browneyedgirl

Don't do this. You don't want to risk faculty having long memories about this sort of thing* - I've seen multiple people accept offers only to hear on April 15th and then decline the offer they accepted, which is really bad form. A much, much better option is to be upfront with them - "I love your program, but I'm waiting to hear from School X and may not until the 15th. Can you give me a few extra days to make the most informed decision possible?" They'll appreciate the honesty and odds are pretty good that you'll get the time you need. * Edit - and yes, I've heard them complain about students who do this. "That says more about the program than you, etc.," whatever, why risk it?

nice casual (e.g. nice shirt/sweater and nice jeans) is almost always the best way to go. when in doubt, e-mail a student in that department and ask them what students/faculty usually wear. you will probably feel a bit odd if you're in a suit and the faculty are in jeans. in my department, faculty don't dress differently for the visit than they do the rest of the year, and neither do current students. people in suits usually look a bit uncomfortable

as an FYI, that's generally not how it works. the issue isn't admits who haven't told the school what they're doing, it's people who have. schools want to use the waitlist to round out their class, so they'll either admit waitlisted students if a ton of X people (where X is subfield, gender, etc.) start turning them down, or realize that they're getting a good yield for group X, so may tell waitlisters that they won't be able to admit them. to that end, there isn't always a hard and fast waitlist ranking order. most of the waitlist movement happens much closer to April 15, after schools have their visits (many programs have begun pushing the visits to April) and people officially start turning down / accepting programs. we don't expect anyone to make a decision about our program until they've visited us and probably all of the other schools to which they were admitted.

departments will usually ask admits who turn them down where they end up going, in my experience, and also have a pretty good sense of the schools admits turned down to come there (through conversations, funding negotiations, etc.) I wouldn't be surprised if that's where they come up with their list of competitor schools. my program tends to lose admits to the same set of schools every year, but maybe one student each year goes somewhere we might not expect, based on their options. to that end, the "surprise" school might well say it competes with schools X and Y because student A turned down X and Y to go there, even though that program, broadly speaking, may not be considered "equal" to X and Y.

I agree with the questions suggested by 3221. one big piece of advice, beyond that, is to try to spread out the question-asking as much as you can. if you ask everything up front, or in the first two hours of your visit, you'll probably dread every subsequent interaction when someone from that program asks what questions you have. I couldn't even count the number of times I've asked this of an admit, only to have them say something like, "well... I don't know... I think I asked all of them..." also, try to ask questions of as many people as possible. you might run into a grad student or professor who is well-meaning but out of the loop on a particular topic, but still offers an (incorrect) answer. on professors' research, no, definitely not - remember, this is their chance to sell their program. you're already in! they're not expecting you to talk about their work. obviously, if someone's work is pretty close to what you want to do, you could discuss it. I like to use the visit weekends to tell new admits about my program, and to get a feel for who they are, both academically and personally. there are only so many times you can give the "I'm X, studying field Y, undergrad at school Z" talk. on the methodology question, I would say that's a "must-ask" question - if you're at all concerned that the department does one thing and frowns upon people doing anything else, you shouldn't hesitate to ask. even if they think it's a strange question (which most people at most schools will not think), it's so much better to know that now than when you've already started there. yes. in my experience, odds are good that the person who e-mailed was on the admissions committee and may have been delegated to e-mail students. it's also possible that the professor thought your work was interesting and wanted to contact you, even though you didn't list them in your application (though, in your case, perhaps this is less likely).

I first read this as "I want to spend a year at a US program" and not "I have a year of funding for a US program," but a re-read suggests you mean the latter. So, in my experience, having external funding is never a bad thing (your #3), particularly if you're applying to public schools. Private schools have a set tuition amount for everyone, whereas public school tuition will be higher (sometimes quite a bit higher) for people who aren't residents of that state. As an international student, you're unlikely to be eligible for residency, meaning the department is on the hook for your higher rate of tuition. I know some public programs have all-but stopped admitting international students unless they have full external funding (for the duration of the program). On #1, then, the leverage this gets you may depend on the schools to which you're applying. At my program, I don't think it helps you in terms of setting your CV apart, but it could help you on the margins, when making funding decisions. On #2, did you tell committees that you plan to move back to your home country? I wouldn't be surprised if the people reading your file had no idea there are strings attached to your year of funding. Some faculty members, particularly at top programs, expect their students to go into academia and to want to teach at a research-focused insitution. They see you as less serious if you don't, for example, strive to get a top US job. Other faculty members want you to do what's best for you. I have colleagues who've moved back to their home country and taken good jobs, and their committees haven't objected. Until you know how different faculty members react, there's no reason to tell them anything that could cause them to object to you, given how random the admissions process already is, IMO. Also, they'll likely know how to make the conversions (#4), as international applicants are probably somewhat common. But, on the other hand (#5), for my department, the only people who tend to regularly get a break on the GRE quant requirements are those who plan to study political theory. I hope that helps!

