gr8pumpkin

And here is a case in point vis-a-vis my previous post. Yes, we can't possibly criticize the OP without using gendered terms, can we?

Are you sure it's not sexism? What, do you think sexism is dead or something? ETA: I don't necessarily disagree with everything that's been said to try to help the OP, but I'm always surprised when people kind of blithely bypass the possibility that sexism could be at play. Sexism is everywhere in academia. Everywhere.

I hear you. I'm not close with anyone in my family of origin anymore.

What a wonderful topic. Jean-Philippe Rameau, Heinrich Schenker; and Allen Forte and George Perle strangling each other.

I wish more heterosexual white men were interested in equality and examining issues like privilege such that they'd take a few women's/gender/LGBTI studies courses. $0.02.

From both of my brothers at various points: [as an academic], you lead such a sheltered life. From my dad: I don't understand what graduate school even is. I thought you just went to college for four years and then got a job. By the way, does anyone think it would be hard to find a husband in grad school? [runs, ducks]

Congrats to tutu for being one of two musicologists accepted to Eastman--- though I was pretty sure their website said no acceptances would be forthcoming until March 15. I guess musicology is ahead of the curve?

It goes to show, sometimes we get to be the rejecters. A bit of cold comfort, I suppose. Rejection sucks on either side of the rejecting.

I for one would never shut off a resource like the CHE "fora" because I don't like the message of some of the posters. I would, however, shut off such a resource because it's a navel-gazing clique of the same twelve narcissistic posters tiredly one-offing each other like an eternal Algonquin round table.

Absolutely. Not many people know this, but he is a very fine composer.

The faculty in the department are sort of coincidentally a one-stop shopping mall for my various subfields of interest.

I'm posting this not to be the PC Police, but rather as food for thought: http://www.r-word.org/

Oh, please don't apologize for that. I've thought pages and pages back that this thread has all kinds of serious feminist implications. ETA: I'm a male self-identifying third-wave feminist.

That's what books are for. Not meant as snark. Totally serious.

Waiting for letter. Application decision. Why oh so much spam?

This. This. A world of this.

My parents put me through my undergrad. They said no more, I'm on my own for grad school. That's when I first felt like an actual adult.

Not to brag, but I had lunch with Hofstadter last summer. Okay, it is to brag.

Actually, ha, I could imagine a course where football players and basketball players have to study and write essays about famous games of the past and famous coaching gambits those entailed; papers on particular players and the techniques they employed, etc. Why not?

I've never completely understood why one can't just major in football or basketball as a form of study, the way that one can major in other high-risk, ultra-competitive would-be occupations like music or theater. Someone wants to be a famous concert pianist, so he or she goes to some music program and focuses on that pursuit knowing the risk that it may not pan out. And someone goes to a college to play football or basketball or whatever, hoping to make the pros but knowing the risk that it may not pan out. What's the difference? If it doesn't pan out, the would-have-been concert pianist winds up teaching piano lessons and the would-have-been NBA star winds up coaching middle schoolers. My solution is to treat sports like any other would-be occupation and let students pursue it as a real study. This would keep them out of rocks-for-jocks type BS classes the same way music majors in conservatories never have to see a day of calculus or chemistry.

It's just the nature of the interwebz. It's impossible to know if you really are who/what you say you are. And it's impossible for you to know if I really am who/what I say I am for that matter. Why would anyone lie on a message board? For the lulz?

I'm not sure if you're talking to me or not, but I observe that we have dueling Peanuts characters.

I only call my Safety School a safety school because I was all but told that I would be accepted if I applied, and was already a visiting scholar there.

Only applied to three schools this time around. I was only going to apply to Safety School originally and just be done with it, but a mentor with deep connections to what is now Top Choice offered to write me a letter, so I applied to that too. And if I was going to apply to two schools, I applied to a third school with an offbeat sort of program that I was sort of qualified for, just to see what would happen (and what happened was rejection). I was pretty sure I'd get into SS and I did. I was also okay with completely striking out and trying again next year. Years ago when I was applying to my first doctoral program I applied to just one school and got in. Again, I was really pretty sure I'd get in because I was writing a paper on someone teaching there and had established a good rapport. At that time in life I was also okay with not getting in anywhere. I think as a general rule if you're okay with striking out and have other things to do, then why bother applying to 10 schools?

This; I could've written this. I'm really interested in number theory; other areas of math not so much.