Minnesotan

This can be solved fairly easily with a quick investigation into where Ryerson graduates are now teaching. I have no information on this, but would be interested to know.

The Santa Barbara thread is located at the link below. Please search before posting new threads. viewtopic.php?f=27&t=273&p=43397&hilit=santa+barbara#p43397

At this stage in the game, those other 3 decisions are probably unofficial waitlists, as well, Commoner. You should get in off of a couple of them, and have a decent option or two from which to choose.

We've been well-trained by Mother University to see things from her perspective. I think it would be ridiculous to go someplace where you would be miserable, all because you didn't have the cajones to call up the DGS and tell him honestly and politely that you've had a change of heart, and you are sorry, but you have to go elsewhere. I think, if you use tact, most reasonable people would understand that this decision accounts for 4-8 years of your life, and that you should not "man up" and go to a program that you're going to resent having had to attend for 2+ years, just because you're stubbornly sticking to some misguided code of ethics. Do you really think they want to have a student who is only going to earn an MA and then bolt? Would it be beneficial to hold someone to their word, even if it means having a miserable, unenthusiastic person representing their school and their program to the outside world for the next few years? Without being a total jerk, you really need to do what will make you happy. I think most program directors would understand this, and in hindsight realize that it was better that they did not try to force you to stick to the bargain.

If I was really that worried, I would look up the telephone numbers of all of the secretarial staff, and just go down the list calling each in turn, until I found a human being to speak to. =)

If you did not complete your MPhil or MST in the UK, I would worry about the lack of training and teaching experience you would receive while writing your DPhil. This might have an adverse effect when you return to the states without having taken methods courses, taught any large freshman surveys, or had the hands-on support an American university provides. Don't get me wrong -- UK universities are great, and they provide much of the same training as a US uni. It's just that the systems are not aligned to provide the same training at the same time in one's career. I would look into what you would be missing out on by jumping ship halfway through your academic voyage.

Ryerson has a (very) few well-regarded programs. If you're in those programs, you should disregard what the posts above claim. True, it is not a prestigious university, but the location is great, and I would assume there are some good faculty available to work with, if you search them out. For the size of Toronto, there are shockingly few universities. Ryerson, I guess, is Toronto's #3 (if we don't include the satellite campuses of UofT and York), which is nothing to sneeze at, all things told. While I would not want to attend Ryerson for the field of study I chose, I think the snobbery around here is getting pretty thick. Prestige isn't everything, folks. Fit, location, faculty support, department goals and specialties, financial package, and many other criteria should be taken into account when choosing a program.

Rating someone's chances based only on numbers is something of a fool's errand. I think bad numbers can get you put into the early cut pile, and good numbers could help you get your foot in the door, but after that, the SoP and LoRs are quite important, as well as your fit with the program.

I'll be turning down any offers of rejection I receive. =)

The same thing happened to me two years ago. All three of my safeties rejected me, but I got in to a couple of top 20-30 programs, and one dream school. It's all a crap shoot, I tell you.

How utterly mercenary! =)

I wonder if there's any way to move a girlfriend without having her in the front seat, telling me how to drive for seventeen hours.

It's too bad nobody bothers to rank Canadian grad programs in English. I would love to know how people view the better programs, like Toronto, UBC, or Western.

I'm here now, if you want to gather any info on the city. I am however, 99% sure I'm leaving.

And we'll go ahead and keep value judgments about foreign policy, as well as political statements about our world leaders, out of this discussion, please and thank you. I've seen where comments like Prat's go when not nipped in the bud around here. If you want to discuss politics, The Lobby is the place for (polite) argument.