I searched but didn't see this anywhere on the forum, and I'm hoping this is useful information for some of you: I have a (small-ish) graduate loan from Citibank that I took out to cover some costs of my MA about six years ago. I'm currently about to start the fifth year of my Ph.D., and was quite surprised to find out that they have a four-year in-school deferment policy. This became news to me a few days ago, when I asked why my loan was in repayment, thinking it had something to do with summer. I can thankfully afford the payments, as they're small, but I'm sure there are people with much larger loans from Citibank. If you're one of those people, and you're planning to be in a graduate program for more than four years, beware that you'll need to deal with this issue (they do offer economic hardship programs, so those might cover the remaining years, but I didn't ask about that). I was also informed by the manager with whom I spoke today that they have a one-time six-month grace period when you're finished with school - I used mine after my MA was finished, so even if the deferment were to continue, I'd have to start repaying immediately after graduation.

if you click on proposal status, you'll see the grant number - click on that, and it gives all the detailed information, including the reviews. the categorizations were all the way at the bottom on mine. I'm not sure if this shows up if decisions haven't been made; I didn't check fastlane until I received my first e-mail from the program director (about 3.5 months after the deadline). I hope that helps!

fwiw, fastlane shows me that there are three categories - highly competitive, competitive, and not competitive. the first two are recommended for funding, and the third is not (about 80% of applications fell into this category). I don't know if this changes by field, though.

I know about half a dozen people who've transferred - it's usually a case of 1) advisor leaving the first school or 2) life changing such that being in a different part of the country is better (marriage, etc.) depending on the school, you may have to start over, so you don't want to wait too long to transfer. that said, in my opinion, you'd want to do this as tactfully as possible. who will be writing your letters? if you want faculty from program 1 to write for program 2, you'll need to build a good relationship with them and not burn it down when you tell them you want to leave. thus, the stronger the reason for leaving (i.e. not "this school is so much worse than these other places"), the better. also, if you're trying to move to a program regarded as much stronger / selective, I agree with the above comments that you'll need to work on things that are fixable - statement of purpose, etc. the admissions committee at my program tends to be skeptical of people who are already in Ph.D. programs, so don't forget that you'll have to convince them of your reasons for leaving, as well.

I didn't look at my fastlane status post-applying, pre-notification, but I received an e-mail 3.5 months after the application (fall) deadline, which said I had been recommended by the first panel, and that I'd hear about the division panel in 8-10 weeks. my fastlane status said 'pending' after this e-mail, for almost 10 weeks, when it switched to 'recommended.' I still haven't received the final notification; it apparently takes several weeks more for the office that disperses the money to get everything processed, after the division panel concurs with the first recommendation. I hope that helps!

this was more true about five years ago (and earlier) than it has been since. UCB cohorts are larger than some, but not huge (topping out at about 20).

GSR appointments are usually tied to a specific faculty member, so it's up to them what you'd do - background research, coding, manuscript preparation, whatever they need for the project in question. GSR = research assistant. GSR positions are distinct from GSI, where you're leading discussion sections, and from reader positions, where you're grading but not leading section. some GSR appointments cover fees. if you're working at least 25% time, which is 10 hours per week, you get partial fees, and you need to work 50% time to have full fees covered. I hope that helps!

if you're interested in APD generally, you can't go wrong with Pierson/Hacker/Schickler.

