coyabean
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Posts posted by coyabean
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I received a call the following week BUT I was told it could be as late as any time this month. And I don't think all the acceptances found out that early. There were some deadline considerations for fellowship noms. I think that kind of determines the responses as well as the relationship between the department and the grad school and all of their respective demands and deadlines.
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Good stuff. A few questions and comments:
1. Re: keeping up with news releases about your Uni's plans might I suggest setting up google alerts? That's what I've done. I get an email digest of all the news about the schools on my list. It is very enlightening. Some of it -- like budget cuts -- isn't exactly going to be on the Uni's website.
2. Can your TA stipend be reduced if your letter states the amount and length of term? Like mine says something along the lines of "annual stipend of $17,500 for five years not inclusive of any additional fellowship awards." Can they change that?
3. Any feedback on differences between private and public? Would you say now is a good time to privilege private schools in our decision making process?
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I am in a similar situation (except my POI told me to not be surprised if I did not receive the letter within the timeframe stated). If I were you, I would wait a least a week more. You do not want to seem impatient. (Remember, you are going to be working with these people in the future.)
Strangely, waiting for the official acceptance has been the most painful part of the process for me, since I know I am almost there.
ditto
I had the exact same experience. It's only a day or so after when they said it would be. Give it at least a week. The administrative stuff seems to take the longest. I think mine was a week later than I was told? But I'd just let it go awhile longer. Not only did I not want to bug people, but I did not want to seem overanxious. With an offer you finally get some power in this situation. I didn't want to undermine that by being too eager.
They said they'd try to make my funding package "as attractive as possible," but that could mean anything. I do know though that they don't fully fund everyone. I can only dream that they are taking a little while longer with mine because they are trying to get me a fat recruitment fellowship Posted Image haha!And actually that's exactly what it probably is. My delay was due to being nominated for a University wide fellowship and I think they want to know how things are going to shake out before putting it all in writing. If they don't they'll just have to rewrite it after such decisions are made. Plus, it's a legally binding document. Those kinds of things, particularly the money part, often needs lots of eyes before it goes out.
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http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/30/phd
We're in a year with record numbers of apps and shrinking opportunities.
Which is why I feel particularly blessed to even have an option.
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Blame my inner philosopher but I found this a fascinating read. Cut and pasted for those without subscription access.
On Lecturing in a Prison, Where Minds Are Free
By Jefferson Cowie
On a sweltering afternoon last August, I had the professional thrill of giving one of the kickoff lectures of Cornell's New Student Reading Project, an annual effort to knit the entire campus together in the shared intellectual experience of reading a single book. The uncomfortably hot crowd of thousands of students and faculty members assembled in the field house was the largest gathering I had ever addressed, complete with big-screen projections of the lecturers, like academic rock stars, floating over the stage.
The topic was close to my heart: my favorite character, Tom Joad, grappling with the teachings of Preacher Casey, from one of my favorite books, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The issues of migration and family, environment and social crisis, economic calamity and occupational justice, it seemed to me, made the book extraordinarily relevant to the problems of today.
Then in October, I gave the talk again. I shivered more from nervousness than the cool autumn air as I entered another strangely cavernous space—an almost 200-year-old maximum-security prison, Auburn Correctional Facility. Behind fortresslike walls rising above the small, historic town of Auburn, the state of New York incarcerates its murderers, thieves, and gangsters; put the first electric chair to use; and still stamps out license plates. As I worked my way through security to the prison chapel, I couldn't help recalling that the central characters of my talk had done time for murder and spent much of the book in violent scrapes with the law, much like those people I was about to address.
On the Cornell campus, every time I'd attended the huge opening of the reading project, I was struck by the students' indifference and boredom. Whether the book was by Sophocles or Garry Wills, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Jared Diamond, the students seemed incapable of engaging with the lectures. A colleague blogged: "I saw students asleep, milling about, talking on their cellphones, texting, talking and laughing with others, and what seemed to be a precious few engaged by the presentations." The students' restlessness led him to ask them, "What are you doing here at Cornell?"
