Meanyus

I'm actually really hoping the stars align so that I can get a job back at CSU when I graduate because the program was pretty great all around, for me at least.

Reasons for rejection always vary year to year. It's not as simple as checking off boxes to make sure you have a certain GPA or GRE score. Everyone who applies to these programs is going to be pretty dang smart and when you get to your program, being smart isn't good enough to succeed. There are plenty of cases every year where qualified candidates are turned down because an oddly good applicant pool emerged or the funding just wasn't sufficient to offer admission to the number of people who would have been a great fit in the program. There's also the huge concerns over whether your POI can realistically take on another student, which you will have trouble getting honest answers about from faculty because they always think they can take on one more. This sounds pessimistic but it's really to say that a rejection in one place has no bearing on any other place. Instead, focus on the intangible qualities you have to offer at the programs you still have a chance to get into! Good luck all.

I graduated from CSU last year and as far as I'm aware, they fully fund tuition + remission for every student they admit and about half of your health insurance. This might have changed now that they added the deliberation track as a plan B option instead of writing a thesis, but I'm not sure, it was added this year. They also got a new departmental chair because the old one retired last year, but he's a wonderful, wonderful person. CSU was awarded by NCA as the top MA program in the country this year and my advisor, Kari Anderson won top MA advisor as well. You also could work with Katy Gibson and Tom Dunn (who will be your advisor for the public speaking classes you would teach for the entirety of both years). Great program and it prepared me exceptionally well for a lot of the troubles I've faced since moving onto my Ph. D. program. Also of note, CSU is a terminal MA program, so you are among the top concerns for each of the faculty. I'm incredibly biased but for what you want to study, CSU is a great place to go.

I have a strict policy that if students want to dispute a grade they must wait 24 hours after I give them the grading sheet back to give me a written reason as to what exactly they feel was graded incorrectly. If you sit there and explain why you gave every single point you will simply talk yourself into corners when you get to the more subjective points. Making them wait at least a day (and I do this whether they are angry or not) allows them to cool off a bit. Making them write what they think I did correctly gives them less ammunition (they often focus on small points when I tend to focus on the bigger things) and keeps us on track. It also gives a paper trail if you do have to go through more official dispute processes. Luckily, I have establish early in the semester that grade reviews can make your grade go up or down and that I am a lot nicer than my boss is, so I don't really have to deal with this much.

Yeah, I would wholeheartedly disagree with being nice on grading. I've stopped feeling bad about poor grades. It was extremely difficult for me as a 4.0 student to understand that some of my students were perfectly happy with a C in the class. It's a tough pill to swallow when they just don't care that much. However, I make sure to take the time out to explain to students the differences between A, B, C, and D work so that they can choose for themselves how much effort they want to put in. I teach public speaking, so it's fairly cut and dry, but I am able to finish a vast majority of my grading the same day things are turned in. It leaves me with a lot of time to do my own work not having to worry about tracking assignments for my students. Even if you need longer than that, I do suggest blocking out a period of time to just knock it out all at once so that you can grade fairly and efficiently. I do agree with geeking out a bit. You might be saddled with a horribly boring subject matter but your excitement at least makes it more bearable for the students and gets them actively involved. Be self-reflexive. Mid-term evaluations are a great tool for monitoring how well you class is going. I use it to ask my students about both what is working and what is not working. I then send a lengthy email responding to it letting them know what things we can change and what things we can't. Constantly seek to improve yourself, whether you are a great teacher or not. Take it seriously but don't spend all your time worrying about it. I thought about dropping out of grad school because of an A- in my second semester. I now realize how silly that is. I have one student every semester who absolutely hates my teaching style. I do my best to try and accommodate them but if my style works for 47/48 students, then I don't really worry that one person thinks I am the worst teacher they have every met and I am incompetent and don't know how to teach and that they can't believe I even got this job. Lastly, ask for help when you need it. If you are entering a M.A. program, they are really just teaching you how to write at a higher level and easing you into teaching. I'm entering my Ph.D. program next year so I can't speak on that. Good luck!

