roguesenna

I'm not familiar with your department but your story here is a good one. I would say take some tutelage in the languages you think you need whether they be greek, latin, hebrew or whatever, and bring yourself to fluency. I don't think you really need a Masters degree to do that, but if it's free, having another Masters I would assume would only help your application. Once you've got a handle on the languages, just apply, show them how much you've improved, include your story in your SOP and I think you'll be on equal footing with the rest of us.

tell her the Victorians were very religious and you are going to consider other perspectives on "the Lord" to give you a better understanding of your place in the universe and how to serve him. or some other something. maybe.

emailed them to ask if there were any updates on the timeline. no response yet. I guess just more waiting...

He's too polite to enter someone's mind without permission.

I'd be down for an FB group. And yeah, I've heard he's one of the worst bosses in the city, if not the country. TBH though, if they'd hire me, I'd at least give it a try for a while. At least I know going in. And I'm hoping that the position I'm going for is so low level that I'll have minimal interaction with him. But no use worrying about that sicne I haven't even heard back from them yet.

haven't seen it, but I'm curious, did they have any theatre/film studies/performing arts PhD students involved? I kind of stopped reading PhD comics because they rarely ever talked about anything related to my major and it was so science focused. and as far as the topic goes, only thing I can think of is Grey's Anatomy's first few seasons, but that's all med students. hmmmm.... maybe I should write something.

legal limit

I had two professors that were basically the opposite sides of the coin on this. It was so weird. When I was applying to MFAs, one talked me out of applying to some of the harder schools basically suggesting that I wouldn't get in and should aim more middle of the road. Another asked me why wasn't I applying to Yale and NYU, etc? Unfortunately, I listened to the first one. Now that I'm applying to PhDs though, both are much more supportive and second prof is now on sabbatical in the city where I live and she's like "just wait until you get to do sabbatical! You will love it!" I love that she's taken for granted that I will get in and get my PhD and become a prof like her and be enjoying my sabbatical just like she is.

chaos emerald

Yes, but I am so hoping that I don't have to use them. but basically in a nutshell it's 1.) do more theatre 2.) try to get published 3.) retake the GREs. 4.) help my SO figure out if he's going to change careers.

NYU was supposed to inform me by yesterday. No email. >:[ how long do I wait before emailing them?

I have no clue, but you might try cross-posting to your specific department thread. They might be more familiar with the schools and be able to give you better answers.

Have you considered Northern Manhattan? i.e. Inwood, Washington Heights, etc.? It's pretty cheap compared to the rest of Manhattan and is closer to the center of the city than the Bronx if you ever want to socialize and stuff. I'm not sure where Fordham is in the Bronx, but it might be slightly safer. A lot of the nicer places in the Bronx can be much like expensive suburbs (i.e. Riverdale, etc.) Kind of, yeah. I am looking at commuting from Wash. Heights to NYU and am already considering moving closer. From Wash Heights, it takes me 40m to get to midtown. About an hour to NYU. If you're coming from Jersey, add at least 30m. It's not that it's impossible, but it will make you much more reluctant to socialize and participate in anything more than the bare minimum requirements. I have considered moving to Jersey but my SO and I decided the savings weren't worth the commute. I agree with the earlier poster, the tax rate for this income bracket is about 20%. This year I declared myself exempt from federal taxes (this can be risky, so you have to make absolutely sure you're eligible) and my tax rate was 12.75% (state taxes, NYC taxes, plus a few things you can't exempt from, like social security). So your 10% is way too low.

I'm from Michigan and we are pretty much Canada Light. We even have Tim Hortons.

TEEN GIRL SQUAD (cheerleader! so-and-so! what's-her-face! the ugly one!) no seriously though. fire drill

this makes me want to become a vigilante. Ramsay would be worse. It wouldn't be that hard to shut Joffrey up if it was just you and him in the room.

Killer Queen

Being in one of the two buildings in Harlem yesterday... (for those who have no idea what I'm talking about http://time.com/#21360/building-collapse-east-harlem/)

I was sort of facing a similar decision -- not exactly the same, but close -- and I eventually settled on option 2 because: a.) option 1 is really difficult. What are you going to do to improve your application besides the GREs? GREs are a realtively small piece of the application. You can try to make your SOP and letters better, but they are ultimately pretty subjective and you won't be able to quantitatively measure whether that has made your application any better. Your GPA isn't going to change between now and then so the only concretely measurable difference will be your GRE scores which, alone, probably won't be enough to swing you from second tier applicant to first tier applicant. IMHO, the best way to improve an application is to add more experience. b.) option 3 is tempting. You get to start your PhD now and you get to be comfortable for a while without worrying that you're going to have to pay all this back later. But you can't take option 3 as an isolated situation. You have to compare it to the alternative which is option 2. c.) comparison. what matters most here is how strong of a resume you will need when you come out. Obviously, the stronger the better, so the "safe" option is option 2 (go to prestigious MA with the understanding that it will significantly improve your chances of prestigious PhD). If your field is small and oversaturated (like mine), you put a lot at risk by going to an average or mediocre program. On the plus side, minimal loans to pay back, on the other hand, your job prospects will be limited. You also have to investigate what your expected salary would be once you graduated. In my field I can expect between 70K and 115K as a tenured professor. For me, that is worth the exhorbitant cost of an NYU MA, especially if it gets me into the NYU, Columbia, Northwestern or UCSD PhD, since those schools will undoubtedly correspond with at least a small bump in prospects/salary. This is how I looked at the decision. Hope it helps. TLDR: Think about risk v. reward and return on investment. Try to look at least 10 years down the road for each option. Imagine best & worst case scenario. [ETA:] Alternative way to beef up app: publishing or presenting. difficult outside of academia, but if you think you can then option 1 might be worth reconsidering.

reminds me: getting asked by your mother how much time she has to save up for your wedding... ... ... when you're not even engaged.

actually *just* found a job posting to work as an assistant for Scott Rudin productions... and as far as NYU goes, it looks like a few of the Performance Studies MAs were notified, but I did the split app (apply to both PhD and MA) and haven't been notified yet. Noel Rubinton told me Mar 16th was the outside date for PhD review. I don't know if this is helpful for MFAs, but tha's where I'm at.

getting let go from your job while waiting on your last chance offer? (which might very well be an across-the-board rejection)