The inmates who filtered into the prison chapel, on the other hand, knew exactly what they were doing at Auburn Correctional Facility: hard time, often for violent crimes they had committed when they were quite young. I arrived skeptical that my presentation would mean anything to them; I was motivated more by curiosity and civic obligation than grand pedagogic hopes. Clearly, these guys had bigger problems than literature and history.
The 60 inmates enrolled in the Cornell Prison Education Program were, in contrast to the Cornell students, hardly bored, restless, or indifferent. They were on fire. They sat attentively without PowerPoint photos to keep them entertained, autumn walks through the gorges to look forward to, or fancy careers to anticipate. They occasionally tossed questions to me during my talk, testing my mettle. Then, when I finished, their hands shot up. For the next hour, I got a vigorous intellectual workout—an exhausting barrage of questions any teacher would relish.
The questions came from every direction. How could Tom Joad, asked one, be the quintessential American working-class hero (as I had suggested) if Steinbeck had ignored the Asian and Mexican workers who had done most of the agricultural labor in California? Another, responding to how land got used in Oklahoma and California, asked if the constitutional system functioned in a way that enforced inequality. When I showed how Okie iconography was used in advertising and television in the postwar era, another asked if advertising and consumption were designed to prevent popular revolts. An inmate even asked whether the dollar was grounded in human labor, and whether human labor can be considered a commodity like any other.
One prisoner asked a multipart question that I did not fully grasp. I dismissed part of it and moved on, but his hand went back up. Though it was rough around the edges, in academic parlance his question was this: Was the type of civil society that Preacher Casey struggled for ("Maybe all men got one big soul everybody's a part of") possible, given the social atomization brought about by computers and technology?
I turned my head to the program's director, Jim Schechter, with an incredulous look—was this for real?
Before the night was over, the inmates' questions had me delving into constitutional theory, Lockean property rights, spirituality, political dissent, the tensions between civil rights and economic rights, and the use of state power. Granted, there were a lot of grandstanding, polemics, and semiarticulated ideas floating around, but these guys were serious about what they were doing. At one point, carried away with the moment, I even delivered a spontaneous mini-lecture on Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks, which had been scrawled on scraps of paper while he was imprisoned in Fascist Italy. Gramsci tried to figure out, I told the prisoners, how market culture creates a common sense that ensures the consent of the governed. They murmured. They nodded. They got it. Rarely had I felt so alive as a teacher.
After each of the big panels at Cornell, a small handful of the several thousand students would come up to ask the panelists follow-up questions. In fact, the open-mike question period of previous years had been eliminated because the bulk of students used the opportunity to make a quick exit. After the prison talk, in contrast, the men filed up to introduce themselves, thank me for coming, and ask if I'd teach a class in the program. Most simply looked me in the eye with affirmation, shook my hand, and headed back to their cells. Their humility was humbling.
I wondered if it was simply the boredom and constraint of prison life that had the prison students so motivated; the well-prepped Cornell kids, of course, had every media device and distraction imaginable to draw them away from us droning professors. Maybe the Cornell students had worked so hard to get in that they now felt complacent, having made the grade. Maybe the Cornell kids were indifferent because the reading project was not a graded assignment.
Yet the prisoners had also studied hard to get into the prison-education program. They were not simply looking for ways to pass time. They had other things to distract them if they chose, and they attended graded classes as well. My lecture had been purely voluntary for them.
The experience at Auburn got me thinking about entitlement, motivation, and the life of the mind. It forced me to ask troubling questions about status and reward in our academic system. It made me wonder what I was doing with my life and my career, now in midpassage. The contrast between the free minds of the imprisoned bodies at Auburn and the imprisoned minds of the free bodies among some of the nation's most gifted college students could not have been more stark.
Marcus Rediker, a visiting scholar at Cornell last year, also gave a lecture at Auburn, on slave ships. I heard that he rocked the house (the inmates do, after all, call Auburn the "slave ship"). Summing up his experience, he reported: "Most of all, I was impressed by the intelligence, the thoughtfulness, the engagement, the curiosity—in short, by the life of the mind—that I found among the people inside Auburn Prison. That mind, I am pleased to report, cannot be imprisoned."
