mistaajg

Yeah I also heard from a couple schools that FLAS funding would not be allocated until late spring or summer and thus awards can't be completely confirmed until after the April 15 deadline to accept admissions offers at most schools. Does that really mean that I should more or less rule out making my decision based on the FLAS (the main source of funding I was hoping for)? That is really frustrating! I would think that most schools should have a general idea of how many awards they'll be able to give out...but maybe they're afraid of promising fellowships they could later have to retract. What do you guys think? Also, any thoughts on Harvard RSEA vs. Yale MA. in East Asian Studies? Yale's program's just being one year long concerns me a little as far as getting letters of recommendation and making decisions about next year, but it does sound like an amazing program. On the other hand, Harvard seems to offer a lot of flexibility in choosing classes (even non-Asian ones), which should be advantageous to people with interdisciplinary interests. Congrats to everyone and ditto as far as being grateful for all the advice, discussion, and positive attitudes!! This thread has been awesome!

Yeah the Harvard email was sent on Sunday morning...ironically, as I'm pretty obsessive about checking for notifications usually, and this was probably the one time I didn't expect to get anything. They said they made the decision Friday and wanted to let me know as soon as possible. I don't know whether all the acceptances went out at the same time or not, so don't give up if you're still waiting!

Thanks, I'm very excited. I graduated from a top liberal arts school in the US with double-majors in Chinese and Philosophy, have taken the last 2 years off to live in Taiwan (first in a Buddhist monastery and then as an English teacher/interpreter), and now want to combine my majors and study Chinese Philosophy and Comparative Philosophy (i.e., taking an East-West approach). I applied to M.A. programs in EAS this year to give myself a chance to decide which department (probably EALC or Religion,, as the majority of philosophy departments have no interest in Asia) will ultimately best accomodate my interests for a Ph.D. I have 4 years of Chinese training in university (including half a year in Taiwan) plus the 2 years living abroad, and I also read French, Spanish, and some German. My GPA and GRE verbal and writing scores were high; my GRE math score was quite low. I don't have that much in the way of publications or conferences. Keep your head up, Gumbikim, and I'm sure everything will work out for you

I was the one who made the post about getting into the Group in Asian Studies at Berkeley (M.A. program). The email I got was not personalized and seemed to imply that all the admissions are out, but I don't know for sure and hopefully I'm wrong. It did say that the program received a record number of applications this year. Hope you get some good news soon.

Was anyone else hoping to hear back from Berkeley's M.A. program last week (based on when they made decisions the past couple years)? Ahh...I hate the waiting... Tugou and Diegothedreadful, thanks for the tips earlier on Chinese philosophy!

I'm looking at the M.A. programs at Harvard, Duke, Yale, Stanford, and maybe a few other schools. I want to study East Asian philosophy and had originally planned to apply to philosophy Ph.D. programs this year, but after realizing just how hard it will be to find a well-ranked match for my interests in that field, I decided to look at EAS programs. I just made this decision pretty recently, though, so I haven't read as much about these programs as I have about those in philosophy. Does anybody have any details on admissions stats and/or funding offers? Duke reports that they admit almost 60% of applicants to their program, and I read somewhere (not on their own website) that Harvard admits close to the same. I was really [pleasantly] surprised by this, especially considering the competitiveness of philo. programs (many accepting only 3-6% of applicants). Can anyone confirm that I'm not completely off on these stats? Also, is there any ranking of EAS programs similar to the PGR report in philosophy? Any useful links or advice would be really appreciated. Thanks and good luck to everyone!