bakalamba

I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned this, but there's an commuter train, MetroLink, that has a line which runs from downtown Los Angeles to Irvine, and the Irvine station is relatively close to UCI (you can get a free transfer to a bus, and many people bicycle). LA and Orange County aren't known for public transportation, but this train is comfortable and consistent, and I knew quite a few faculty members that live in LA and commute daily on it. I think it takes about an hour from downtown to Irvine, which is an amazing commute considering you can read/study/sleep. There's also a new Metro train from Downtown to Culver City (which is right next to Venice Beach). Fullerton and Orange are both nice places to live, have interesting and somewhat historic downtown areas and apartments. Most areas of these two cities are pretty safe - and in Fullerton, the train station is right in the middle of the downtown area. I think Irvine is uber-safe, and has a lot of features built into it that ensure no one unfamiliar with the area can navigate it (all the streets are curved and loop around in strange ways) and homeless people or unsavory looking persons can be removed (the sidewalks are privately owned by the Irvine Company, so you can be cited with trespassing for walking on them). I'm not too familiar with Long Beach, but know people who live there and enjoy it - the benefit is that it's closer to the ocean. It's true, it's easy to drive to things on the weekend, but there's also a plus to living in a cool area, particularly if one of you, or both, have a big commute during the week. If you want safety, there's a lot of suburbs around where you can sleep very well.

Thanks for your story. Good luck in your studies. It seems like a lot of applicants delay these emails, or are worried about how declining will affect future relationships with faculty at other institutions. I haven't had the opportunity to decline many offers (Haha) but it doesn't make sense how a cordial email would do this. (And if a faculty is angry at applicants choosing things for themselves, is this the character of a good advisor?) Anyways, does anyone have stories about declining offers and getting a negative or offputting response?

This same thing happened to me. But in my case I did apply to both the MA and PhD. They were more specifically because I contact the POI myself - apparently I didn't write a substantial thesis for entry into the PhD. Although it seems they're the only program who are making that distinction (I've gotten flat rejections and non-conditional acceptances from everyone else). So whatever.

My Bachelors was in Fine Art, and now I've ended up studying Education, which is certainly engaging both in its theory and practice, but I miss the aesthetics and freeplay of art. I watch a lot of film, used to make very amateur documentary shorts, and dream about using media ethnography in my future academic work. I'm surprised no one has mentioned language learning. I wouldn't label it as an interest at this point, but just an effort against relapsing - I picked up a language while in the field and want to keep it (it's in the Bantu language family), learn a second, as well as try to pick up a Romance language. Memrise has become as routine as morning coffee in this pursuit. I used to write, I still do, and I feel if I don't occasionally engage in extracurricular writing, my inner thoughts will ossify into technical language. Yikes.

This is enlightening. According to this, confusion may arise most with NSU, MSU, CU, and ASU. Coolest nickname? Wazzu or Oxy, I think.

Anyone apply to Pitt? I'm curious, but also a little impatient.

Certainly! I think it's good. Received a very nice separate email from the coordinator which described a "very short waitlist." Although I do have a compelling offer from another school (U of Minnesota), and the stipend is the same, despite very different living costs. But it's NYC ...

"Decision made. You will be notified within a day."

I learned the method of one-pot cooking in graduate school and perfected it in Peace Corps (cooking over charcoal means you don't have the luxury of heating multiple things at the same time): cook rice (for extra flavor, saute in some olive oil before adding the water), and halfway through add tomato if needed, and 3/4 through add whatever you have in the fridge or cabinet (tuna, lentils, vegetables, leftover meat, even potatoes). Cook together for flavor and add seasoning (I recommend dropping by a Japanese market, if possible, and getting rice seasoning (I believe it's called Furikake). Great with hot sauce. For maximum efficiency and minimal dishwashing, eat out of the pot.

Less competition for future tenure track positions. I'd like to also take a moment here to discourage anyone in my field from pursuing a PhD as well.

I agree with PhDerp. I'd add that you shouldn't visit the campus if you're planning on declining. It's not very ethical, particularly if they're paying for your trip - and it probably would be awkward for you.

That being said, I did go out immediately and check the 2015 rankings for my field. It's very compelling to see schools listed in a ranked order, even if it's not specifically indicative of quality. It's the Buzzfeed of higher education evaluation - I can't stop looking at it.

I only use US News to get an overall picture of the top schools in a field I'm unfamiliar with. I think their methodology is flawed, and the rankings still exist because they're the most popular aspect of this relatively unsubscribed magazine (in fact, they change their statistical methods every year to sell the rankings as more "accurate" than the year before). But it's certainly a powerful report. In some cases, Universities go out of their way to look good on the US News rankings - I just hope they're putting the same effort into their institution for the students already enrolled. If you're comparing schools that are #3 and #60, certainly there is a substantial difference in these schools, and it's worth looking into how they are ranked so differently. But from #4 to #6, I doubt that's indicative of any change of anything, but rather a change of US News' metrics. Here's an article about how Caltech made its way to #1 for one year. Here's a breakdown of some of the issues with this report. So, IMO, you should give very little attention to these rankings.

