sashababie

I feel for all of you who're having a hard time turning down offers - especially those writing to potential (and enthusiastic) advisors and department chairs. I had a really hard time forming the words of one of my letters, althought I had let the chair know 2 weeks earlier that I couldn't attend without some funding (PhD). He was very nice about it and congratulated me on the admission I accepted, so much so that I really do hope I get to meet him in the future! My boyfriend on the other hand went through a bad experience, a chair he interviewed with immediately wrote back after receiving his decision asking if they could do anything to change his mind, and the email looked as if he was really upset; it wasn't that the program was deficient in any way, my bf just felt he would do better at another program, so I could see how hard it was to reply to that urgent inquiry! But we all got to where we are, and after this mental strain we'll all be heading off to grad school, so good luck and chin up everyone

It's not as if you're still in undergrad and not positively sure about your field of study; transfers at this are largely acceptable. When you applied to PhD most committees assume you have strong interest in their programs and are therefore presenting yourself as a future candidate, and they make you an offer on this basic understanding. If you don't achieve candidacy because the work was too strenuous or your interests change (!?), that's regretable but understandable; if you use the year enrolled in the program without committing yourself to it as a temporary stepping board, then you're violating a tacit agreement which you WILLINGLY ENTERED INTO, which is really NOT acceptable.

I guess I'll be revising my MA thesis, sounds boring but I'm actually looking forward to it as it'll be done at my parents', and I'll enjoy getting pampered by them before heading off to another stage of my life in the US!

I know some programs have been asking students to make decisions asap, for example I got one that requested a decision be made by 4/15 noon EST, so they could promptly inform waitlisted students I guess, but I've already done with the accept/declines, hopefully all the admits will remember there are people waiting for their spots and work on their letters/emails over the weekend! Good luck

I second this, now that the April 15th decisions are over for me I can finally settle down to work - with a pretty picture (PhD) in front of me I'm going to work my butt off completing that MA!!!

oh my :cry: I had hoped the town itself wasn't so bad, is it a hassle to get to larger cities (Detroit, Chicago, Toronto etc.) by public transportation? Not to mention the cash I'll have to chuck out for airfare to NYC, the boyfriend will be probably too busy to visit me in AA :evil: (can't imagine life without fall recession and spring break travel)

snagsby yes I got that long-awaited rj letter last week (I'm an international), maybe they're sending letters out in batches

hi shima, no I'm not in Ann Arbor right now but I will be in August , my boyfriend and I have already accepted our offers from the respective schools, I am in Comparative Literature PhD and he is in MS Urban Design, I'm sure he did a lot of research and decided that Columbia was more worth it, so despite having a hard time with this decision I'm not holding any grudges against him. But! I really think what you said in another thread is going to be true for me as well, I have always enjoyed a big city lifestyle too and cannot fathom living in a small town for 5 yrs or more. I do believe that I will be able to get away to larger cities once in a while and hope those visits will keep me going, I should be too busy to think about shopping sprees anyway! By "like my fiance and I" do you mean you will be doing long-distance too? AA vs NYC?

katellis I always love it when people are excited about their prospective schools, it just seems so fulfilling And shima I really can't envy you enough, my boyfriend received an offer from UM too but opted to go to Columbia instead, I'm not doing too good with the long-d adjustments (he's leaving our home-country very soon in May for the summer semester) and thankfully his M.S. takes only a year, hopefully he'll work in a more accessible city then :evil: As for housing, I've been doing a lot of research, it seems that you could look for places around North Campus, please correct me if I'm wrong :oops:

Mine won't help at all - NYU Comparative Literature, UIUC Comparative Literature, and the UChicago MAPH offer. But a friend of mine will be turning down UC Santa Barbara for Literature at San Diego, all the best commoner!

I think it is definitely worth while to get in contact with programs that have waitlisted you, either way it probably won't hurt to let them know you're still very much interested; they can't bump you down for being enthuastic can they? Just make sure you're true to your own word - don't tell them you'll accept their offer for sure then go somewhere else!

I'm in a similar predicament only reversed, potential advisors at the program I'm most definitely going to have been emailing me 2-3 times a week - separately! I'm starting to feel a bit harassed since there are 3 I might like to work with and I really want to meet them before I ask to be their advisee. Right now I'm having to think of trivial, noncommitant questions to ask, such as reading lists for their upcoming seminars/classes, joint projects with my cohorts, and recommended prep material (languages, theory) etc etc. Dancing around questions concerning individual research has been tricky and I'm not sure how to respond if they decided to ask me outright. :evil:

I only had one safety school on my list, SUNY Buffalo, reject Wouldn't say I had admits from "top" programs but they're good enough for me (probably too good :roll: ): U of Michigan and UIUC.

shima you can get to the Detroit airport (DTW) under an hour from AA, and the flight is 2 hrs approximately, I looked it up already because I'm probably going to do long-D with my boyfriend in NYC, boo... :cry: And don't worry about getting to the airport, I think there is an airport shuttle, and I'm sure there will be other options too. And yeah katellis, I'm ready to accept their offer, the other incoming decisions from other schools isn't going to make a difference. Where will you be heading?

