samjones

the bitterness/anger/disappointment radiates from this post! i'm sorry your experience was so terrible. as another opinion, i have not experienced the trouble with pay and registration that brok has experienced. i got one of the fellowships and they have been great about getting my checks to me every two weeks and they have always been the same amount. i've also been able to benefit from work study hours and so i get paid every week in the end which is very nice! one of my cohort is doing his GAship with the PSC, i think. either way, he passed out membership cards to all of us first years in the first week or so of classes so we all knew that we had the PSC and could be involved if we wanted. nyship is really a program that you can affordably opt into in order to meet the reqs of having insurance while going to school. i don't really look at the 8 dollars a month as something that is going into a program that would actually take care of much more than that.

a prof in the dept said it was about 300 who applied (don't know if that's just sociocultural though)

i know someone who is supposedly still being considered that didn't get interview. i don't know if that only happens for folks who are not past nyu students. i would assume that they wouldn't need to interview people that someone in the dept is familiar with and i think that it's possible for someone to be familiar without having been a past student at nyu, you know?

six sociocultural people will be admitted to NYU this year

in order to feel comfortable asking current profs for recs, it would probably be a good idea to apply the year you would finish the program you're in. that is, unless you feel like you have the know how to explain to the profs at your current program that you have decided to get a little more committed to a graduate program in anth and want to start a phd program asap meaning that you would not finish their program and would move on for the new program. i bet if you can get on terms where you can explain and demonstrate that, there would be profs willing to support you! i think though that if you have funding for the MA program and it's only a two-year program, it might be worthwhile to finish the program and the corresponding projects for applications. on the other hand, applying to programs without a completed MA is totally doable and there are plenty who are people who are successful.

a friend who applied to princeton for next year has not heard from there yet.

i'm in an anth program with visible piercings that are and are not gauged and tattoos. my partner has been in a science grad program and now a social science grad program with piercings and tattoos. neither of us seem to have had any discriminatory experiences because of the tattoos and piercings. i'm just starting my program and didn't go through an MA program so i can't be expected to have many profession-building experiences besides program events and those have gone great. a prof that i already look up to introduces me to lots of people and the only thing that ever stands in my natworking-way seems to be my own nervousness. no one seems to be judging me based on anything. it's great! my partner has worked in her industry in government organizations and for her departments and does not want for opportunities, funding or support from her colleagues (students and profs as well as admin people with whom she works); she has earned lots of outside funding, positions, and support. this is anecdotal data but i think that's the best a bunch of students and prospectives would be able to give on the subject. tldr, i can't say that the tattoos or piercings that my partner and i both sport have had any impact on our networking or success. she has been in grad school longer than me and has worked in her industries behind the scenes as well as in the scenes (conducting interviews and collecting data among the public) with no problem or warning to hide her body modifications. its anecdotal but in my experience, piercings and tattoos have not mattered.

getting tuition remission at the new school is hardly reassuring against the high cost of living in NYC. if you're going to school full-time (which many sources of funding require in order for you to receive the funding they do provide), then you'll have a hard time figuring in the hours you may need to work outside of going to school to make ends meet for food, house and transportation in a really expensive city. also, the cost of entertainment is insane and entertainment is important to factor into your life when grad school can be pretty stressful. living on loans in NYC will get REALLY expensive. i can't knock the anth program at new school in terms of quality- i know nothing about it to be honest. i do know that the programs at nssr are generally good but that's not the issue for many f the students that i've talked to that go there. many feel intellectually challenged and stimulated but they're beyond stressed about their expenses and the terrible prospects of being able to dig themselves out of the debt with any sort of speed after only earning a MA or even after earning a PhD.

that i know of, cuny didn't do interviews last year

rutgers anthro has also done interviews in passed years.

i'm not sure about 'most' anthro programs requiring that your MA degree is an anthro degree. the program that i'm in has a few people who have MAs and i don't think they are all in anthro. i think thinking about expanding your marketability and experience is a good idea and it seems to work really well for some of the people i know who get really innovative ideas through combining their knowledge in more than one field and making some sort of dynamic intervention in one or the other(s).

