johndiligent

Thanks, peppermint.beatnik and LateAntique! It definitely relieves a lot of stress to have an acceptance.

I got my first acceptance on Saturday at 10:00 AM local time. I wasn't expecting results on a Saturday (the weekend was my designated time to not freak out about checking my e-mail) but there you have it.

All of the programmes I'm applying to are MA's, since it's common both in my discipline (Religious Studies) and my country (Canada) to get an MA before applying to PhD programmes. Further to that, I don't have a stellar undergraduate record (a rough year that wreaks havoc on my overall GPA) so I wasn't very confident in being accepted directly to the PhD.

I'm not touching that but holy extreme reaction! Honestly, I don't understand why you're having trouble coming up with back-up plans. CS still means Computer Science, right? And people still work with computers outside of the academy? Maybe I just don't know enough about your field (I'm in Humanities), but I would think that CS would be one of the easiest fields to find work in the private sector, well-paid work at that. Could you not go on to work with Apple or something? I think your question has a lot more to do with what you really want to do, rather than what you possibly could.

finger food

I know this thread is for PhD results, but I'm excited and the news may be relevant to someone: Just (in the last hour) got accepted to the MA in Ancient Culture, Religion and Ethnicity programme at UBC. I can only assume that this means that other UBC Classics, Near Eastern and Religious Studies results are out there or will be out shortly.

I realized two or three weeks ago that I had the same problem as the OP... Cursed stress-eating! So I've been dieting and exercising like mad since then, and I've lost fifteen pounds since about mid-January. So, yeah, you're not the only one who's transitioning from the applying to grad project to the losing weight project.

University of Calgary. All because of the potential advisor.

If you want to play, don't shave your legs?

Haha, love it.

I'm in total agreement, and I think that the timeline is adding a bit of pressure that wasn't there previously. A couple of months ago, when I was working on my apps, no one could have cared less what I was planning on doing next year. No one asked me about it, really. But now that September is creeping closer and closer, the uncertainty of what's going to happen is really getting to me. Every time someone asks about my summer plans or what I'll do next year, I get a sudden shot of dread and anxiety. The good thing is, right now, I'm so confident in across the board rejections that I'm much happier not knowing. I've even stopped checking the results and the online status because I just don't want to know.

One factor to consider is that these are nearly all early acceptances, i.e. stand-out candidates that the school is making first round offers to. I would expect to see the GPA average go down in all cases by the end of May.

You've made it to the short-shortlist. Congrats!

At my undergrad, they meet bi-weekly during peak months.

I had a prof who is obsessed with climbing radio towers. He subscribed to a daily podcast about adventures in climbing radio towers and listened to it while marking. I don't think he'd ever done it, he was just fascinated by the idea. I always thought that was odd.

You've put a slash between visiting and interview, but I think that whether this is a visit or an interview is going to make the difference as to whether you should bring something or not. If you've already been admitted and this is an invited campus visit for successful applicants then I think it would be very courteous to bring something to dinner. However, if this is an interview weekend, I think it could be an awkward gesture, like you're trying to buy their vote or shame the applicants who don't bring anything. You might be able to get away with bringing a bottle of wine or something, as long as you don't make a show of it, but since etiquette demands that the host serve any gift of wine at the party itself, I don't see how you'll be able to pull it off clandestinely.

Uh... Anything that requires specialised knowledge of CS? I've known PhD's in Classics who have gone on to teach high school Latin (there's a lot of call for this in the U.S.), work in libraries (in fact, I think there was a presentation at the APA this year about how to get library positions with an MA in Classics as opposed to Library Science), work in museums in a variety of positions, work as a journalist, work as a conservator (though this required returning to graduate study), and work as a consultant on films set in and television shows about antiquity. Classics is both a specialised and general degree: specialised in the sense that it deals with a specific time period and region, but general in the sense that the study of Classics involves language, literature, linguistics, religious studies, history, art history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, archaeology, etc. Because of this broad background, a Classicist's employment options are really only limited by her imagination.

Same here. Though I do know that the comms are meeting now at most of my schools.

That's really awesome! You're such a throwback!

By the time I got to my last application, I was a bit tired of doing them up. But they did get easier every time I did one, so I found that the amount of effort I actually had to put in was proportionate to my energy level, thankfully.

Haha, mostly. The recommender has now sent two of six (Why he didn't send them all at once when they were all overdue still boggles me a bit) and the rest were reputedly couriered today. I've heard that before but the fact that at least some of them have been sent augurs well.

I'm just hoping that I get an acceptance before I get a rejection, just to cushion the blow a little bit.

I have them all bookmarked and check them all every so often (maybe twice a week) for changes, but it's something I do out of boredom. I don't expect actual answers to reveal themselves on there first, except for rejections which I'd like to delay as long as possible anyway.

Sorry to hear about Duke. I know you were really pumped about working there. Still, everything works out for the best, I'm sure.

That's crazy! I had no idea!