willmpioneer

I don't know of any bus that goes directly from Buffalo to Guelph. Guelph has a Greyhound bus station (and I think they now have the commuter train line called Go Train), but it may be that to get there you will have to go all the way to Toronto to transfer to a bus that goes to Guelph. If you are looking for second-hand furniture, there is a Value Village thrift store that has cheap used furniture, though it isn't always in the best condition. There used to be a couple of second hand furniture places downtown, but that aren't around anymore and I can't really think of anywhere to buy furniture in the downtown area. There is a smaller store near downtown called Attic Treasures which sells nice consignment furniture, but because it is consignment it is often antique and not cheap (though sometimes cheaper than buying new). For deals on new furniture: Guelph doesn't have an Ikea but it does have a Walmart where you can find cheap tables, desks, etc. There is a large furniture showroom called Uncle Joe's not too far from campus. It has many signs claiming the lowest prices (I can't attest to that since I've never been inside) and it also holds furniture auctions to get rid of stock. I would imagine they deliver. If you move-in when the weather is still warm and you have a car, there are usually many yard sales around town on Saturday mornings, which is the way to find very inexpensive kitchen table sets, etc, but isn't the most convenient way to shop. The University of Guelph website The Cannon is a place for student-related classifieds, including furniture, housing, car pool arrangements. etc, Link to the site: http://www.thecannon.ca/ And here students post furniture they are selling, usually things that have not been used very much and are good deals: http://www.thecannon.ca/classifieds/furniture Good luck!

Guelph is a great city. I've only walked through the on-campus family housing once, but found that it was quite nice compared to such housing at others universities (it has a playground, it's near a little forest, etc). I'd have to know how much they are charging for family housing to compare, but compared to the residency fees I know they get for shared student dwellings, off-campus housing is generally the much cheaper option. It is nice to not feel sectioned off from the rest of the community, but at the same time the family housing would automatically put you into a community of other grad students, and their partners and children. I lived in the downtown area in a 2 1/2 bedroom upper floor of a Victorian house (with a yard that backed onto the river) for 750 a month - which is probably cheaper than you'll find, but such gems do exist. My sister lives with her son and partner in a similarly priced house/apartment not too far from downtown. The difficult thing in getting nice, roomy, inexpensive places when you live out-of-town is that they don't always advertise in the paper or post on craigslist: they just put a little sign in the window. If the university is charging over $1200 a month for housing, it is probably worth your while looking elsewhere. I'd recommend living in the downtown area. Areas to avoid: the Willow area. A neighborhood called "the Ward" (historically a working-class Italian neighborhood) used to have a reputation for being a bit worndown and unsafe, but is now fairly vibrant and populated mostly by students, musicians, and elderly homeowners. It is one of the cheapest neighborhoods to find a house for rent. There are a couple of streets in the ward that have a bad rep, but Guelph is overall very safe. In 2009, Statistics Canada named Guelph "Canada's Safest City." There are many parks and elementary schools in the downtown area, and the university is only a few minutes away. I'd be happy to answer any other questions you may have.

ND is having a recruitment weekend Feb 28 / March 1. I don't know if they are done making offers or not. Sounds like they might have a waitlist.

I wouldn't worry too much about not addressing those questions. Even though I was trying to follow all their prompts ( I think there are about seven questions, some with two parts), on revisiting the English website just now I realize I missed some of them. The question about the city was followed by a question about the school ("- Do you have a particular reason to come to New York City? can you envision the intellectual consequences of living and working here? - In light of the description above, do you have a particular reason for wishing to work within the Department of English at New York University?"), and clearly the latter question would be much more important to address.

I've gotten similarly comforting comments, to the effect that while the applicant pools is increasing, the number of good students in that pool is not increasing at the same rate and that the smart ones will continue to be successful. I second that the location of a school should be important factor in considering where you apply or accept. Personally, I couldn't bear living in California, so I'm sticking to my cold Northeast. It was funny how much NYU wanted the location emphasized in the SOP: please address these questions "WHY do you want to live in New York City? What do you imagine the intellectual consequences of living in New York City will be?.." Maybe that is partially to try to distinguish the people who want to come to here because they think its a Sex in the City episode vs. the ones who have a sense of opportunities for primary research and the environment of intellectual exchange and the literary arts scene outside the academy.

