FaultyPowers

I have attended four fieldschools, presented my work publicly six times, in conferences including the AAAs and the SAAs, I've been volunteering in a lab for the past two years and I hold a professional position in my field. I have an MA and my GRE scores were V 167, Q 162, and I got ZERO acceptances this year. I think your odds are better with better GRE scores, but mine are pretty damn fantastic and they don't appear to have made a difference.

Can you link up where you found that info anthroflea? Is it brand new for 2015 or is it currently available? I just went to the website but all I see is an MA in anthropology...

The Chosen One!

I do...but I'm really not holding my breath at this point. Sorry for all of us who got rejected. It's such a great school and I know it was the top choice for a lot of us, myself included. I guess this year was just particularly tough. I'm going to do my best to find out what wasn't working for my POI and what I can do to improve next year's application.

Hey guys. So I just emailed the graduate coordinator and he told me that there were 110 applicants and this year was "not a good time to be an applicant". He indicated that decisions have already been made and unfortunately I was not admitted. So I guess I actually AM going to have to do this whole soul-destroying process again! Ugh...

Congratulations!! I sent you a PM.

How I've come to loathe the weekend. I'm seeing a Twin Peaks marathon in my immediate future...

Hey everybody! Having grown weary of searching through other threads for Vandy info I figured I would go ahead and create a specific discussion about it. How many of us have applied, and in what subfield? I noticed that there are two results posted, an acceptance and a rejection, and I was hoping I could reach out to one or both of you guys to share whatever extra information you may have. For the rejection, first off sorry you got bad news, but did you get any extra info when you emailed the department, such as whether they have made all their decisions already or the total number of admits they're going to have this year? And for the acceptance, congratulations!, if you don't mind me asking, who was your POI? I notice you say you were interviewed...did they say they were interviewing additional candidates? Any word on final decisions? Feel free to PM me if you'd rather not display any or all of that publicly... As for me, I'm applying for bioarchaeology and, other than a brief email from my POI to let me know that my application was being looked at I haven't heard much; no interview request, etc. How about you guys?

We were actually having a discussion in "The Waiting Game" about how some professors and members of the Ad Comms may or may not be lurking on here, posting things like that for fun, just to watch everyone lose their minds! It would be a diabolically brilliant prank!

I'm not sure I would actually rank UNLV as a low tier school...but it really depends on your subfield. Deb Martin is at UNLV, for example, and she is a major name in the field of bioarchaeology. I'm not familiar with the archaeologists there, but it would come down to not only the school's overall reputation but the reputation of your specific professor in his or her specific area of research. You should look at their profiles and also the profiles of the other professors they collaborate with.

It is strange. I wonder if it's someone who was already at Tulane for their MA or something. Because I have nothing but spare time to construct elaborate scenarios in my head, naturally.

I was just thinking that! Looking at last year's threads makes me realize that the process could easily stretch into March. Late March at that. And last year's decision came AFTER Mardi Gras, so there goes my theory! Although Mardi Gras was earlier last year... I'm still very curious as to the Tulane acceptance. Has anyone ever claimed it?

Or, let's throw in a random acceptance and watch everyone lose their minds!!!!

...do you ever get the feeling the Ad Comms lurk on hear, see us talking about "well, according to last year we should start hearing tomorrow!", and just deliberately screw with the timeline to put us in our place?

I wasn't even kidding about this....Tulane is closed from the 2nd to the 9th of March for Mardi Gras. So if we don't hear by the 28th, we probably won't hear until the 10th. At which point someone will have to forward my results to the hospital, because I can't even...

No interview...and mixed success in contacting my POI. Initially I got a great response, and then no response to two more emails, and then an email to tell me that the review process had begun and that she was looking closely at my app. So I have no idea how to interpret that, really. The program does look amazing though. For what it's worth, I hope we get in! And that we find out (either way) this week!!

I don't know!!!! I was hoping that person could clarify which POI they indicated they would work with, and whether they had any additional info about the cohort size. When I spoke to my POI, she said she was interested in "bringing in a new graduate student"...so does that literally mean A new graduate student, or graduate students in general? The wait is terrible!!! screencheck, have you had an interview with them at all?

And all but one of the ones posted today seem to have been received earlier. I guess the holiday was a bigger deal than we were hoping it would be!

I'm guessing it's a cultural admit? It's definitely not me... it seems like cultural inquiries have been going out before the other subfields, but that's pure conjecture. I think I need to get out of the house; pretty sure my finger is going to break if I keep sitting here clicking refresh on my email.

It had to at least be before Mardi Gras, right? Riiiight...?

Well I just had a heart attack, how about you guys? Here's hoping we hear some good news soon...

While that SUCKS, I wish more POIs would be that honest. I don't want to waste my time applying and then waiting if they have decided that there is no way they want me there. I've applied to a few places that I now realize were terrible fits, and I wish they would have just told me that. I asked whether they thought my research interested were a good match and they basically said eh, you never know. So... to be that irritating person that essentially tells everyone to "look on the bright side!" at least you are now spared the time and energy next year of applying to a program that isn't right...

The wait for this one in particular is KILLING me. I'm killing time by looking at housing in New Orleans on craigslist! That is NOT a good idea!!

Another thing to consider is the profile of the current students. For Brown I noticed that there wasn't a single "non-traditional" student, and when I went to talk to my POI he told me that teaching at Brown was a breeze because "our undergrads are just naturally better than other places' undergrads". Which struck me as....not indicative of an ideal environment for me! Although I applied previously, with WAY less preparation in my field, and made it to an interview and a short list, so who knows?

I don't even know why I applied to Harvard in the first place! I guess it was because I figured, I'm applying to Brown and BU, I might as well apply to Harvard! Which, in retrospect, is probably the most sophomoric logic I've ever employed. Ah, the power of hindsight! If I have to do this all again next year I will NOT be applying anywhere that doesn't loudly and proudly do EXACTLY the kind of work that I am interested in.