Minnesotan

Oh, sorry Britty. That's no good. Which school was stupid enough to turn you down?

It's not a problem. Race/gender issues only get me riled up when people think they should be able to decide who to employ or help out based solely on those criteria (note: I'm merely explaining myself in the context of this conversation, folks - I'm not starting a debate). In person, you likely couldn't tell what race(/s) I am, so people in the real world make similar misprognoses, especially when I get going about exclusion issues, etc. =) Anyway, to bring this back to a less controversial subject, the snow is fine for me - I've lived in it for most of my life. I actually limited my geography to some degree because I can't deal with warm weather that well. Anything over 80F makes me sluggish and unwilling to do anything but sip cool drinks on the beach. So much for that UNC-Chapel Hill app!

Loving it more than hockey might be taking things a little far, but I'm glad you were in earnest about curling. =)

I'll get the forum elves working on that one posthaste. In the meantime, congrats! Hopefully we all get chances taken on us.

I feel you are mocking curling, which is a helluva fun game, provided beer is allowed in the rink.

I always get yelled at when I say stuff like that. =)

Oh, to be a superstar and be able to rest on my laurels for a little while, as the acceptances start pouring in... I don't think there are many superstars in this game. There may be some savvy people, more in tune with what adcoms are looking for, but that's as far as I'm willing to go in a world where perfect grades and a highly successful GRE only get your writing sample read.

Ermm... I'm not a white male. I just like to play devil's advocate with the discussions you're referring to. I think some people get carried away with their lines of thinking. But, again, this isn't the place to discuss such things. As for being superstitious, you're right. If someone really wanted to sift through all of my previous posts, they could likely make a pretty good guess at whether or not I'm the person applying to their program. Then again, thousands of Minnesotans are applying to grad school in the humanities this year. Surely some of them have similar opinions and histories to mine. It would be pretty careless of an admissions committee member to assume anything.

I can hardly keep myself straight; I'm not sure why anyone else should be expected to do so. =) I'm applying all over the map. I've got apps out in English, History, and Humanities programs in the Northwest and Midwest of America, and in Ontario. Sorry if I'm not more specific, but I'm getting more and more superstitious as this process goes along. Now I know why they say that the longer you stay in academia, the weirder you get - I'm losing my bloody mind! Anyway, I may or may not have applied to the school we were just discussing, possibly in a different discipline from you, and I may or may not really really really want to get in at said school. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more!)

Ooh! The land of 10,000 mosquitoes per square inch! Actually, I really like my home state. It has a large proportion of educated people, a good mix of city and country, and extremely low crime (except for a few seedy areas of Minneapolis, where you wouldn't be out walking around, anyway). Just don't get freaked out when strangers start talking to you on the street. They're just being friendly - they don't want to mug you. Oh, and if you ask someone how they're doing, they'll tell you. At length. Yeah, so congrats. The U's a good school, and it has a fun (and pretty) campus.

I doubt the AW portion of the test will be too much of a problem, if you're not trying to get in at some extremely elite university. Even a statement of purpose is a better sign of your writing ability. The only thing the AW portion of the test really demonstrates is how well you can make a five-paragraph argument about a completely trivial situation in a half hour of writing and editing. I'm not sure how that's useful. =)

So we don't all freak out, I checked the results wall, and there were no interviews posted for P or Y last year. Two results came in for Y interviews for this year, though. It's likely informal or inconsistent (cf. above post claiming only one field, or a small number of fields, are doing it, which sounds likely).

Where you applied doesn't matter. The important thing is that we allow each other to cry on our collective shoulder until an acceptance comes in. Positive attitude, and all that. Carry on. Carry on.

Congrats on the acceptance. UW-Madison is a great school, in a great area! I'm officially jealous. =)

Honestly, I was just asking if the fellowship was a minority/gender-based fellowship, or not. I'm not really sure how the question could be offensive in any way. Am I not allowed to talk about white guys being excluded from things? Or can I not make jokes about it? I'm not sure what touchy-feely button I pressed, but I'd be happy to un-press it, if it gets people off my already over-crowded back! I guess I don't really care either way - I just hadn't applied to the Ford Fellowship, so I assumed I was excluded based on race or gender. It's a pretty safe assumption. That's all I meant; nothing offensive or deserving of a long rant in response.

Is that one of those "No white guys allowed in the treehouse!" fellowships? It's hard to keep up.

Maybe some planets need to align first, or something. Move it, damned planets!

That's dedication! I would have rescheduled the test. Either way, it all seemed to work out in the end. Yay Tyche!

Maybe I'm in an unusual situation, but I've learned to ask people other than the PA in my current program. It never seems to work out when she gives me advice.

Maybe I should have applied after all. We could have swarmed Urbana-Champlain Grad Cafe style! Or not.

I dare not think what would happen if I don't get in anywhere. After all of this waiting, I might just snap. Ermm... anyone know of a high-paying job that allows you to do basically nothing, while staying at exotic resorts on faraway beaches? Maybe I'll look into something like that.

Judging by last year, I might be waiting for news (either way) for a little while. Of the history programs I applied to, the earliest notification was Feb. 16th, but most were mid-March.

The mean verbal score for people applying in history is 542. Based on that, I would guess 590 is under 60% among people who want to become historians. I wouldn't call that a success. Anyway, ETS breaks this stuff down by discipline on their website. You can do with the data what you will.

I just live off the government and the university, but still I disagree with this on principle! lol

Good luck with that. I think this board would cease to exist if everyone got more acceptances than rejections. Maybe we can fix it so only Grad Cafe regulars get accepted. Everyone else obviously doesn't want it badly enough, if they aren't stressing so much that they check these forums obsessively!