I absolutely agree with this. in my department, the none of the professors in my area subfield study the topics that interest me most, but there are other faculty members specializing in other areas who do, and that makes the intellectual experience that much richer. there are also a few Americanist professors whose work borders on mine, and dialogues with them have helped me envision new ways of shaping my own work and letting some American literature really speak to comparative literature. I had to decide between a few lesser-ranked programs (but still very solid) with strong faculty doing work more in line with mine and a few higher-ranked programs with comparative programs that were tops, across the board, but where I'd have to branch out and find faculty working on other areas. I don't regret my choice for a second.

sorry! I only passed along what the adcom folks told me. perhaps there was a snag in the notifications? the e-mails came at strange times last year; I woke up to one around 6am. don't shoot the messenger!

it's not. at least some applicants will hear tomorrow.

the latter - I received an e-mail accepting me with a copy of the letter attached. a few days later the same letter was available online. this was early February, so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that all early news is bad news from them!

hey everyone, I don't know if this will help or further stress y'all out, but last year I received e-mail acceptance to UCLA before my online status was updated; it was a few days later that I finally could see the letter online. I'm not sure if the same is true for my peers, though, so take this as just one N in the sample! (if it's any consolation, the decision process is at times more stressful than the waiting process.)

the other possibility, certainly, is that some schools may opt to offer substantially smaller packages to those they accept, or offer packages to fewer students. I saw this last year and I imagine it may still be true for this year, though I have no special inside information (sorry!) reality could be a combination of reduced numbers and reduced funding for those accepted, which would be terrible, but somewhat necessary. I sympathize. current students are also discussing how the cutbacks going on at many schools will affect guaranteed funding, if at all. we're all thinking (praying?) that we'll be untouched, but one can never know for sure, and we still might be hurt by disappearing lines of funding for travel and research. good luck!

it probably varies somewhat, but FWIW, I heard back from most schools by mid-February last year. they started pouring in once the first one came, it seemed. that's about right for most of my friends and former co-applicants, as well. I'll try to summarize what I've learned from our collective experiences: * acceptances certainly seem to come by a certain point in the month (February) so that plans for visit weekends can be finalized, though I'm sure they continue into March for some schools * rejections are all over the board. some schools send them sooner and some drag it out, though if I remember correctly, online/e-mail notifications tended to come more quickly than letters. * this is definitely not true of non-US schools, particularly those with deadlines that aren't until February or so; I was still hearing back from them in March and even April

you can fill out the FAFSA before you've filed your taxes, which is usually necessary to meet the early deadlines - you fill everything out to the best of your knowledge (I used last year's paystubs to estimate) and you indicate that you will file but have not yet filed your returns (that's one of the questions). once your taxes are filed, you go back to edit and indicate that you've filed (you'll see that as part of the e-mailed instructions after submission.) it can certainly change the EFC, but I've found it's minor, because I generally can estimate my income and the like. I hope that helps!

while I'm not totally clear on how your ug program was set up, it doesn't sound like this should be a concern. you've taken (so it sounds) a number of polisci courses, so it's not as if you've just suddenly decided that you like polisci and want to pursue it in grad school. some of your pre-law background may add to your appeal as a student of American (again, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this; at my alma mater, 'pre-law' meant you were probably a polisci student and you took practice LSATs), especially if you have any interest in public law topics. also, I wouldn't waste valuable SOP room explaining away the above - that's not to say don't mention it, if it's important to you, but rather that you shouldn't feel obligated to justify your decision (or even address it at all, if you so choose) because it doesn't seem very out of the ordinary. good luck!

I think the best answer is, just as you said, "it varies" - my program is typically 6 years and I was told that comparativists may take as long as 8 years to finish because of fieldwork. now, I think most people don't take that long, but it very much depends on how long you're in the field and then how long you take to write. funding, again, will depend on your specific school and the package they've offered, but I feel like it would fall into one of two categories: covered the same way it would be if you were on campus (for example, you spend your fourth year in India and you're funded just as you would be at home), or the school expects you to apply for outside fellowships. or maybe a combination of both? I have the luxury of a few years of funding when I'm ready to go, but I will still be applying for as many external grants as I possibly can. fieldwork seems to be the time when you turn to the Fulbright-Hays and the like, money that's intended to assist while overseas.

it depends how you define it, I think. by my definition, it's "my thing," a large part of what I do, which involves the interplay of personal and national identity with citizenship, immigration, political participation, and the like. ethnic violence certainly comes into it, but I wouldn't say it's the only factor. I hope that's helpful; I'd be happy to (attempt to) clarify as needed!