You should always call and ask the graduate school directly for this kind of information, if the department is willing to grant deferment there can be exceptions to the (general) rules, but I have the impression that you would need ample reason to place a request, and sometimes you lose funding as well.

I'm also waiting on funding from a program, although they probably won't be able to match my current favorite, but they do have good faculty and placement so I'm not turning them down yet. I've written to no avail and called last Friday (international!), was put on hold for 3 mins, then told (very politely though) funding decisions will hopefully be out by the end of the month. I have to say, like rising_star, it's really making me not want to go :roll: .

katellis hi, this is very valuable info thank you so much, if you don't mind I'd like to ask a couple of more questions If I'm planning to commute (by bus) to class just so I can get nicer living quarters, which areas would you suggest? I was considering living even further out and drive, but after seeing several people comment on the impossibility of parking on campus (and the trouble of maintaining a vehicle) I've given that up. Right now I'm getting so worried the desirable places will be snapped up before fall matriculation that I'm seriously contemplating heading out in April or May to look at prospectives :cry: Also, would a stipend of roughly 1,500/month be suitable for AA COL? If not I'm going to have to dig into those savings :evil:

I don't know why a lot of people discredit rankings so much, the top 20 doesn't really look much different from that of last year's compared with 10 years ago, and most schools are not only "prestigious" but also highly academically productive. There may be lots of instances out there for unique programs that have been well managed and are suited to individual students with specific fields of study, and said students could very well thrive in such environments. But never underestimate the influence of institute name if your ultimate goal is career-oriented; if you're only looking for a few rewarding years of study, I say go with whatever program suits you best, but if you're looking for placement booster factors and if you don't actually believe you'd be miserable at a higher ranked school, I say go with realistic perspective rather than gut feeling.

I have to say that I politely disagree with this viewpoint. If it is the substance of a post that is inappropriate, public remonstration is a matter of course, but this was not the case. Textspeak is to say the truth annoying, but I am troubled at the way a moderator chose to address this problem. I myself have moderated discussion forums larger than this one and with many more pesky posters, and I do not think Minnesotan's ironic/sarcastic comments were called for in any way. Given the number of people using textspeak (next to none, i believe) here at gradcafe I would've thought excel had the sense to refrain from using it, but since she happened to it was right for a moderator to stand out, but the way it was expressed! Outsider looking in, the ill will was completely uncalled for. I don't know what historygirl means by nasty comments (crude? callous? swearwords?), but I would think Minnesotan's unfriendly at the least. True, he helps to keep order voluntarily and I think we all owe him thanks for a great environment, but that does not imply a moderator can say whatever he/she wants without consideration for the general tone. I'm in the humanities too, and an international at that (not native-English speaker), and I've found Minnesotan's comments elsewhere very helpful sometimes, so much so that this one thread seems completely incompatible with his general behavior, it almost seems like personal grudge. And that, IMHO, is very inappropriate in itself in a public space.

boringusername: I checked out UM's off-campus housing search a few days ago, and I must say I've been worried about ever getting decent housing without flying over way in advance and looking at prospectives in person. I know that limited people advertise with UM's service, but I really did not expect that my very generous search criteria would produce such unsatisfactory results. I'm only looking for: utilities included (heating to be exact!), non-smoking, and kitchen available, the pictures I've seen posted there! You'd expect people to at least clean up before taking pics of their house? :roll: Guess the safest way would be to go for campus housing, but I really would prefer to have a room to myself (w/ kitchen and private bath), having never had lived in a dorm all my life, grad school doesn't seem to be a good time to start. :cry:

#5 and #49 is a stretch, money is not an issue as long as you can survive, and you can always look for outside funding to add to your stipend. No matter how hard the #49 tries (and succeeds) it's highly unlikely it'll produce graduates ready for the TT market ( ) who'll receive equal recognition as #5 grads by the time you finish your PhD. On a side note, the single wellknown scholar might be luring you towards school C, but please do consider the program as a whole. If your work nicely coincides with his/hers you could very well get to work with him/her regardless of where you are.

hi I'm in comparative literature, still waiting on 2 apps but I'm assuming rejections, and Michigan is starting to grow on me! The only thing that scares me is the weather but looking forward to everything else

I emailed NYU and got the standard response: they don't advise students on decisions via email, fax or phone and letters have been sent out earlier this week, those in the US should receive next week? This is for comparative literature though, not sure if timeline's the same for English. Hang it there, commoner, score one and it's worth the wait

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but excel stopped using textspeak after the initial post. At least she's demonstrated there's no problem with her grammar and spelling, but how nice it would have been if she refrained from using textspeak at all, and how nice it would have been if mods notice for a fact that sarcasm isn't always the best way to make a point, as mentioned earlier, if not contributing to the "academic" growth of the forum, why not just use PM?

Anyone out there? Odds are I'll be heading out there in the fall