Your TAship comes with a maximum workload. It's actually a pretty serious thing if they violate that. The Ph.D. program I'm joining in the Fall pays us for 20 hours/week and we can find alternate funding for an additional 9/week if we want from other parts of the college. They actually won't allow us to go above 29, probably due to having to consider us full time employee but I didn't bother to ask. I'd talk to your director, and just tell them that you are feeling burned out because you are doing a lot more work than what you signed up for. They will probably find someone else to cover for the professor and you can go back to your normal duties at that point and focus on your own work.

I agree. My son was born 3 months before I began my MA program. It was difficult to negotiate the amount of work I had and still finding time for family. I made it. I'll be finishing my MA and heading to a Ph.D. program in the fall. What I can say is that you'll figure it out. Originally, I had to ask my wife to watch my son while I secluded myself and read like a maniac. I figured out that, for me, this was unsustainable and I now try to read more efficiently while I am in my office and I spend less time screwing around when I can be getting work done. This gives me a lot more time to spend with my son, which I actually do consider my me time. If I really need to get some work done, I take a relaxing day with the kid, nap when he naps, and then stay up late while the house is dead silent. I have a MWF schedule so I watch him Tues/Thurs and the weekends all day, so I like to do this when I know I don't have a whole lot of work on the next school day. I'd also reiterate to break up larger projects into smaller deadlines for yourself. It's really not that difficult to write a paper 4-5 pages at a time and it's a lot more comfortable than cranking out 20 pages on the last day before something is due. Most of all, just make them a priority. While being paid poorly and being overworked for the next couple years might sound like living the dream, there is nothing more satisfying in this world than watching your kids grow up well.

Honestly, you can get shitty neighbors no matter where you live. I'd just call some complexes and see how the place is run. That's really going to determine your experience more than anything.

When I went from undergrad to my masters, I just gave them a call. One of my loans had lost it's grace period due to a scheduling conflict when I was doing community college but they still agreed to defer it if I showed them my acceptance letter. I didn't have to pay anything after I asked them to do that.

@Kaitlyn - Wow that's cool. I'm actually in Fort Collins attending CSU. I'm actually getting Married end of May and moving to Raleigh early June, we'll be taking our honeymoon somewhere on a beach in the area. Any suggestions? I forgot to check the user name, but whoever hadn't heard from the schools yet: I'd just send a polite email saying that you have decided to accept another offer because of the deadline and that you'd like to pull your application if it was still being considered. It's a polite way of saying thanks for taking my money and never responding.

Hey Abraham, Sucks to hear. Out of curiosity, why did you put your conclusions before your data? I know with the faculty at my institution, that would raise some pretty hefty red flags as well. Luckily, you get more than one try. My best advice moving forward is to appease your masters. I cut two entire chapters from my thesis in order to get it to where it needed to be to defend and was only able to convince myself that was ok by remembering that my research is an ongoing thing. I can always come back to those projects and do some transformative work when I 1) Am more knowledgeable and better at writing, and 2) when my Master's degree isn't on the line. Fight battles that need fighting, if conforming to an organization pattern was the only thing wrong with your thesis, then you should be in pretty good shape the next go around. Also, I recommend booze.

Coworker of mine just turned down her Pitt offer for Georgia, so that might help you Kaitlyn. I haven't been updating my signature but I've now been offered funding at Utah, Kansas, and NC State. I've decided to go with NC State because they just have too many cool toys to pass up. If anyone else is headed there, shoot me a message. We may have met on the visit, but if not, I could start introducing you to some of the people.

Writing Trouble - I was originally accepted without funding and they had invited me for the recruitment weekend but they only pay for people with funding. I now have a funding offer but I am planning on accepting it which is why I can't help you on your previous question. I got the impression that they only accepted a handful of people this year but i should have better insight after next week. The visit is this coming Thursday and Friday.

Awesome, I'm really glad to hear!

WritingTrouble - I can't help you on that front. Will you be making it out to the recruitment visit next week?

