danaofdoom

I always thought it'd be exciting to travel as a kid. If I ever have kids I want to bring them with me when I go on digs (as long as their school schedules allow it).

So, I'm reading back through this and I see a lot of apps for Berkeley here. I applied there too, but I don't really expect to get in. My scores and GPA are kind of low. Also, apparently my official GRE scores never made it to them, but I'm so broke now I can't afford to pay to have them re-sent until next week. Going to call them Monday just to see if it's not too ridiculously late, but I honestly don't think it's worth it. Did anyone else apply to UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, or University of Pittsburgh? I actually feel cautiously optimistic about Pitt. I'd love to hear what others are thinking of them.

Oh dear I apologize, for some reason I thought this was a general discussion.

Yes, I know what you mean! I constantly get the "Why don't you go into Egyptian stuff?" Ugh. People don't like my traveling either. My grandmother keeps reminding me that I need to stop mooching off my parents (yes, I know), and she wants to know how I plan on getting married if I'm going to be traveling so much (never mind that my fiance is totally supportive of that). She seems to think the traveling is just something I do for fun, and that I need to settle down and find a nice, stationary job. I always hear people asking "So when are you going to be done with all this traveling around the world and going on digs?" Um, when I retire? That's kind of why I wanted to get into this career in the first place: to travel around and go on digs!

Erm, wrong forum, apologies!

I am interested in doing archaeology in South America, and people don't understand that either. They either think I'm doing it for a vacation, or they are confused as to why I'd want to go to "a third world country." Also I frequently get people who are surprised that my fiance would "let" me go to another country alone. o.0

Yeah that's what I was worried about. Guess I'l just have to be patient.

daykid- Do you think it's too late for me to do this now that the applications are all in?

That is very encouraging! I know at least one of the schools I applied to is a perfect fit (that's why I applied to them!), hopefully I'll get an acceptance letter. I'm nervous though, my GRE and GPA aren't very high, so I don't know what to do if I don't get any funding. I have an undergrad professor who didn't get funding at first, but went anyway for a year to prove himself and at the end of his first year he was offered funding.

Is it expected of applicants to contact POIs (this stands for Professor of Interest right)? I never did. I figured mentioning them in my SOP and elaborating about why I was interested in them was good enough. None of my undergraduate advisors have told me to contact anyone. Also, I am hoping that two field schools and an internship at another field school will be enough to count for "experience", what do you think? Sorry for all the n00b questions!

I started lurking today, and I'm dying as well. Where did you apply? What are you interested in? I've applied to UC Berkeley (as a sort of shoot-for-the-moon thing, I don't expect to get in), UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, and University of Pittsburgh. I want to do Andean archaeology. I'm so completely nervous. My GPA is not great (3.0, but 3.5 for my major) and my GRE scores were average (V 162, Q 142, Writing 4.5). But I have a very clear idea of what I want to do, I have done research and presented at conferences, and one of my LOR got his PhD at Pitt and is currently working out a deal to have them send students to his field school, so they know who he is and everything. Sorry if that's information overload, but I'm just dying to know what I'm up against and what my chances are. I know I'm not the most stellar applicant but I went ahead and applied because archaeological research is what I want to do with my life.

I'm an undergrad in anthropology and art history, and I recently had one of the dining hall workers at my school ask if I could appraise a painting that her son wanted to throw away but that she thought was valuable. I literally have zero idea how to appraise a painting. None. I can tell you all kinds of things about the symbolism in Northern Renaissance painting, and I can even help you "get" modern art, but I cannot tell you how much some random thing you found in your attic is worth. Well, that's not true. I can tell you that it's probably not worth anything, and there's a really good chance that I'm right.

Okay, I wasn't going to post here but I've just gotten some gems from my fiance's dad. "So isn't grad school going to be really expensive?" After I've told him at least a zillion times that most programs only accept PhD students they can fund, and in any case I won't be going unless I'm offered funding. "I hope you get into a school in California! Pittsburgh is depressing!" Never mind that I'd actually be really excited to get into Pitt. "If you don't get in, maybe you could document all the dinosaur stuff embedded in all the limestone used in nyc buildings." My chosen area of study is archaeology. He's made the archaeology/paleontology mistake several other times, but refuses to believe me that archaeology has nothing to do with dinosaurs. His response is "You don't like dinosaurs?"

V 162, Q 142 (so you beat me there!) and my writing was 4.5. I'm nervous because the Pitt website says they usually accept students with a combined 310 for V and Q and a 5 for the essay (And I think my essay score was bullshit! It was the exact same as my first attempt but I had put a ton more thought into it). Did you notice that the deadline for Pittsburgh was extended? I'm hoping that's a good sign. One of my recommenders went there and he said it might mean they haven't gotten as many applications as they thought they did, but honestly I don't think his saying that means much. He knows I've been very nervous about this and was trying to encourage me. I've heard the same thing, that schools will only accept as many students as they can fund. Which is maybe a little disappointing. I might be willing to pay for a year if it meant I might be have a shot to prove myself and get funding later.

"Anthro programs don't care much about the GRE so you'll probably be fine" Dear god I hope you're right.

I'm also interested in Archaeology and I also applied the the PhD program at Pitt. Maybe if all goes well we'll be colleagues! I can't really tell you anything about your Stony Brook interview. It seems sort of odd. Maybe they're just trying to figure out how much you'll need from them if they accept you? It's odd that they didn't really ask anything about your research interests, although maybe they got everything they needed from you Statement of Purpose? I'm also very worried about my GRE. What were your scores? Mine were okay, although my quantitative was abysmal. I'm hoping my decent verbal score will make up for that. I can already tell you your GPA is better than mine.