Neist

I say go for it then. As long as whatever MBA program you attend is aware of your obligations, I see no reason to need a break, and I see no reason why it doing both concurrently is necessarily stretching, especially considering how well you've done so far. Of course, you shouldn't take my advice as gospel. Perhaps another can comment here for a better-rounded opinion. Good luck!

I'm going straight from undergrad to grad, but I don't compete as an athlete. I do one question, though. How time-consuming is your sport? I know a lot college football players have every hour occupied; it's easily a full-time job. However, if you're involved in a sport that isn't as time consuming, then perhaps it would be okay, if for no other reason other than the fact that you've managed to graduate in three years while participating in that sport. That's a pretty heavy load. Do you feel as if you need a break?

That is... the biggest container of nutella. I've ever seen. There are no words.

Well, sort of. They generally won't pressure you before then, but some can. It's a voluntary compliance. April 15 is the date that schools have agreed upon via a Council of Graduate Schools Resolution: http://cgsnet.org/april-15-resolution http://cgsnet.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/CGSResolution_Oct2015.pdf There's the resolution. UIowa has agreed to it, so they shouldn't pressure you before the April 15th, but it doesn't necessarily mean all schools will, or even UIowa will. But they've voluntarily agreed not to.

Can you imagine the tsunami of emails they must get this time of year? It must be a nightmare.

I've worked in a law school for the last decade, so I'm somewhat familiar with what you can pull from certain programs, albeit from a quasi-outsider perspective. I wouldn't say your friend's choice was necessary a terrible one. The average starting salary of someone graduating from Harvard is considerably higher than pretty much anywhere else in the United States. I think it's around $150k, if memory serves. I think Yale is only around $70k. As per the topic at hand, I'm not sure. I'm in a similar situation as the OP. My only offer thus far would be at least $40k in loans a year before living expenses. I was awarded a fellowship, but it's only for $5600. However, there is opportunity for RA positions, but I assume those wouldn't pop up in my first year. I've been advised by some of my faculty members that this program is fantastic, but that's an awfully large amount of loans to take out for a MA. I could always eat those loans and get a funded PhD afterwards, I suppose. If anywhere else I applied to awarded me a tuition waiver I'd have a difficult time choosing the expensive program over that one. It's something I'd have to invest several days of careful consideration.

Booze. You can eat booze, right?

I'm drinking the finest 6 dollar gin I have in my cabinet. That's about all my finances can afford me at the moment. Good luck! I wish you the best! Don't happen to live in Oklahoma, do you? I do, and we're having that same problem. They pushed the mandatory deadline for it, so I can still fly, but I'm afraid I'm going to get a passport soon. Ugh. I don't have the money for a passport.

As a parent who is fixing to hopefully start graduate school in the fall, I can say that these people sound horrible. Horrible. Some of the hardest years of my education was when my daughter was a baby, and not only did I perform adequately, I excelled. Being a parent made me excel, even if it was far more difficult. I've considered at length how I should respond to your initial post, and your last reply codified what I would do in your situation. If jobs are easily available with the education you currently obtain, and you want children, if I were in your situation, I'd attempt take a leave of absence and attempt to have children. And if they didn't like me making such a request, I would leave the program. To be honest, it doesn't sound like the environment I'd enjoy partaking. Being a father is the most rewarding experience I've ever had. I would gladly work in hard labor for the rest of my life if I had to choose between furthering my education and being a good parent. Being a parent is that rewarding to me. Again, this is just my personal opinion. You need to do what's best for you, but I definitely suggest you follow your instincts. My two cents.

Thanks! I hope we all do well. I know we've probably all worked hard to get to this point. Maybe some of us have had more hiccups along the way, but a journey to anything worthwhile is never easy.

Well, this is a pretty easy question. I'm a pretty obsessive person, and I throw myself into my interests completely. I'd like to get paid (e.g., funded) while continuing my obsession, so a funded graduate school program certainly seems apt. I also have a daughter, and I've love to demonstrate to her that hard work can pay off. I'm from a lower income family and will be a first generation college graduate. Society certainly isn't as egalitarian as it should be, but I want her to know that many things in life are definitely possible if one is determined to work at them long enough.

I admit my perspective is probably a bit odd. I've been working on my undergrad for fourteen years. I'm scheduled to finish this May. Fourteen years of working full-time, marriage, children, and 220 credit hours later, I'm finally ready to move onto graduate school. To be honest, five to six years of funded school sounds like a cake walk. At the very least, it'll be easier than what I'm finishing now. The only thing I can imagine being more difficult than what I have been doing is finishing a college degree as a single parent. I have incredible respect for anyone who can pull that off.

