sinequanonsarah

Other things to consider besides stipend amount and cost of living are the other benefits that may be connected with your package. I'm at a University where the graduate students are unionized - I get year-long health benefits (which came in great use when I had to have shoulder surgery this year), a staff discount at the bookstore, etc. This may be especially useful information for those international students who are used to national health care! Also, I've never heard of anyone who was offered a stipend and NOT tuition remission. Your program at Brown likely just didn't mention it; I would contact the graduate secretary of your program to double-check. You'll likely have to pay some fees, but tuition should be covered. Best of luck!

ok, has ANYONE here heard ANYTHING from UPenn?? According to the results section of this site, people have been accepted, rejected, and one person even posted last Thursday that they were waitlisted. I have heard nothing. Nadda. Zilch. And it's making me crazy. I have another program pressing me for an answer, despite the fact that April 15 is still almost a month away (see my post in the "April 15 freakout forum") and would really like to hear SOMETHING from Penn so that I can tell this other program what's going on...

l0vdagame - while I'm sorry that you're having to go through this, I'm also glad to know that I"m not the only one! What I decided to do was to email the grad secretary at school B, explain the situation, and ask if she might be able to give me an idea as to the decision-making timeframe so that I can inform the other program that has given me an offer. So maybe you could email the schools from whom you are awaiting funding decisions and try the same approach... At least with them, you know that you've already been accepted!! I have a little more time than you, but as a last resort, I will pull out the April 15 thing. If I were you, I would call the graduate school at UA-LR first, just to make sure that the program to which you've been accepted applies under the CGS agreement (I'm sure that it does, but at least this way you have "official" notification from someone at the university). At that point, I would then say to the program, "I'm a bit confused as to when I have to respond to your offer, because the Graduate School said that I have until the 15th of April because of this CGS agreement..." That will be my approach, anyway, if I have to go there. I hope I don't, though :|

I feel silly for not knowing this already, as it seems to be common knowledge for many on the board, but for those of us who don't know, how do we find the official rankings of programs that we are interested in? I've found the US World News/Report online, but it only gives you the first three schools for free, and you have to pay them $15 (!) to get the full list. So does anyone know how to get this list? Or, if someone has access to this list, would you be willing to PM me so that I can ask you about two schools?

Update: I got home this evening to a formal letter... from the Graduate School of the University. Still nothing from the department, though. Oh, and nothing attached re: the CGS agreement. I'll drag my feet until the 15 days are up and, if I still haven't heard anything from school B at that point (please, god, let me have heard from school B by then...), then I will figure out what to do from there. But hopefully I don't have to wait that long. *sigh.

so far I've received no admissions letter. Only lots of (email) correspondence with the grad director. Regarding this (because I thought I should have received something by now, as well, seeing as I was notified of my acceptance on Feb 15), I said in one email to him "I'm sure that a formal letter of acceptance is on it's way..." and then in another email I outright asked "when is it going to get here?" In the same email with the "15 days" comment, he says that I should receiving the formal letter "in the next couple of weeks." This University is definitely on the Council of Graduate Schools... should I return his email saying that I won't be able to give an answer until I have a formal acceptance notification from both the department and the Graduate School of the University? And should I light a fire under school B's butt? Very precarious... :?

I emailed the grad program director at school A; his response states that I can put off responding to their offer... exact words "if you know from them within the next 15 days, it's ok." This email was sent March 10. That would put a necessary response date at March 25. Based on the results search section of this site, School B doesn't typically respond until late March... and sometimes early April. So what to do??? Should I contact the grad secretary at school B, explain my situation, and find out if it is likely that I will hear anything from them by this point? Would it be better to talk to the grad director at School B? And WHY are they RUSHING me?? I only applied to 2 schools, so it's not like I'm sitting on all these offers. I understand that they want to move onto their waitlist asap if necessary, but I just don't have an answer for them yet... advice please!!!

Ok, so I have one school (A) that has accepted me into their program. Yay. I heard from them mid-February. I'm still waiting on another school ( (and I don't expect to hear from them until the end of March-ish). The graduate program director at school A is pressuring me to give them an answer (so that they can move onto their wait list if necessary). I completely understand the rush on their part... but at the same time, I want to wait to hear from school B before I make any decisions. I returned the email asking for a date by which they have to know, and explaining the situation. But in the meantime, I'm wondering... don't they HAVE to give us until April 15th? Does this change if there is funding involved (I got a TA from school A)?

hmm... good question. What I've done with the departments I'm interested in is to email the graduate secretary directly. They have to keep this sort of information for records. Another option, though, for individuals who are members of ASA, is to see if ASA has any sort of program profile that includes this sort of information... I'm not a member anymore, so I can no longer access that "special-members-only" type info on the website... But if anyone else is, I would be interested to know if this is possible!

