FaultyPowers

I work for Princeton Review (when they can be bothered to give me any classes that is...grumble) so I'm a little biased towards their methods. If you have the time and money I would go ahead and take a prep class. BUT....if you're a self-starter and generally "get" things quickly and easily on your own, you'd probably do just as well to buy yourself a retail prep book (i.e. a book you can buy on Amazon, without buying the course itself) and just practice on your own schedule. You're missing the in-person explanation, the regularity of a schedule and, if you're in my class, the corny jokes and swearing, but that's pretty much it.

Curious...is anyone else approaching these decisions from the perspective of someone with only 50% faith in getting an academic job? Don't get me wrong, tenured professor is my dream job; but that's the thing. I'm not so confident that a tenure-track job will be that easy for any of us to find. Stuck in adjunct hell for less than minimum wage is not something I'm going to do to myself. So my decision-making process has incorporated not only job placement within academia but also prospects external to the university system that the program would position me well for. Just wondering whether anyone else was thinking along these lines...

HAHAHAHA! It turns out Ohio State DOES just send that "Please confirm your financial award!" email to everyone. I checked the website (unprompted) and saw that "We're sorry, your application was not approved." Dirty pool, Ohio!

FYI for anyone accepted to the University of Toronto. There are some pretty hard core protests going on right now by the graduate students union. I'm not completely up on all the details but I'm following it on Twitter. Might be something you want to factor into your decision making process.

Pretty much! you'd be ok with roommates but you need at least 1500 a month for your own place.

Yup. Ohhhhhhhhhhh-hio.

Hate to break this to you...but yeah, you will have to take the GRE. At least you've got plenty of time to prep!

I love how the acceptance and the financial info doesn't come together. Because of course one has nothing to do with the other and could never influence one's decisions in any way. Obviously.

Hi guys! It's about the time that we're all narrowing in on our choices and making final decisions. I'm curious where everyone is going so I figured I'd make a new thread. I'm 99% sure of my own choice right now, but I'm still waiting for financial info to come in for my other offers. If you've decided, let us know!

Sooo....I've heard from everyone but OSU, and two days ago I get an email from the college telling me that additional documents are needed for financial aid. "To ensure that your award reflects the most accurate information, follow the steps below to learn what forms are being requested." When I click on the required document, it's something you can only fill out AFTER you've received an acceptance with funding. Only....that's the sole email I've received from them. So....I wonder whether this was something that was sent to all applicants, which is a tremendously cruel thing to do, or whether I should interpret it as an acceptance. If so...where my email at, OSU?

Exactly the same thing for me. First two times I applied I visited almost everywhere, interviewed, really went out of my way. This time around I've gotten two acceptances so far, both to programs that I never visited once, and one I never even got a hold of the POI via email.

GREs are not too terribly important once you've met the cut off scores, which I believe are generally 300 combined, though I may be wrong about that. Where GREs become more important is LATER. After you've gotten in to a program and are slogging your way through, you're going to continually be applying for grants, scholarships, TA positions, etc., and often your GREs are taken into consideration for those.

I'm also in the "Third Time's the Charm" club. Fit is the single most important element of your application, I have FINALLY realized that. But fit doesn't just mean fit within a program, it also means fit within current research paradigms. When I first began applying to PhD programs I was trying to get in to do Maya bioarchaeology. But the problem there is that, with a few exceptions, nobody wants to DO Maya bioarchaeology. Too Maya for the bioarchaeologists, too bioarchy for the Mayanists. So I had to realize that my interests simply did not have an audience in PhD programs. So I gained experience in bioarchaeology outside of the Maya context and stayed regionally non-specific in my SOPs, focusing instead on broader theoretical approaches. Everybody's right about letters, you should have no problem. And if you do secure a research assistant position, consider finding a letter writer there. My strongest letter was from my supervisor at work.

Speaking of that, and of schools taking their sweet damn time, my POI at Ohio State said that official decisions are being made tomorrow, with letters going out the next week. I frankly plan to ask what my status is as of Thursday, because it's bloody MARCH.

YES!!!! That is the BEST feeling! Congratulations

Anybody claiming the UMass admit today?

My POI at Amherst called me, but for UNLV I wrote to the department secretary....I think; I followed the 'For more information' link on the graduate section of the Anthro website...and I basically said "Hello, my name is Blah and I was wondering whether you could give me any information about my application status?" I also threw in that I had already received an acceptance and "wanted to make an informed decision about where I will be next year as soon as possible". If you're writing your POI and you've spoken with them before you can probably just say "Hello Dr. Blah, I was wondering whether you could give me any insight on how the decision making process is going" or something like that. Couldn't hurt to mention your acceptances...

Yep! At this point you might want to email or call your POI, or maybe even the grad coordinator. Decisions were made loooooong ago. Technically I believe they need to be "approved" by the grad school itself, but unless there were some hardcore shenanigans on your application, or you lied about your criminal background or something like that, I doubt that would make any difference. And UMass POIs get ONE pick of students, so there's no waitlist and no such thing as one person turning it down so it goes to the next. Once they make the final decision that's it. So they should definitely be able to tell you what your status is. Aaaand....not to get your hopes up, but I notice that my UNLV page ALSO doesn't list a decision. And there are several posted rejections on the board who say that they had their decisions on the website. So.......

I think that pretty much sums up what we were all thinking. I mean....hooray for confidence?

Wellll...no notification might be a good sign. Because my UMass account AND my UNLV account are both still saying pending and I know they're both acceptances. I checked UNLV again specifically because people were posting that they'd seen rejection notifications and I still don't have an update.

My POI got back to my email with my rejection. Thank god! The waiting was killing me! No idea when they plan to send out the official decisions but you may want to email your POIs.

It is. I think my POI is just rad

Hot mess

THANK YOU!!!! And I did list my UMass decision. I listed it as UMass, rather than University of Massachusetts, so that may be why you don't see it. Statistically it just seems too unlikely that I'm the ONLY one of us who got in though, so I'm guessing I'm just the only one who's been notified.

Also, to this poster from the results board: F*&% you Columbia, and your archaic windswept halls of exotica. You made me laugh so hard that coffee came out of my nose at work and I'm mad at you.