I don't know if the closer to present day, the more popular rule of thumb completely holds. My impression is that there don't seem to be as many students interested in really contemporary literature (as in the 90s through the 21rst century). It seems that most departments do not put much emphasis on hiring people to teach contemporary American. Not that that helps me much. I have heard too that medievalist interests are probably to your benefit when applying. The numbers you will be competing with will be much smaller than 19th or 20th century, and departments will be looking to bring in a range of students each year, including the rarer bird of the medievalist.

Now that I think of it, both universities I have attended had no clocks. In any room. And they weren't Christian. I applied to two universities with historical religious ties, and both of these requested "religion" on the application (one of them did not have "atheist" on pull-down menu). These institutions both pledge a commitment to "diversity," so I would hope that would include diversity of religious, political, and sexual orientation. If you don't know a current graduate student that you might ask about these questions, you might be able to get some sense of the social life of the students by investigating the website for diversity of clubs, organizations, and past/future events. Personally, I would be more concerned about how religion may or may not inform their academics. At larger institutions, both professors and graduate students tend not to be attracted in the main to a program for whether its religious affiliations match their own. But if it is a smaller, more insular school, it might be more of an issue. You might also attempt to network with other prospective students at the school (some schools have facebook or listservs for prospective incoming grads). All this is not to say that people of strong faith do not form close friendships with all sorts of different people, but, yes, if you go to a school where the majority of students are of a particular faith (the ungrad percentage might matter to you if you will also be teaching during your degree) you might feel like an constant outsider or that the interrogation of certain ideas in the sphere of academic life are shut down.

Does anyone currently attending Temple know what size their incoming grad cohorts tend to be and how many people apply? Discussions on this forum last year by those accepted indicated that they received 120 applicants and admitted 40, very few of which were MAs. I'm sure not all those people went or that they were able to offer funding to many of them, but if those numbers are correct it would, statistically, make Temple a comparatively "easy" place to get into but perhaps not the best place to be if you are looking for a good student to faculty ratio, small classes, etc.

"It is strongly encouraged that you upload an unofficial copy of your transcript to this section to facilitate the processing of your application. If you are contacted regarding admission, you must send an official copy of your transcript to the Graduate Division. You will not receive an offer of admission until the official copy has been received and verified." I read that as: better to send official transcripts as well as upload unofficial copies, because they cannot make you an official offer without the real thing. But I wouldn't worry about the "incomplete," since they do state that they would like to see electronic versions and intend to review your application without official transcripts.

I spoke with ETS today. No hassle, no additional payment, scores will be sent tomorrow. Amazing, after the other problems I've had with them.

I will wrangle with ETS on the phone about it this week. When you re-ordered scores, do you know how long it took for them to go out to schools? Even two weeks might be pushing it for schools that had deadlines in December, but it is better than nothing. I don't know why it is infrequent and so expensive when I feel like all they have to do is press a button to send a score electronically. I have been in communication with one school that says they will need the scores by next week to consider my application (and cannot accept self-reported scores or a scan in place of official electronic scores). My concern is that those schools that are overwhelmed with applicants and do not send out personal emails about missing items in an application may just disregard mine altogether. I hope everything works out for you too. I'm glad you caught the fine print on the GRE website. It doesn't mention this issue anywhere on the paper receipt for reports of scores.

I think I'm in the same boat. ETS only reports scores that have been reported by the date you ordered them!? Where do they state that? I ordered my subject test and general test scores sent before I had gotten the subject back. I have received a couple of emails that my subject test scores were not received by schools. When I called ETS about this, they said they had two separate files on me, and that they subject test scores should go out when the files are "merged" (a process that takes 10 days apparently). But if the case is they simply don't send them out if you request them sent before they've been reported, I may have already been tossed out of consideration. And I'm too deep in debt from the application process to re-order subject test scores sent.

I think the huge number of applicants at Columbia must be partly because people want to be in NYC, because other tops schools such as Stanford and Harvard state on their websites that they generally receive around 350 applicants. Though UPenn did receive 690 applications this year, which is up there with Columbia.

There are a few with really huge applicant pools: Columbia receives around 700 applicants a year and accepts 18. I imagine NYU would have similar numbers. Penn received over 500 last year and accepted 11. An email from the graduate admissions secretary at Penn gave a higher figure for this year, but I can't recall what it was.