When I applied to Pitt the first time around back in 2004, I heard from them early to mid-march-ish, from my recollection (positive response). As I recall, I received a letter in the mail (versus an email or phone call).

Wow - this is really a great discussion.... I am a first generation college student and come from a poor family. I chose to attend a small state school for my undergrad education, and did well there. I was accepted at other, more "prestigious" private schools, but freaked out when I realized a) how much money I would need to take out in student loans, and when I visited the campuses and realized how white they were (I am white, but having grown up in a mid-sized city/urban environment and gone to public schools in which I was, numerically, in the minority, the largely white campuses came as quite a shock to me). As an undergrad, I took out student loans to pay for my tuition, and worked anywhere from 20 -35 hours per week (depending on the semester) to be able to pay rent, bills, etc. One semester I took 6 courses (you paid the same amount for 4 courses or 6, so I figured I'd better load up and get my money's worth), and at the same time worked a total of 35 hours a week at FOUR jobs. I don't know how I was able to do that and keep my GPA up, but I made it happen I've already been in a PhD program, but was able to stay for just a year - even though I was funded, the area was expensive. I remember that others in my cohort had all sorts of bills paid for by their parents; car insurance (I couldn't even afford a car, never mind the insurance), cell phone bills, textbooks, heat... you name it. Even still, I was at a public university then, too, so that helped some. I ended up leaving, though, when I had to return home to help my family out. Since then, I've been waiting to get myself back in school as soon as possible. I chose to apply to schools in Philadelphia because that way I could still be close enough to help my family. The schools that were available for my field were Temple and UPenn... I've been accepted to Temple, and I think that the environment at Temple would be the most comfortable for me. UPenn has a better name and would help to ensure that I would be able to get a job fairly quickly, but I'm concerned at the idea of being in that Ivy League atmosphere. I've never been in an atmosphere like this and don't know how well I'd fare. I might be ok with the other grad students, but to be a TA for undergrads that just seem like they're from a different world... Who knows, I might not even be accepted (I feel as though my application is good enough, but don't know that the "name" of my undergrad institution would be good enough for them...) so it might not even be an issue. But if I am accepted, I'll have to think long and hard about that one! Congrats to all of us who have been here and made it - so far!

anonuser, I think that the answer to your question might depend on what the timeline looks like for the particular department that you're thinking of. If the department typically gives out answers fairly soon (next couple of weeks or so), my guess would be that the interview would be used as a tool by the committee to decide between some closely-matched contenders. If, though, the department doesn't typically respond for a little while longer (some don't seem to make any decisions until late march or even early april), then it could just be a part of their normal decision-making process... Check the results list history to see when the department in question typically makes decisions, and that might help you out...

Not sure about this... I know that, for my cohort, somewhere in the nieghborhood of 200 applied, and about 10 were admitted (all with full funding). Best of luck - all we can do is cross our fingers at this point!

I did like UMass - was very sad to leave. There were, however, a couple of issues that prevented me from applying again. At the time that I was there, the department was rife with political bantering... It was difficult, at that time, for them to keep younger faculty who I was interested in working with (after I left, most of the faculty who I had really connected to also left - a large part of why I decided to not go back). This was, however, during the 04-05 SY, so things may be different. Faculty were pretty attentive, and there was a fair amount of grad student/faculty collaboration on articles and such, which was positive. My stipend at the time was ~$12,000, health insurance was included. There is a pretty active graduate student union on campus, which was also positive. As for the area... I didn't ever really spend a lot of time in Amherst center (except for a couple of good bookstores and the brewing company after stats on Thursdays ) Amherst itself is pretty small, and heavily populated by undergrads. I chose, instead, to live in Northampton, just about 15 minutes away. The area is quite expensive. I found that fellow grad students who were unattached or who had partners with full time income could survive much better than I was able to (my husband had gone back to finish his undergrad at the time). Our 1-BR apartment in NoHo was about $1000/mo. ouch. Cheaper can be found, though, but not by too much. I also noticed in an earlier post that you (?) had mentioned your wife finding employment. This will be difficult in this area - the area is flooded with advanced degrees (since it's the 5-college area in an otherwise rather sparse area of the state). Sorry for the long post. Hopefully my answers help not just you, msocgradstudent, but others, as well.