I don't have too much experience here (I went to pretty large schools, but my MA was in a small-ish program at a large University). But I think in graduate school, it's all about who you work with. If a small program has great faculty, a good research match, and coursework that you're interested in, that's great. The advantage of a larger program is that you can jump around, particularly if you're unsatisfied with your advisor - although you're not likely to have much time for exploration within a Masters program. It's hard to tell if graduate programs are a good "community" - even in large institutions, faculty and graduate students work closely together. I'd argue that relationships are more tight in graduate school than undergrad anyways (that's why it's important to choose the right faculty to work with - you'll be spending much more time with them). It's always good to ask current students how involved the faculty are.

I think the culture varies. My family, including the extended family, doesn't really do graduation parties, so it would be odd for me to throw one for myself, since brother/sister/cousins didn't celebrate their own. Reminds me of the time my best friend (at the time) had a big celebration when he got into his choice undergrad school, and I got into mine the same week ... no fanfare for me I guess. So I, personally, would be more comfortable throwing a moving away party than a graduation party (in theory only - I graduated four years ago). Certainly a good opportunity to see everyone before moving a few states away, and catch up with family members who I haven't seen in a while. If they choose to give me anything for the trip I'd be grateful. If you see parties as an opportunity to gather money from biological connections, then I guess that's your thing. I guess some people rely on their family when they need the help, and return the favor in the future, and others are skilled at the familial shakedown.

That's true. I had a job where I essentially Google things for people (I'm sure I'm not the only one).

I'm not sure how coordinated the different programs at Steinhardt are, but I heard back from them about a week ago (got waitlisted).

That happened to me last year. It sucked. Then I had an entire year to regroup, visit programs, meet people, and actually read books I wasn't assigned to read. Bonne chance!

Well, if people can hold fundraisers for when they get married or have kids, they certainly should be able to do them for "marrying" into graduate school and making a big move. If you want to reduce the guilt tripping, why not set up a fundraiser through Fundly or another site? Keep it humorous, mail cards or small gifts to those who donate, and turn your journey into a group activity (which grad school is, since you will be relying on family and friends, and anyone who you're not studying with, to keep you sane through the whole thing). Even if this idea isn't palatable for you, I might steal it when I move.

Helpful.

Yeah, visiting days are recruitment events, not orientations. I went to one, and half of the people were still on the fence (or they made up their mind, but certainly didn't show it).

Well, there's a difference between no funding, and that funding information hasn't arrived yet - unfortunately programs don't make this very clear, particularly with the MA. I think you should get in contact with the head of the department or the administrative assistant to see when funding letters (or info about funding) is released. You might not want to contact faculty if it's just a matter of weeks until you'll know about funding - and the department head can tell you what funding options are out there. Then you can use your personal connections to ask faculty. I usually ask questions like: "How do your students typically fund their degrees?" or "Do you offer Graduate Assistantship/Teaching Assistantship positions to Masters students?" Faculty understand how expensive graduate school can be, so they'll know what you're asking for. You'll get a feel for which faculty is patient in answering specific funding questions and finding out answers, and who prefer these questions be asked of the people in the Department Office (so it's good that you already know some of the faculty).

I'm only partially familiar with these schools, but Stanford does have an excellent program (however, it seems like it used to be even more excellent in the past - a former faculty member described it to me as being "downsized"). I'm sure it's hard to resist the cull of the reputation of Stanford and Harvard. It seems like you're leaning towards Vanderbilt, for good reasons. I can only recommend having a second year for your MA - particularly if you don't have plans for a PhD, or want to gain significant employment after the MA. I graduated from UCLA's Comparative Ed Masters, which was one year, and felt as if my education was cut short: no methods courses beyond the introductory, no ability to put theory into practice in the field, no assistantship or internship. If a program gives me the opportunity or time to go abroad for research, that's a pretty big deal for me - and in International Education, it's crucial. In the end, people in the field know where the top programs are, whether they're in a top 10 school or not. And your choices are between these three - which is pretty fantastic, you'll do well wherever you go.

If you're planning on going on to a PhD program somewhere, it might make sense to take the offer with funding, as long as you feel the program will give you a quality education and a better chance at a PhD - like you said, it may just be that a MA in the same field will make you a more competitive applicant to top programs. I'm not sure what ranking you're looking at in your field, but there's often more to a program than the larger ranking - are the faculty well-published or well-regarded within the field? Perhaps you can inquire to see what MA graduates from that program go on to do - and what schools they get into. Paying for your own MA at a well ranked program doesn't guarantee entrance into the PhD program, so it's kind of a gamble. I'm not sure about English, but in my field MA funding is quite rare.

I agree: I think you have the right instinct, so I think you should just follow through. It seems like you'd be able to write very graceful emails - I think you can be upfront, and say that you've accepted another offer. I'm sure this happens all the time with faculty, so they'd appreciate your honesty and desire not to waste their time.