kicker

I did quite a bit of research into this before deciding to attend Temple/reject offers from some more prestigious programs. I looked at faculty CVs at the sort of places I'd like to work, and I straight up asked profs about it as well. Here are the factors that drove my decision: *There seemed to be a limited consensus that program prestige matters, but mainly as a tiebreaker between otherwise qualified candidates. E.g., if two candidates have similar pub records, similar letters of rec, roughly equal interviews, then the penn alum is gonna beat the random school alum most of the time. *There was a stronger consensus that your adviser's prestige/reputation matters more than the program's prestige/reputation. So, if you're at a really good school but your adviser has a very poor track record, you're probably worse off than somebody at a lesser program with a very strong adviser. *The quality of your work, especially as reflected by your publication record, is the thing that gets you in the door. To that extent, a lesser program can be a big advantage if you're a big fish and you get lots of opportunities to jump on papers/work with faculty. I think every prof I talked to told me that more/better publications >> better program. So, if you can be a big fish at annenberg, that's optimal. But if you're gonna be jockeying with other students for spots on papers all the time, a lesser program might be a better option. And, like, way nicer from a lifestyle perspective. But, I'm not on the job market yet. So maybe I'm 2 years away from crying into my bowl at the shelter...

Who else is going to ASW at Illinois Mar 14-15?

Hey chris! Nick Just wanted to encourage you to be really cautious about sinking loan $ into a doc program. The way academic hiring looks ATM, it's kind of like investing in beanie babies or something.

Denied by penn :/

Who's your source?

I also got dinged at UW with the same "almost/not quite" email. Suspicious. Very happy I already had two acceptances in my pocket when I heard.

I think you have a shot. It's really hard to tell how much various schools look at the GRE. But...the easy solution is to study really hard and take it again. The test is 100% beatable. Spend time learning it an you won't have to worry about this problem.

Huh, that's really surprising. Congrats! I wonder why the radio silence to the rest of us..

I mean, very low is not zero. If $ is really essential, though, I'd suggest waiting a year, retaking the GRE (you can seriously boost that score with a committed study plan) and applying next year to schools with no phd programs.

no kidding

Very low chances at funding. 1) pre-professional programs rarely give assistantships/fellowships, 2) way better chances getting a TA slot if you're somewhere without a doc program. NW, USC and Syracuse all have phd students to fund, not sure about the others. 3) Your GREs are closer to bad than mediocre. Some schools don't put a lot of emphasis on them so you might get accepted anyway, but funding is probably much more competitive. I'd suggest retaking.

Repost, sorry.

Congrats to all you USC folks. I'm sure I'll be envying you next winter when I'm shivering somewhere. Curious if anyone has heard anything from UW or OSU?

Can some one in the the know give me/us an overview on what "fellowship" means? Is it "assistantship - teaching obligations?" Is it extra $ on top of assistantship? Is it totally dependent on the school?

IDK about IU but I also applied to Penn and haven't heard a peep. The blizzard will probably delay things further.

I taught public speaking, argumentation & debate, and "business and professional communication" as part of my TA gig during my master's. Public speaking is usually pretty boring to teach, imo, but can be fun. It's very reassuring to see that nobody else has gotten decisions back!

Got an interview with Temple, date TBD.

I'm sure they are

in my experience, most people who get MBAs sort of suck as people. Marketing especially

I know GSU has accepted at least one person. Have received no interview requests :/

When is the earliest you've heard of schools sending acceptances? Last year a friend got into Ohio U's phd program on Jan. 2, I think.

Woohoo, I'm finally showing complete at Illinois, Ohio State, Penn, and UW. Question about interviews--I'm out of the country. Are schools open to doing them over skype? Also, how common are interview requests?

Seeking advice on my GRE scores: In early 2012 and got 169v/156q/4.5. I decided to retake to bump the quant score this fall and got 167v/164q. GRE allows you to send either ALL your scores or only the most recent to schools. My question is, do you think I'm better off sending both sets and hoping the focus on the high-high, or should I just send the most recent and sacrifice the 2 points on verbal?

This forum has been helpful to me, so I thought I'd check in and share my data point with everybody. Have an MA, applying for PHD. Interested in mass comm/political comm, mainly from a quant angle. Stats: Ugrad GPA: Real bad MA GPA: 3.9x GRE: have a 169v/156q/4.5 from 3 years ago. Retaking on Thursday to push up the quant score. My impression is that schools don't care much about the writing score. 3 pubs, 2 first-author 3 NCA papers (1 in scholar to scholar, not sure if the distinction matters) Applying to: Penn, Ohio State, Illinois, Washington for sure, maybe Temple, Missouri, Michigan and Wisconsin. I gave American my email address and they've since sent me a dozen University of Phoenix-esque marketing emails.