if you get the fellowship from cuny, living off of it is pretty manageable. i'm doing it; i'm living in brooklyn. it's also manageable to live in queens, harlem/upper manhattan, the bronx. i bike and cook my own food so some expenses that you may or may not have are cut out of my budget. i live with my partner who is also a student and we're making it work; it's not a huge struggle in my opinion. i'm definitely not living like some professionals but i'm not professional yet so i guess that makes sense! the teaching experience you get is invaluable in the long run, by the way.

don't let yourself get stressed out and bogged down so much so in the first semester/year that you talk yourself out of your program before it's really gotten started. i just started my grad program and, if you have as many required courses as i do for your first year or two, the first year can be the most tedious/irrelevant/boring at times but (imo) shouldn't count as representative of all that may come int he next few years. i'm in the social sciences and hope to eventually have more ability to sign up for classes that i really think i'll love and that will actually help me build on what i'm interested in researching. i appreciate the backgrounding basics of these required courses but i can also see how such requirements can be disillusioning re: the next few years of coursework experience and prospects. Try to hang in there and things might look up in the next year or two. If not, then it really might be a time to reevaluate... but at this point it might be a little premature!

like, anthrogeek said, you might want to focus on your fit and how you have demonstrated that with your TOTAL application (including what you say in your SOP). you may also think about the language you use and the way you approach your research questions/state your research interests because you want to be current and relevant- speak how they speak today, be familiar with the language, methods and politics they are utilizing to explore similar topics. this might mean reviewing some of the work faculty are putting out/getting involved in who are teaching at the schools to which you plan to apply. GOOD LUCK!!

i think you should apply to the schools you want to be at. i don't think we know for sure that you wouldn't get into those schools because of one lower-than-you-would-hope number. i think that your other application attributes (like the involvement in indy research, competitive gpa and such) could demonstrate your potential despite the gre (which i think is holding less and less power. idk know for sure but maybe no one besides those who have been on admission committees knows for sure). i think it woud be foolish to come here, ask potential and/or current students with a sprinkling of the RARE actual prof. (it's happened in the poli sci thread! idk if it has happened elsewhere), get responses, and decide to pull your application from one school or another that you really wanted to apply to before you ever came here! don't sell yourself short, let them tell you no if they;re going to tell you no, you know? again, i think your other attributes are strong and importantly relevant for the program and subfield you're planning to apply to. GOOD LUCK!!

i think you could discuss research projects/coursework that has contextual relevance to the current interests you have now. maybe how those research projects/coursework directly inform and shape the research interests and questions you have as well as the approaches you plan to take in interrogating those questions you have. i think you could pick one or two of the MOST relevant or dynamic of the courses/research projects and demonstrate how you utilize your time and experience with coursework in ways that make a dynamic impact on the work you have produced and hope to produce. you do not need to do this with every course that you can think of that can be some way related. that would be, imHo, the opposite purpose of the the sop project/exercise. i totally agree with the folks above who have suggested not to create an exegesis out of your transcript. that would also be outside the purpose of the sop. you need to show what you intend to do in grad school and your past should mostly serve as an informant to your future.

i don't agree with what has been said re: dgs not responding well to such a question. they want people to apply properly and with correct information so I think asking them a question like this, which isn't a bad question, is totally acceptable. i would call and would maybe speak with the admin assistant/secretary of the office because it is an easy question to answer by someone in that position. also, if you feel like it could be harmful to your application, you don't have to give your real name/introduce yourself on the phone when you get a hold of someone. a lot of times, phone calls allow for anonymity. NOTE: this is my perspective as a grad student with experience working in the admin office of my program. i would sometimes be the one to answer the phone for such questions and would often end the conversation without knowing anyone's name. it's not like the office is interested in marking things down as early as possible in order to black-list your app.