I wondered what the bars were made of that seemed to imprison my Cornell students, and what it would take for them to begin emancipating themselves.
Jefferson Cowie is an associate professor of history at Cornell University. His latest book, Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, is due out from the New Press in September.
- dant.gwyrdd, BCHistory, Sassytune and 1 other
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Hahaha, good point. Basically the main things that are keeping me from outright applying for PhD programs are:
1. I have no desire to spend my career in academia (while I have all the respect in the world for teachers and professors, I have little patience and I can see myself turning into one of those crappy bitchy professors that students are scared of lol)
Good for you for knowing that about yourself. It's those who don't figure that out that we should worry about.
2. While I love to learn, I'm starting to feel that I'm at the end of my rope. I seriously feel like I can knock out 2-3 more years of school so that I can work in the field or lab for more money - I'm just getting more and more ready to work.
Again, good for knowing thyself!
3. Judge if you must, but personally it's becoming very important for me to eventually have a family, and I don't care about a PhD enough to put it off/give it up altogether.
Who's to judge?! Those of us who cannot procreate until the day we die must consider these things.
Having a family is a very noble thing. Although if it turns out I do want a PhD, I would love to get it at this school.
*Sigh* I'd just feel like I'm cheating them out of money if I take the fellowship knowing full well I only want a MS lol.
Here's the thing. You did not lie to them. If you knew all of this and had not articulated it that would be "cheating them out of money." At this point they are GIVING you their money. Like that infamous gift horse I always hear of but never seems to come bearing ME any gifts, but I digress. A free MS is a GIFT! And you should not feel in any way guilty for taking someone up on a bet with poor odds (I am finding it hard to imagine the circumstances where a program telling you to take their money and leave if you must is ever a good deal for them, but, hey, that's not your job). The odds in life will be stacked against you enough. Take the breaks where you can get them.
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Last week I was rejected from USC. Then, three days a go USC calls me and is like "Hello, we are calling in regards to your application..." I got so excited thinking maybe they had changed their mind. Then they said, "...your job application". I forgot I had applied to some jobs there! I had an interview...not sure if I got it yet or not. But maybe I'll still be able to go to the school--just in a different capacity then I would have wanted.
These days the odds of getting a job are as bad as getting a fully funded offer so I would take this as a GREAT accomplishment!
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What I've heard from some very successful people:
Being liked and wanted is hard to trump. When people like you and are interested, genuinely, in your research they go above and beyond to help you be successful, i.e. giving you a first authorship, introducing you to important people, recommending you for opportunities. Harvard is a wonderful school with a great reputation (understatement much?) but will you have someone there that is personally invested in your success? Are they willing to let you shine? Or, will you be fighting for the attention of famous people that are more invested in their own career? Having Harvard on your resume is great but having a personal enthusiastic recommendation from a mentor intimately aware of your work and abilities is the gold standard. If you can get that at both schools then, by all means, choose Harvard. The world is a prestige whore and maybe it'll occasionally get you a phone number at the club. But, if you feel like you'd have a team at the State school don't discount that.
And another friend said it more directly:
Graduate school sucks ass but it sucks much less when you like the people you are working with.
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The prejudice against "attractiveness" or attention to appearance makes me sad. I normally wear my hair curled and really like it that way, but have been blow drying it straight for interviews so it looks less "fussy" and high maintenance. The funny thing is that blow drying it straight takes way longer than curling it! But I figure better safe than sorry, go with a plainer and more "modern" look. I also wear minimal, natural makeup and soft, neutral colors. Normally I am the type to wear, say, blue leopard print tights with red mary janes so I definitely am suppressing my natural flair for fashion. I worry a little about what they will think when I get there and dress less subdued (no animal prints in the lab, of course, but i do like to play with color).
