victorydance

Mexico's a fantastic country, and Michoacan and Guanajuato are beautiful states. And yes, Mexico is quite different from the rest of Latin America culturally, particularly the food.

What do you guys use to type out Spanish characters?

So basically that funding just covers your tuition?

No, haha I meant since finishing high school. I have taken a number of gap years (4 including my current one) and have lived in places like Rio de Janeiro, Bogota, Quito, Buenos Aires and currently in Mexico City. Basically whenever I wasn't doing my bachelors, I was down here.

In general, the top universities in the USA are better than any universities in all the other countries. When you work your way down the list, it gets a whole lot murkier, except that for the most part the top 10 in the US usually are the best universities in their respective fields in the world. They have the most resources, funding, and often employ the best professors in the field. Therefore, it's pretty easy to see why international students want to go to the US to study. And just to expand on the Canada example that TakeruK already started...a Canadian that has a Ph.D. from a top US university has a huge leg up on other Canadian applicants for TT positions. Yes, one can get a perfectly good doctoral education attending universities like U of T, McGill, or UBC, but at the end of the day if you are on the job market and applying for Canadian positions, having a Ph.D. from Yale, Princeton, or Harvard is going to make a huge difference. This is especially true for more developing countries where a Ph.D. from a top American school can open countless doors for someone. As far as universities caring about Americans over internationals...well, you have to think of it from a collective action perspective. First of all, academia doesn't actually care if the market is over saturated, in fact, they prefer it this way because it means they are getting dozens of more applicants when they put out open job postings for TT positions. More competition = better candidates each time they hire someone for a TT job. The system is built to keep pumping out Ph.D. students because it benefits universities in numerous ways. Secondly, grad schools want the best students. Period. The goal of any top university is to conduct research. Graduate students play a role in that goal both directly and indirectly. Directly through working as research assistants and providing highly skilled labour for cheap and also co-authoring papers or book chapters. And indirectly by being teaching assistants or other positions that helps professors do less service and/or teaching so they can be more productive in their research goals. If you don't let the best candidates in for doctoral studies, then your research will inevitably suffer and the matter of the fact is that there are dozens of extremely bright international applicants out there. If one school decides to not let in any internationals then they suffer to the competition of other schools: therefore they all let in international students because it's in their interests to do so.

Really? Protectionist (more specifically, protectionism) is the perfect word to describe what the OP is asking. Have you not heard of protectionist policies such as tariffs, immigration, or fair competition laws? If not, have a read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism

Always had a weird fixation with Latin America for no particular reason. Then substantially grew as I started spending a lot of time living there since high school. Eventually my interest in the region merged into my political science interest and now its pretty much interlocked.

Only interested in going to top 20 departments, no exceptions. Whether these will be "reaches" is kind of subjective or not; the idea is to work your ass off making your application good enough through your undergrad and/or masters to make it so they aren't "reaches."

Duke is a top 20 mathematics program, go there.

How did you guys/girls become interested in LA?

I asked something like a year before the deadlines. I think the earlier the better as long as the relationships are already well established.

After living in pretty much every climate possible in North and South America, I feel like weather is the least important factor in choosing a program personally.

The GRE was the toughest for me. In fact, even after months of studying I still didn't get the score I needed and I decided to apply to MAs instead. Everything else was super easy actually. I know all the profs for the most part in my sub-field so I knew exactly what programs to apply to. The SOPs took a long time to finally hash out but it was far from a excruciating process. LORs were a piece of cake.

Have you done any research projects with professors? Have you worked 1 on 1 in any capacity with professors? These are the type of letters you should be shooting for. If you don't have any of these letters, find ways to get them before you finish.

Isn't Columbia's funding a bit questionable as well?

You could also potentially open up a PO box in the US and use that as an address.

Can you not look for ways to fund yourself through the summer? Lots of profs hire RAs over the summer.

Didn't (can't remember clearly) you also say your were currently in a Ph.D. program already? Could be a potential deal-breaker.

With all due respect, this is completely incorrect. An "unfunded" offer of admission is an admission without a tuition waiver + stipend for X years. That does not mean you cannot get funding, nor does it mean you cannot find TA or RA positions, nor find ways to cut down tuition. A university department only has X amount of funding packages available. Some higher end departments have enough to fund all their admits, some only have enough to fund a certain percentage. Regardless, if you don't get a fellowship package that does not mean you cannot secure funding in other ways, whether by independently finding an RA position, or qualifying for a fellowship in year 2, ect.

All I ever need is a good and powerful laptop, second screen, a USB, notebook, pens, backpack, and an external drive.

^ Yeah I can agree that you shouldn't be financing a Ph.D. with debt definitely. But it's a false dichotomy to assume unfunded offer of admission = debt.

But this doesn't really have anything to do with my post. This isn't true, especially for international students. Many programs offer pretty scant funding packages for international students. However, the likelihood of finding funding once you're in the program becomes exponentially greater. For example, one of the programs I applied to has a scholarship that gives you full tuition waiver if you are an international student and the requirements are pretty lax. However the catch is you have to apply for it separately once you are admitted. If one was to get accepted for that scholarship + find a RA or TA position, they would be in precisely the same situation as someone who received an entrance fellowship. Another example is that similar packages like the entrance fellowships are opened every year for graduate students. So if you get a 4.0 the first year in your program you could theoretically be awarded a fellowship for the rest of your studies. I don't think there is anything wrong with that approach either, but the OP already did this. -------------- The point I am trying to make here is it isn't as black and white as "no funding, don't go." It's just not that simple. You have to look at what is available internally and externally and judge whether you can find funding yourself. I would imagine there aren't many options at a school like University of Delware so maybe this isn't the case with the OP. Another thing to look at for international students are external awards. Especially coming from developing countries, if you are competitive you can get full funding from government agencies or international organizations that are even better than typical internal fellowships at universities. There are also a significant amount of cases out there where students haven't received funding with the initial offer but ended up receiving a fellowship anyways. People that received the fellowship offer may or may not end up attending the program and therefore are awarded to others on the list.

Person.

Because it's not a black and white situation. For one, it's actually quite easy to qualify for fellowships once you are inside a program. You could actually end up getting funding right off the bat. Secondly, it's not that difficult to find RA or TA positions. Thirdly, there are a number of internal and external funding options for people who go to resource and research rich universities. Fourthly, getting your tuition waived is fairly easy. Fifthly, some people have other streams of income available to them and aren't poor students. I had a prof who accepted to go to an unfunded program over other funded options because it was a better ranked program and a better fit. They ended up getting all their tuition waived anyways and fully funded. Sure they had to go through a bunch more hoops than someone who got a fellowship off the bat but the result was the same. Personally, I have been accepted to my top choice program and its an unfunded offer. I put some emails out and already have a RA interview in line with the open house which would offer a stipend + half tuition waiver. I also have a bunch of savings to fall back on if it doesn't work out. Why wouldn't I strongly consider this offer? People get so hung up on the entrance fellowship on this site its ridiculous. Obviously it's desirable to get that but there are countless ways to fund yourself through graduate studies.

What's your top choice?