It's a fair concern. Likewise, I have had a couple of bad experiences with young female professors who (in the cases of these particular women) tainted everything they touched with their personal politics, related or not (i.e. What does my petition to take this course as pass/fail have to do with gender relations? How in the world does determining my oral defense date relate to what went on in Rwanda?). Does this mean I don't take courses or seek guidance from young female professors? No. But it might mean I am a little more wary around them, and that I like to get to know them before I get involved with them. This is probably unfair to the many young female profs. who I am sure are very nice, and who would work well with me, but after being burned a few times, one's natural tendency is to approach the fire more cautiously. I still wouldn't take note of the number of female or male professors in a department -- let alone allow that to affect my decision where I should go to grad school -- unless there was some highly unnatural imbalance. That is, if an English department were entirely female or male, that might or might not indicate some general bias, which would inspire further investigation. Either way, I'm trying to wrap myself around the mindset. From my limited understanding, I find it's rather sexist to eliminate schools based on the number of professors of a certain gender. However, if there are definite advantages to having a same-sex mentor or mentors, then I would like to be able to revise my opinion. ***Edit: After reading over my first paragraph, I realized I do have a better general feeling of being treated fairly by male professors. I'm not sure what this means, or whether women have the same vague notion about female professors or not, but I thought I would admit to this feeling, now that I've identified it. Perhaps it comes from dating women that I get a picture (true or false) of highly emotional subjectivity in my head when I think of female argumentation in general terms. This probably isn't fair, but in my experience, it holds up as often as not in relationships (my current girlfriend is very open about being an emotional, not a logical, person, even though this may or may not apply to other women). To shift that general sense of illogical femininity from one context to another seems a very short step. Again, it's a generalization about an entire sex, but this is how the mind subconsciously sorts and classifies information, no matter how egalitarian and evolved we think we are. Perhaps I do trust male professors more. Fair or not, I am more likely to assume that they are going to act logically in most cases. But, like I said above, I would never discriminate based on sex; in fact, its the different way she approaches problems and the interesting way her mind works that makes my girlfriend so intellectually stimulating to me -- I don't value other ways of looking at things any less than my own. I guess the real issue is that I associate people I find to be logical with fairness, be they male or female. I am distrustful of emotional people who have power over me, be they again male or female. I hope I did not sidetrack the conversation overmuch, but I find this discussion (and my related tangents) interesting.

And here I was about to get lunch. *ralf*

I am asking this out of pure curiosity, not making a judgment: Why does it matter so much to women what gender their mentors are? I have had mentors of both genders, and I've never thought twice about it. Does it stem from some form of innate sexism, a need to identify with one's mentor in ways women cannot identify with men, or is there a social aspect for the ladies that the men either do not need or just assume without communicating the need for it? I notice there are a lot of females in my cohort with what seems to me to be inferiority complexes due to their gender. Does this perceived condition make it easier for women to work with other women, because they know they have endured the same trials and fears?

They are the same girls. The sororities make sure to clone enough for each campus every year, so the world is fully stocked with vacuous party girls. =)

I would much prefer we did not duplicate our topics. If you could move this discussion back to one of the other "two-body problem" discussions I haven't locked down yet, I would appreciate it.

Read, read, read. Reading out of your discipline, and reading (valuable) 20th Century literature should do a lot to expand your vocabulary and expose you to clever stylistic devices in English, if you read carefully and have a dictionary at hand. I would consider some of the more linguistically playful and creative authors -- Vonnegut, Bukowski, and Pratchett leap to mind, but there are hundreds of examples.

You might want to list your discipline, as your generalization does not hold for all fields. I know mine is female-dominated.

If you're a single male who does not live with his parents, has a head on his shoulders, and is approaching the point of being relatively mature and level-headed, they will seek you out, no worries. I've dated lots of girls since coming to grad school, and I've never had to put forth a jot of effort. They just don't give you a chance, what with the odds the way they are. If a woman wants an educated man, she either needs to date the notorious professor who has the reputation for being with all of his young acolytes, or they have to fight over the very few unattached heterosexual males in grad school. Maybe it's different at other schools, but there is a huge disparity in the rate of matriculation by gender where I am. My cohort of fifteen had two males, one of whom was single (me). From what I've seen in other programs, this is not all that abnormal. Luckily all of the women's studies majors date amongst themselves, so you don't have to worry about fending them off. =) Anyway, make sure to meet your professors down at your university's grad club (or master common room, etc.) at every opportunity. You will meet women galore because, while they serve beer there (yay for me!), it's not technically a bar, and therefore not a threatening atmosphere (yay for them!). you can also strike up conversations with strangers without seeming creepy, or making them think you "want something" out of them (even though you probably do).

I'm here all night. Remember to tip your waitress.

Just to add to this line of thought, isn't it unethical to attempt to circumvent the CGS agreement by instituting a second deadline for funding? I don't just refer to the OP, to whom this might not apply -- I have seen a lot of questions about this second "funding deadline," which is artificially inserted ahead of the acceptance deadline.