I hear you. I just add it to the long list of daily slights I have to navigate thanks to a range of -isms and keep it moving. My plan is to have a CV that negates all of that one day.
But, yeah, it's a bummer. I'm an "extra" personality. I don't mean to be but I yam what I yam. I like sparkles and bright red shoes and belts and accessories and I wear them all with NO sense of irony. LOL I'm definitely not a Banana Republic type of person. I make conscious decisions for these types of things to take it down a notch...or three. However, I have a line. At a conference last summer a mentor -- with the best of intentions, I know -- suggested I wear my hair slicked back and all one muted color. Um. I would have felt like a ogre. I rebelled totally! A bright orange shell, 'ethnic' earrings and BANGS! LOL I still rocked it. The trick is to be louder than your outfit. LOL -
No, don't contact the other schools. That's probably a really bad idea, for reasons expounded upon in numerous other threads. We're all tempted, but try to sit tight until you hear from them.
I will have to disagree. I was counseled to do this by a mentor - tenured professional -- and it worked out well enough. I got two rejects that they were just holding out of the way and one unofficial admit. My friend did it and got an admit from the program that was holding out and a email that basically said, "please don't accept an offer before i get back with you!" 48 hours later they emailed her an acceptance and told her what they are trying to get her financially.
So, my experience is that this is normal. Once you have an offer you don't have much to lose, unless you are not committed to the idea of going to that school.
OP, it's all in how you ask. Very nicely say that due to the tough financial decisions many programs are being forced to make an existing offer from ABC must be responded to fairly soon. However, you are very excited about XYZ's program and would like to consider all of your options equally. Do they know when you might expect to hear from them.
Whether its an acceptance or a rejection at least you'll have fewer questions about "what if". The aim here is to have as much info as possible.
Good luck.
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I just wanted to add to some of the excellent advice above. With your stats there is something in your packet that needs to be revised. It can be difficult figuring out what that is without some outside help. You mentioned that you are gainfully employed. That gives you a huge advantage -- you can afford services! I would contact someone in each department you applied to and see if anyone is willing to give you detailed feedback. Sometimes you find someone kind enough to help. Barring that working out yours is one of the rare cases that I think justifies a professional grad app service. Ask around to see which is reputable -- I have only heard of Ivy and one other, but i'm sure each field has its experts -- and have them give your app a look. A small investment could prove very beneficial in your case.
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I'm not too scared about what they might find about me. Everything is set to private (facebook and twitter), but that doesn't guarantee anything. The first link to my blog is an awesome 3d rendered picture of the Grand Canyon which I made using a satellite photo.
I had lots of hits from my spoken word days and then a ream of "letters to the editor" that, I'm sure, make me look insane! LOL Or, very into my civic duties. It depends on your perspective. I tried to add some stuff for balance.
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I am less worried about harried adcomms than I am future peers googling and coming across something unsavory. And exes. I'm terrified of being found by exes. So, I lock everything up. A few months ago I also started scrubbing the web on my behalf. You might want to try creating some profiles to pad the google results for your name.
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Honestly, as someone that got a bunch of early acceptances before anyone else had heard, I think you're unclear about how/when departments make decisions. Often the deadlines to nominate incoming students for university-wide awards are in February and require that a student has already been admitted. So... no, I wasn't lying when I posted my acceptance notifications even though I heard in January for Jan 1 deadlines. It's not my fault if no one else has heard yet.
Yeah, one of the reasons I took my posts down a notch is that I was told that I was being notified before all the other decisions had been finalized (for f'ship purposes).
And to the matter of professors not telling you before it's "official" for fear of egg on their face, I doubt that's an issue. If someone from a program communicates with you about admission there's been a group decision to do so; they're just the one to contact you. Everyone I know in real life that applied this year have been contacted informally first -- some weeks ahead of the letter. If a place wants you then they want to be on your mind early in the process or a prof liked you and wants to be the one to tell you.
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It is definitely under 50. On my first round, I got a 410 which was something like 14th. I boosted it to 590 which was I think 48th.