CUNY funding is competitive from the start. and you need to apply in Jan. you want to compete for the funding. if you do get funding, it usually covers tuition and can provide a stipend of $18-24 thou per year for usually five years. With CUNY, it is possible to get your tuition waived and a stipend through teaching positions at any of the CUNY-system schools. Another thing with CUNY is that in your second and third year, teaching is your fellowship assignment (through some funding packages) and so you get valuable teaching experience early in your career. NYU and Columbia provide about $24-30 thou in stipend per year plus tuition. In general, $18-30 thou is enough to live off of in brooklyn, queens, upper/harlem/washington heights parts of Manhattan, the bronx. you'll probs have to have a roommate no matter where you go and/or live unless you find a cheap studio. really cheap one bedrooms are hard to find in NYC.

i think the convention is 500 words. 500 words can fit on one page (single-spaced) or two pages (double-spaced). I think a few dozen words over or below 500 are negligible.

a change is usually expected. i mean, especially for someone coming out of undergrad who MAY or may not have a thesis that (if it was for a anthro degree) utilized fieldwork. unless you already have a field site that you plan to continue to study after having already studied it in some way prior to starting your phd program, i think it's expected that you may change the interest that you may or may not have quickly strung together for your application. i think that portion of the application is really just a test to see if you can string together an interesting project (relevant and based on your previous academic/field experience) because it proves that you may be able to do the same thing 2, 3, or 4 years later when you have to submit a dissertation proposal that relates to the interesting (and hopefully coherent) coursework you take while in your phd/ma program. and i agree with the previous sentiment that it's expected that you would expect to grow and develop in the program, which would inevitably lead to changes in your project and/or you choosing something totally different (but hopefully still relevant for your program).

i think this would depend on what sort of anthro work you did for your dissertation. there is political and economic anthropology done within the cultural anthro subfield. you could explore a political or economic issue you would like to know more about in terms of its human impact and demonstrate how that makes you a reliable source for info in relation to that (and other related) issues. in fact, it is my opinion that diplomats could benefit from being familiar with the human impacts political and economic policies and ideologies have. you could also look at public anthropology programs. i think that many people who are interested in an applied anthro find those programs attractive.

If you are interested in getting aid/funding for graduate studies, do not DO NOT expect such a thing from the New School. First of all, do not overlook that you have to apply to the MA programs at New School. The New School does not allow you to apply directly to their PhD programs and you go largely unfunded in the MA programs. I've heard that funding is sketchy even for the PhD students but I don't know anyone who is actually in the PhD programs there. If you read the website for their graduate programs, you will see that you cannot apply directly to PhD programs and that you have to apply to and complete one of their MA programs in order to apply to the corresponding PhD program. I mostly limited my Anthro PhD program search to the New York City area BUT I can tell you that University of Texas Austin, Rutgers, CUNY Graduate Center, University of Michigan Ann Arbor and NYU have very well respected Anthro programs. I favored the CUNY Graduate Center because it has the most non-conservative research ideas. All of the schools I've listed fund their PhD students.

as echo to what's been said, people will go out into the field whenever they can. if it's during the school year, you just take a sabbatical for the year and go do what you need to do. field schools will have to be researched individually to see when they take out their students. i don't think anyone here can say without a doubt that all field schools let their students go out into the field only in the summer. also, students usually only take classes for the first two or three years of a PhD program and there isn't much work in the field for them (mostly because the classes are supposed to prepare them for the field). after the years of coursework, students usually have two or three more years of funded time left and they should use it to go out into the field and write their dissertation. i mean, that's a loose idea of how it works. it's not cut and dry.

I don't think your lack of background or experience in anthropological methods or research will necessarily deter your chances or ability to demonstrate how you could fit into a PhD program in an anthro department. I speak as someone who took ZERO anthro courses as an undergrad and got into my top-choice program. I did have a lead role in an anthro-style research project last summer for a professor at my alma mater but I don't think that was my strongest selling point/it was probably inconsequential. honestly, schools and departments want to know that you will be productive and can fit in with their school and department but fitting in and productivity are not linked to a background in anthro methodology. in fact, any good program will be expecting to teach you research methods and methodology upon your entrance into their program. anthro is ever flexible and you can find programs and departments that aren't "traditional" in the way that they examine "culture." if you can write your sop in a way that demonstrates that you are interested in looking at something that affects the lives and/or livelihood of a group or how what a group is "doing" changes or supports something, then you should be good.

i don't think the A minuses in a MA program will hurt an application to a PhD program. i also think that your publishing activities provide the type of promise that the programs are more interested in anyway. what i mean is, while other students may need to prove/demonstrate their promise through only grades you have grades and published materials.. and published materials are apart of the means AND ends to being in a PhD program.