Congrats! I know this sounds a bit nutty, but I feel as if the real achievement is getting into grad school, not completing the degree. Getting into a good grad school feels like a far more difficult task than completing it. Completing grad school just requires effort and time. Both of those are usually easy to come by.

Sure do! Some of my advisers, mentors, etc. seem to think I'll get into most, if not all of the programs I've applied to, but that doesn't seem to line up with the numbers very well. Even if I'm amazingly optimistic I doubt I have better than a 50% shot of getting in. The numbers are stacked against me. However, I've never seen a typical applicant pool, nor has the majority of applicants waiting it out on these forums. So who knows, really? I agree. Said person might have a degree in interpretative dance or underwater basket weaving. The prestige of the university carries some, but it's definitely not the entire story. I keep telling myself that a lot of the absurdly qualified applicants on this website are aberations, not the norm. Hang out these boards long enough, and you're pretty much certain to feel inadequate. I've gotten one acceptance so far, but it's pretty much an unfunded MA at one of the priciest-to-attend universities in the US. Not sure how I feel about that. At least it is an option, and an option I'm sincerely glad to be offered.

You know, I have no clue! I assume it'd be both, as some of the better programs in a lot of disciplines have no MA, just PhD.

I applied to an odd assortment of history of science, STS, and cultural studies programs. My interests are fairly interdisciplinary, so I'm just applying to places that feel right, regardless of the degree type.

I'm not sure how well these numbers can be trusted, but Magoosh published an interesting infographic a few years back. http://magoosh.com/gre/2014/gre-scores/ Education programs have fairly low standards for GRE, if the graph is to be believed. Now, if you're applying to MBA programs, that's an entirely different animal.

Congrats to whomever got the interview at Yale! Popped up today on the results.

To be honest, you'd have some difficulty locating a hotel in some parts of Oklahoma lower than 100 USD. Someone who has actually spent some time in NYC might inform you better than I, but I'd say AirBnB seems like the way to go.

Man, I don't know if I have energy to narrate it. I'm interested in representation and identity. I guess the nutshell version is that I've always been interested in history, but I've always been more interested in people rather than events or places. I used to study art history, but I changed disciplines because art historians generally focus on the creation not the creator. This general interest in people cultivated an interested in biographies, which cultivated an interest in cultural rhetoric and bias, which cultivated into an interest of identity, in all representational forms. I guess that was easier than what I expected!

I'm not sure if HoS does interviews (I'm assuming we're talking about Yale), to be honest. Even as a whole, across the entire discipline. Acceptance pools aren't very large in HoS, but applicant pools aren't terribly large either. Maybe committees feel it's unnecessary to further cull the pool via a secondary layer. As far as I understand, it's rare for a higher-ranked HoS departments to get more than 20-40 applicants, and many programs only accept 3-5. I think the University of Oklahoma gets around 20? If memory serves, they accept a fair number of them, but only a minority gets awarded funding. Consequently, the pool of those who matriculate is pretty small. The department I'm in now doesn't do interviews, but I believe they do fly in acceptances before April 15 to feel out the program. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the ivies do the same. Then again, I'm applying mostly to STS programs, even though my focus has up to now been primarily historical. My interests fit better into STS programs. I have very little clue how STS programs work. Maybe they interview?

Indeed! I'm nervously rubbing my hands together waiting for Cornell's STS results. I probably have another month, at least.

Well, let's consider the silver lining. I've wondered how often people get turned down from programs because there was an inevitable mistake (no one fills out tons of forms without at least a minor flaw) and don't get notified about it. I imagine people looking at my application, scoffing, then ripping it into a million pieces and tossing it aside. Although, if a person or committee actually did that, I'm not sure if I'd want to attend such a program. That seems overly harsh. I've read stories by others on these boards of people who've later found glaring and significant mistakes in their writing samples long after they've been accepted into the program which read said writing sample. I try to hope that unless you're applying to a very, very exclusive program, like Rockefeller or Yale Law, there's going to be a little bit of sympathy exercised by programs.

If it counts, I'm applying for a dual MA degree with History of Science and MLIS here at the University of Oklahoma (the school I currently work for). To be honest though, I'm not really all that concerned with getting in. I've worked within the university's library system for 10 years, and 9 of those were in management. One of my letters is from the branch I work for's director. I'd be shocked if I didn't get in. Where are you considering apply to? What sort of librarianship are you interested in? This forum doesn't get enough traffic. We should change that.

Not at all. Mostly because I didn't apply to Yale, but... In all seriousness, I hope the best for all those who applied. Hopefully all of us here can be placed into an environment in which we can grow and excel.