Coya!! Where else did you get in. Man, after giving us such a wonderful picture of you life during the application process, don't leave us hanging now! We want to celebrate your successes
It was a single digit, I remember that much. But, again, I know people in programs with similar quant scores. Granted they are in English and Anthro, respectively; both fields being light on quant. I was more concerned with an overall showing that met cutoff scores than about the percentile on the quant, however. But my verbal didn't have too much more room to improve so it had to come from that end.
And the second one is a safety, captiv8ed. Thus, the reason I keep forgetting to add it to the sig: UNC-G. But they'd have a hard time beating Emory. With Duke and USC down there are really only two programs left that I think could make me reconsider. We'll see.
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Yeah. Repeat after me: People is crazy.
I had an unenthusiastic phone interview with this chick that was, obviously, speaking to me only because of my mentor and the fact that I'd fellow'd in a program that she use to participate in. The whole chat was full of "well, just so you know we won't be taking many people this year so it's unlikely we'd take a chance" and "for the record, you should have told me your pitch in the first 30 seconds of the call" and "that would be interesting to some departments (but presumably not theirs?)." This after taking a month and a half to return my phone call and email, calling me on speakerphone so she could do some real work while we talked and mispronouncing my name...twice. Which would be ok except we'd met two times before. And each time she'd refused to acknowledge my existence until, again, famous mentor person made her. /eyeroll
Maybe this person was obligated to call you but they weren't in favor of the decision to recommend you. Maybe they wanted to see if you are easily cowed or prone to crying or swearing. Who knows? But I'd be glad I have another offer, too.
I think it's a good reminder that being degreed doesn't make you particularly bright or well-behaved. Some folks just stick around until someone gives them a degree...and then a job...and then an administrative post. Promotion by convenience.
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Too bad you're allergic to cold climates and in a different field. I think you'd be great to have in my cohort...if I get one. And I'll even concede on the ridiculous of MN winters.
Awwwww, thanks! You shall have a cohort. I decree it!
And I don't mind ski weather cold, but that stuff in MN is arctic cold. That's a whole 'nother level. I've heard that they issue cold warnings where you're not supposed to go outside?!! I cannot imagine. One winter in Chicago and I vowed to never hit the midwest from September to April again! I'm not a humid summer lover either, though. I really wish it could be Fall and Spring all year 'round.
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Did you really mean 680v and 340q? If so, I'd worry about that quant score and I would most definitely retake the test after some SERIOUS preparation for the quant section. 340 is way below accepted standards for ANY department. This is not to scare you or disappoint you but I've never heard of a quant score equal to or below this that you have got. So do consider retaking because it looks like the rest of your profile is going to be competitive, don't let your GRE scores keep you out of contention..
LOL
You're not exactly correct. It is not below acceptable for "ANY department". However, for posterity's sake I did retake and I am choosing between fully funded offers as we speak.
I believe in the end I did a 680/540 or something like that. After the first offer you tend to forget, or, I did. It is no longer relevant and for that I am too grateful.
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Other factors:
- ability to design and teach your own course
- corollary: are the courses taught ones you would want to teach?
- how well you get along with other students
- summer funding, whether to go do your own research, to teach, or for both
- professional development opportunities (workshops, chance to co-author papers)
- availability of dissertation writing fellowships (so you don't have to be a TA or RA while writing)
- average time to degree for your advisor's students
- how well you get along with your potential advisor (and I mean in terms of personality, not just in terms of research fit)
- weather
- extracurricular activities that you want available in your area
- proximity to major airports (and then average cost to fly home)
- availability of conference travel funding (and how much that funding is)
- computer resources (computer labs, software availability, etc.)
YES!
And you know my last two by now, I'm sure:
- do I have to exchange sexual favors to print
- and is the library beautiful?
- Strangefox and shai
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Writing them down is just fine especially if it keeps you on track. I jotted notes during mine. Do anything to not be the person who kept saying, during group interviews, "um, i'm sorry. i lost my train of thought...again."
