, and I was concerned that waiting until they contacted me would not allow enough time to correct a problem, if one existed. So I emailed, on the logic that they could easily ignore it or delay responding if they were too busy. However, I received a very kind reply that same afternoon, assuring me that my application was complete. It was a huge relief just to have that confirmation, so my two cents is to contact them if something seems truly amiss with your app. Just try not to panic, as it seems things are easily resolved if you stay on top of them. Good luck, everyone.

Bev sent me a confirmation email, but I had been in contact with her post-deadline regarding a LOR. You could give her a call, if you are concerned. She's incredibly helpful.

I'm glad to hear it's being sorted out. Try not to worry too much about the lateness - I know that's hard to do, because one of my letters was also late. The schools were very understanding, and the ones I spoke with directly told me that my app would receive full consideration.

I would follow up with tech support, too. This happened to me, although not with ApplyYourself, and it was a technical glitch. My professor had to re-submit the letter online, and it worked the second time.

No way! Diane Keaton is fabulous. (This very moment, I'm looking online for tickets to Hair. I promised my friend in NY that we'd see it as soon as my applications were finished.)

Waylance, I love your Broadway selections! Throughout this whole process, I've been listening to "Voice of Truth" by Casting Crowns and "What Faith Can Do" by Kutless. Yeah, they're Christian groups Scoff if you will, but I promise you will feel empowered just by listening!

Today, I broke a 10 day GradCafe "fast." I hear you, missesENG - work is the most tempting time! I'll probably give myself one day per week to check in, for a little levity. At least until those results start popping up!

Agree with intextrovert. You were very responsible and made your best effort to get the application in on time. I'm just trusting that the pre-deadline postmark on my materials is sufficient, and that schools will be understanding about deadlines that fall on holidays or weekends. Others who applied last year have said it was not an issue. For example, in the midst of stressing over this, I checked back on the website of one school that I'm applying to, which cautions about "in office" deadlines, and discovered a little note buried a few lines below that deadlines falling on holidays/weekends will be observed on the next business day (which would be Monday 1/4 for the 1/1 deadline). I'm not even sure we should contact the departments or admissions offices - but I'd like to hear other opinions on that. Best of luck to you!

I have been thinking about the same thing. I haven't found cover sheet specifications on the websites of most programs that I'm applying to (which, unfortunately, are none of the ones you've listed above). My plan is to send a brief cover letter with a list of the materials included in the packet. Perhaps because I've been a worker bee for awhile, it strikes me as the professional and responsible approach. Alternatively, I've seen posts in the forum that discuss more detailed cover letters, along the lines of a job application. However, I wonder if it's best to keep it high-level unless the school specifically asks for a letter...

My Subject raw score is there, too! Thanks for the tip.

Aw, I feel so bad for you, glasses! Good for you for powering through. Hope you feel better soon. I think I did fine, but the timing was tough, and some of the questions were surprising, in that they didn't seem to be asking about the most relevant or "literary" aspects of the passages. I was almost disappointed that I didn't get to use all of the information that I studied! Like, my mind is overflowing with incredible poetry, and they're asking me this? But at least we can celebrate our hard work and accomplishing another step in the process.

I did my MPP at U of Michigan's Ford School ('01-02), and in my experience, econ and stats were extremely important. However, while having some coursework in those areas would strengthen your application, it might not be necessary for admission. With some research, you might find programs that are suited to your experience and interests. If there is an MPP program at your university, I would start by speaking with an advisor there. Michigan's program is on the quantitative end of the spectrum, with Microeconomics, Stats, and Benefit-Cost Analysis as core requirements of the program. Most of us also took Public Finance and International Finance, and most do Econometrics (which I never forced myself to endure, not being especially gifted in the quant department). I had taken Micro, Macro, and Stats when I applied as an undergrad Poli Sci major. Regardless of what program you enter, you will almost certainly have to take some econ and stats classes. If you aren't sure how you like doing that sort of work, it might be wise to try to squeeze in a course before applying (even as an audit or online). Good luck!