One of the big benefits of graduate school is that there are plenty of opportunities to go for free and get paid to do so. I wouldn't even consider UT unless they offered to pay your tuition, most if not all of your health insurance, and offered you a teaching gig. You will have success on the market if you are a terminal MA and you will be fine applying to Ph.D. programs if that's the route you choose to go no matter which program to which you apply.

I know the feeling. The last 3 semesters of my undergrad I took graduate courses with both MA and PHD students and maintained a 4.0 average. I was waitlisted by the school and took another offer before hearing back any further. I was pissed, but I also realized that it's much more complicated than just checking off boxes. Schools are only accepting a very small % of applicants and even then, they are rejecting overqualified people. You've done everything they've told you to do, so the next step is to just bolster those opportunities. I would take the adjunct job, and keep writing, as long as it would pay your bills. Some things I could think of that might be worth looking into for you: How many applicants did they get? How many did they accept? Are the people you want to work with currently taking students? Would the people you want to work with be able to take on what you want to do for your dissertation? Were there any flaws in your application at all? My adviser is also our DGS and she has flat out told me that when they have too many people they have to nit pick the smallest details. Availability of faculty becomes a huge consideration at that point. I'm also convinced that in the end, they flip a coin on some people.

Still waiting to hear back from one school. Kansas had a pretty nice fellowship come out after their initial deadline closed and the applications for that re-closed tomorrow. Unless I get that, I'm probably headed to Raleigh. After visiting Utah, I still like the program but it's not the right choice for me.

Just received a funding offer from NC State, so that's a big relief. I'm also fairly certain I'll be receiving a funding offer from Utah in the morning as they've requested a meeting to talk with me about it when I arrive for the visit weekend. I am wondering your opinions. NCSU's offer will probably be about 2500-3000 more per year and the cost of living looks like it will be slightly less. I think Utah is probably a better program overall and would be more beneficial when I hit the job market. If you were in this situation, which one of those factors would you weigh more heavily? I have a family, so it's probably going to be a tight 4 years regardless of which offer I pick. Either way, I'm feeling pretty torn at the moment.

Unless it's a second visit weekend where they would have quite a few people it probably wouldn't be all that productive. Everyone you meet will have to come to campus just to visit you, you can't sit in on any classes. Might be best to just see if you can do a Friday/Saturday thing so that you can get a feel for the school, and the area, in my opinion.

One of my coworkers got an email w/ funding offer from Pitt yesterday. She said they are moving back their visit weekend but wasn't given a reason. Probably because they wanted to have people fly out tomorrow and they had just extended some offers over the weekend/Monday. Anyone going to the Utah visit this weekend? I've tried messaging the few people I've seen say they were accepted there. My wife and I will be staying in the guest housing there and it'd be nice to have a partner in crime or two as we've never been to SLC and won't know anyone there!

Coworker of mine heard back by email but this was about a month ago now.

I use that video when I teach public speaking :-)

Dr. Swarts said he'd figure out flights and lodging for anyone who is funded, so I'm sure they'll get back to you on that pretty soon. It's still a few weeks away anyways

Utah said the same thing for me. They guarantee the money except if for some reason a massive budget cut came along, which is unlikely enough that it shouldn't concern you. Every funding offer is contingent on you getting good grades and finishing your classes, if you don't they just kick you out of the program. From their current wording it actually sounds like you would get funding the 4th year anyways, but you could always ask them to guarantee that and see what they say. In the end they are most likely already planning on paying for you that year anyways. Are you planning on going to the recruitment weekend for NCSU? I am up in the air at the moment because they are only paying for people they have offered funding to go, and I am still in limbo on that front. They said I was certainly welcome to come out, but it looks like a plane ticket is about 350 bucks and it's about a 24 hour drive from where I live. Although, if I don't have a funding offer in the next month, it's probably never coming, and I wouldn't be able to go anyways because I have a wife and a son. Anyways, if I do end up going, it would be nice to have a friendly face if you plan on going!