That was bad. -
As I posted on the article itself days ago when I first encountered it, I think the real issue is that far too many people apply to graduate school without any "real world" experience. (although I take issue with the term "real world"; how is academia not the real world? don't you still have bills to pay and life to lead? better is the idea that one should have something to which they can compare graduate school.) The issue is not that there is some vast academia conspiracy leading poor grad students astray. It's that potential applicants do not have one or more of these: critical reasoning to accurately judge the suitability of graduate school; the self-awareness to determine their suitability for academia; any exposure or experiences with other career paths to accurately judge the benefits/drawbacks of academia.
Those are micro, not meta, issues. They are easily rectified with personal initiative. However, I concede that diversifying the undergraduate education experience to increase the development of those skills and abilities could drastically reduce the number of over-educated, under-employed PhDs. So, too, could implementing a work experience requirement for PhD programs (although not Masters degrees).
But, honestly, I read all these sad stories of earnest PhDs with no jobs, no prospects and founts of hope and debt and I feel little pity. Maybe I'm broken but I think that if you are that educated in a culture like ours and you cannot adapt any better then you aren't much good for any career path. I come from a culture that views all jobs as transient and all institutions judiciously if not suspiciously. A healthy dose of that should be administered to some of these folks. After 20+ years of formal schooling you should have some marketable skills. Discipline training does not have to happen in a vacuum. Pick up a language, a consulting job, a teaching certificate, something that provides you a path forward if the golden egg -- a TT -- does not materialize.
We should all view ourselves as independent contractors. We are intelligent people. We can think critically and research and, presumably, concieve of what does not presently exist. We make connections and draw conclusions for a living! Apply those same skills to your life. Develop yourself as such and even if you cannot nab a TT you still have every tool necessary to build a career in another field.
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I have to smile just a little at the irony of the discussion of weather. When you live in Minneapolis, it is pretty hard to find anyplace colder or snowier. When I visited Ithaca, everyone wanted to engage me about the winters until I reminded them where I live. I have checked a few times. When we were -20 here, they were +19 there. Tropical anyone?
I think fit is partially intuitive -- you will just, in many cases, know....but I think culture is something you have to look for; are advisors active and involved, or are people left to sink or swim? How responsible will you be for shaping your program, and how much help or mentoring will you get? What kind of access and unstructured contact will you have? How big is your cohort? How do you fit with your cohort? Finally, on the days you are tired of being a student, sick with a cold and wondering why you did this -- can you find a place to live that will help you feel grounded and renew, or are you so stretched that you are living with 5 people you barely know?
I maintain that MN is not fit for habitation 6 months out of the year.
And I agree. Also after reading "Stumbling on Happiness" I'm inclined to think that one should pay attention to the students in the program as we are woefully poor at judging what will make us happy. Are they having the experience you hope to have, however you define that? For me, I wanted to see engaged, scholar-activists that seem to be enjoying the ride.
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I'm a planner.
Plan A:
Kick academic arse; take the world by storm; prestigious post-doc and a tenured position with a 2x2 load and conference cash. My first book gets picked up in the pop academic market and I start writing more. Take the occasional sabbatical to respond to the many requests of my time and brilliance.
No?
Plan B:
Parlay my quantitative and qualitative research experience into a government or consulting position on issues of education reform and achievement; expense account, autonomy, still a few moderately successful books, some citations on google scholar and I build a tiny home on a cozy lot in a walking community.
No?
Plan C:
Parlay my grant writing experience and PhD status into a non-profit consulting and grant writing. Work mostly from home and abroad.
No?
Plan D:
Parlay above grant writing experience into a series of successful grants to fund my own non-profit for the study, inception and successful management of educational outreach initiatives.
No?
...
Yes, I could keep going. Plans help me sleep at night.
Rant: Personal appearance and the sciences
in Waiting it Out
Posted · Edited by coyabean
Actually I have found locks to be very common among black academics, particularly women who, I think, are striving for ease in a busy schedule. I don't see many non-black people with them anywhere much less academia. But I can't imagine it being much of a problem.