Canis

Oh man, I LOVED Corvallis when I went to visit and meet with the POI there. It is really the ideal place for me and my family to live. It's just that the research and programs are better at UNLV and WSU.
 
This is what I would be doing at WSU, though, and I'm pretty excited about it. My field work would be in Ethiopia, and I can bring my family along! http://cas.wsu.edu/connect/archives/jan2014/breastmilk.html 
 
Canis, B.C. would be wonderful too! 

It's a wonderful department - the faculty are amazing and some are at the top of their area. But historically the funding has been terrible - and students have had to work so much they don't have time for much else, while still being on food stamps.
 
Now, the funding packages are better for sure - so that's a big improvement - but I've spent a while living in NYC and it's only getting more expensive here every day. The average studio apartment is at LEAST $1300 a month. If you're lucky and you find shared housing you can make it, I was paying $360 a month to share a room in a 4 bedroom apartment, but it was 1 hour commute from school.
 
For the city I would budget minimum $700/month for rent (and that's pushing it and assuming you're sharing a place and living at least 1 hour from school), at least $100/month for your MTA (subway) pass, $15/month internet, $20/month electricity, a few hundred each semester in fees that the don't waive, let's say $600 year.
 
With a 25k package, that's 2083/month, minus the expenses above that leaves $1198/month for food, books, technology, etc.
 
It can be done - but rent is the real killer - finding the cheapest rent possible is the only way to survive as a student in the city. And you run the risk of trying to live off of meals you eat when you're out teaching or at school in midtown - where everything is low quality bagels and pizza OR insanely expensive for the high quality stuff. Find cheap rent and ALWAYS bring your food from home, and you might just make it.

anthropologygeek, I don't think anyone is saying that you shouldn't seek outside funding. I think most of us can agree that we should all do that and apply to different fellowships and grants. The thing is that some of us want financial stability and feel that that stability would allow us to perform better and focus more, and that would make a good fit program into a great fit program.

Yeah, I wouldn't accept a fellowship without a stipend, especially in New York. And you know, you're worth a full fellowship and a great program. I hope you hear some great news soon!

You could be right! As for paying my own expenses, I wouldn't be willing to do that... I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't before I started this whole venture. As much as I didn't want to, I'd probably pump out the MA and try again in a couple of years. It's beginning to look like that will happen.

One thing I've learned in this whole process is that in grad school you can never be sure of anything. People with great applications (M.A., publications, conferences, excellent letters of recommendation, etc) have gotten rejections, so I don't think it's prudent to rely on our self-confidence when deciding to choose a school with lesser funding because ultimately we might me wonderful and we might still not get funding.
 
When I found out about my acceptances, I sent emails with many questions that I think can help me decide. I had two specific funding-related questions that I think are useful to determine my best option funding-wise.
1. How many opportunities for funding are there after the official package runs out? 2. Do students get outside funding often?   Funding is just one of the many factors that need to be taken into account when choosing a specific program, and everyone's priorities are different. I think we should be respectful of that.

Noticing the CUNY acceptances with fellowships - are you guys getting the 5 year fellowships? How much are they offering? Anyone who cares to share details, It would be really interesting to know how all the offers are comparing (In fact I think sharing details about offers empowers us to make better decisions, to negotiate more, and so on, but that's another post!)

BU did rejections a week or more before acceptances too. I guess some schools just do that?

My status also changed this morning, but I've been waiting for rejections to come in the post since the first round of acceptances went out. It takes forever for letters to get to/from Canada (seriously, I send/receive things from Japan and Korea faster than Canada), so we'll just have to see. I've been kind of hoping that their waiting this long meant I was at least still in the running for something. Who knows, though, maybe they just take ages to update their system.

Got my first acceptance today!
UMass Amherst, my POI confirmed the acceptance this morning and said I should be getting formal offer/funding info soon.

Got my first acceptance today!
UMass Amherst, my POI confirmed the acceptance this morning and said I should be getting formal offer/funding info soon.

Got my first acceptance today!
UMass Amherst, my POI confirmed the acceptance this morning and said I should be getting formal offer/funding info soon.

Got my first acceptance today!
UMass Amherst, my POI confirmed the acceptance this morning and said I should be getting formal offer/funding info soon.

Got my first acceptance today!
UMass Amherst, my POI confirmed the acceptance this morning and said I should be getting formal offer/funding info soon.

YAY canis!! Congrats!

That's wonderful! Congratulations! 

Got my first acceptance today!
UMass Amherst, my POI confirmed the acceptance this morning and said I should be getting formal offer/funding info soon.

to the Toronto rejection listing on the board: i'm sorry i think i must be in your position also, just haven't gotten a letter yet. do you mind sharing what it said (anything about a waitlist or anything?) and has your app status changed on the website or is it still 'under review'??

Sounds like they forgot to send you your acceptance letter/email! Hehe certainly hope you get in, sounds like they really want you there

I applied to McMaster, Memorial, University of Calgary, and University of Toronto all for Anthropology/Archaeology master's programs.  Got an e-mail from Toronto about a week or so ago saying they had finalized all the documents and were going to go ahead and start reviewing applications and offers of admissions would start to roll out late February/early March.  I personally know a faculty member at Memorial who said they have already started looking at applications as of 2-3 weeks ago, so it should be any time now. I've gone to McMaster for 4.5 years and I still have no clue when they send out their acceptances, I know they reject by March from first hand experience last year haha.

In other words, this:
 

Well, she is writing broadly about graduate school, but if you read the interview, the quote, the links - she's primarily talking about Social Sciences and Humanities. STEM PhDs are often (though not always) a completely different world. There is nothing like the possible STEM funding for the Social Sciences and Humanitites. Even the absolute top funding Anthro program gives 1/2 the stipend of the average fully funded STEM package.
 
"these things are only true if you have full funding that's large enough to cover your living expenses in the program, as well as tuition, fees, and health insurance."
 
Absolutely - that's the kicker, there are very few programs (almost none actually) in Social Sciences and Humanities where that is the case.
 
And on the question of whether people are talking about it - yes, you're talking about it, and PhD students are talking about it, but the people who are posting in admissions forums this season and are currently deciding on programs aren't. It's not new advice - but the job market is changing rapidly for Soc Sci and Humanitites, and in the last few years it's been on a downward spiral - the discussions have reached a critical mass for this reason.

Colorless - this would be a great time to submit applications for PhD programs in Scandinavia. Many of them have a March 1st deadline, they're all fully funded, they support you as you move your family with you, they even give you time off if you have a new baby, and the quality of life is greater than the US overall. Those might be a good way to put in some back up applications at this stage in the process.

In other words, this:
 

Hahaha! We had a drinking game at the expense of my MA supervisor -- if he sent one of us an email containing a full grammatical sentence, that person had to buy all the other supervisees a drink that week. We didn't get very drunk that year.