esotericish

on the application site

w/ the Harvard rejection that's it for all the schools I applied to. 4 for 12, not too bad.

You should definitely know what subfield, and then have some general research questions you're interested in. The way to figure that out is to do research so you can get a grasp on the literature. My undergrad thesis really helped me figure that out, and then my MA gave me more nuanced interests.

That's more than I took, except I had calculus in high school, and I've been accepted to a handful of programs. I might be at a disadvantage when I actually start, though.

Edwards Mill Rd is another good location. Also north of Glenwood Ave/Crabtree Valley Mall there are some nice places that are pretty affordable.

I'll also just throw this out there: unless you can get a funded or free MA (scholarships), don't do it if you want to go into the working world. You'd be much better served in terms of time and money by doing internships in the field you're interested in -- even if it's multiple, unpaid ones. An unpaid internship is better than taking on loans, and you can always apply for paid jobs while you're there! This is based on my experience (with an MA) working in DC -- and from what many others will tell you with a similar experience.

so I have a call with a professor from JHU. How is their program (comparative) there?

Durham's a great place! The only one I've yet to here from that I would actually consider is Harvard, but I'm not optimistic. And I'd rather be in Atlanta than Boston.

It's phenomenal. There are tons of buses with overlapping lines. The buses are very nice and, when I was there at least, they were free. You really don't need a car if you live in off of a good bus line (although I very much enjoyed having mine).

got my Boston College rejection in the mail today

Will you be paying anything to get the degree at American? Also keep in mind DC is a very expensive place.

There aren't many places near campus like that -- although now that I think about it there are some new apartments and condos right on Franklin St that you should look into. I imagine they are very, very expensive. Most everything near Franklin St (which would be the place with the coffee shops and stores nearby) are not apartments, they're houses or town houses. However, there are a couple really cool communities not too far away that are on a bunch of bus lines. Meadowmont and Southern Village are two that come to mind.

I'm not sure how much it costs so I can't comment on that, but it's really not that nice. You can find some affordable places that aren't Odum village and are in cooler parts of the town. yes absolutely! CH/Carrboro has one of the best bus systems in the country (according to objective ratings and my personal experience). That said, you'll commute will be much easier if you pick somewhere near the more frequent bus lines. I lived in both CH and Carrboro while I was there. There's pros/cons to each. If you live in Carrboro you'll probably not be able to walk to as many places, but you might be able to save some money. I'd say find an apartment you really like and don't worry whether it's in CH or Carrboro, they're really not that much different from each other.

Sounds a lot like my last three jobs! Replace "department" with management and "students" with coworkers.

I hear you, but having spent a few years working, I would very much call my first few jobs as low-paid apprenticeships (about 3 years worth). The work sucked, the pay sucked, the prospects for moving up sucked, and I wasn't doing anything I particularly cared about. If you go into a PhD expecting to have a plethora of jobs available to you after finishing, then you simply didn't do your research. If you enter the job market with a BA (or in my case an MA) and expect to have a plethora of jobs open to you, you are also way off. edit: and don't forget, you'll probably have to do quite a few months worth of internships if you are looking for a job anywhere near the policy/political science/research field. hopefully they're paid!

This whole thing is kind of weird, though. If you had such a homogenous job for other professions -- meaning the day to day and other experiences were essentially the same, as they are roughly speaking for PhDs -- can you imagine how much complaining there would be? I mean, I'm sitting here at my current job, which I don't like, with many coworkers who I know do not like their job, but we don't have the ability to complain to thousands of others across the country who are going through the same day to day, week to week, experiences. There are like 25 of us. The vast majority of working professionals I think have many of the, if not same, analogous complaints to what I've read on these and other forums. It's just not this shared experience which PhD students have and can relate to with eachother. edit: this doesn't really relate to the immediate preceding replies, just something I was thinking about.

yes, I think we can all agree these people need a bit of a wake up call.

there'd probably be more results on the survey page if that were the case.

This. If you think your employer is going to say "Well, go ahead and leave now" when you tell them, probably wait. A month is probably more than adequate for most people. I'm not sure myself how much notice I'm going to give, but I'm thinking a month.

it's pretty sadistic of them to put "decision made" on ApplyYourself in then wait to tell everybody.

FWIW, I'm probably going to decline my offer.

I got my call yesterday morning!

Something you should keep in mind is that people have thought this through. I, and many others, have a number of years of work experience outside of academia. I think a lot of us would rather do something we enjoy and risk the academic job market than work in a job we don't like. And here's something else: the non-academic job market isn't so easy either.

Emory is making some calls today. I was notified I was accepted!

Thanks for the info! I had my interview and thought it had gone pretty well so now I'm anxious