floatinggreenskull

Lexi16, thank you. ^__^ I don't think I would've been happy there anyway...but it still stings! Best of luck to you as well...I'm sure good news is just around the corner for us both.

Well, I just got my first rejection. One of my "safety" schools too.

Acch yeah I wish I had the funds to take a class like that!

I'm not a student now (graduated with my bachelor's last May), and that coupled with the fact that I am not working much at the moment has put me in a weird limbo with wayyyyy too much free time. Last semester I was incessantly occupied with finishing my first conference paper + flying out of country to present it, studying for the GRE, and all that application madness. Now that it's all said and done...I feel so isolated, restless, and just blah. All of my friends have jobs. I'm missing people and mentors of mine at my undergrad uni intensely, but I have no reason to hang around there any more, and everyone's essentially too busy to see me on any regular basis anyway, so it sucks. Here I sit, hermit-like, my days bleeding into one another, working on various personal projects but honestly having a very difficult time not obsessing over hearing back from schools. This is just a very special kind of frustration. I'm trying to be proactive in distracting myself, and I realise that I will likely miss this quieter time if I get accepted anywhere and launch back into academic life...but :/

I saw that as well, although since I applied to the MA...maybe they do PhD earlier? Interesting. For UCLA it's ethno!! It's one of my top choices of the 7 schools I've applied to. Two of my LOR writers/advisers are musicology PhD alumni, so I'm hoping that may help me a little. I would love to live in LA for a while, despite the craziness!

Has anyone applied to Illinois Urbana-Champaign? I was looking at the Results page and noticed that in the past people have typically heard back from the musicology department around the end of Jan... I've applied to UCLA as well. Excited to hopefully hear something soon. All of my other prospects seem to hold off until mid March at least for notifying, so I am happy that I may at least know about 2 before then...

Thank you all for the replies and thoughtful advice. I went ahead and applied, and was just notified that I am in consideration for a position in Gambia. Just waiting to see if I am selected for an interview. If I get this position, I'd be departing June 2015...and that seems really quite close! Committing to two years in West Africa feels super daunting to me right now. I've been reading blogs run by Peace Corps members who have served in that region, and it does look to be one of the more difficult places to be assigned, in regards to living situation. However, I am more daunted by the inevitable periods of loneliness I will encounter, as well as the fact that I am a lone female. I am also supposed to move into an apartment with someone upon returning to the states in December, so I will need to continue paying the rent for that place while I am abroad. Additionally, I am in need of a job for this coming semester, and now I am worried that no one will hire me due to the fact that I would be leaving for Africa so soon (assuming I am accepted). Another (rather superficial) worry of mine is that, if I serve in the Peace Corps and decide to still do grad school when I return, I will be 28-29 upon beginning my PhD...and that feels old! I know, I know...just figured I'd voice ALL of my stupid concerns...

I'm a senior undergraduate in Musicology/Anthropology. I have always intended to apply for PhD programs in ethnomusicology (essentially, the musical side of anthropology) following graduation, and eventually assume a teaching position somewhere. As I'm writing this, I am currently in the middle of a semester's long study abroad program in an Eastern European country I've lived in briefly once before. I returned because this area has musical traditions I'd like to research further in my grad studies, so I figured it would be worthwhile to seize an opportunity for a better foothold on the language, do an internship, and perform independent ehtnomusicological fieldwork which will go into my senior thesis (to be completed next semester). I have always hoped that graduate schools would look upon this thesis and my fieldwork here favourably, as an indication I am capable of undertaking and completing such a project. To be perfectly honest, I am aiming high...the only way I will ever attend grad school is if I can do so for free. Yale, Columbia, Brown, UCLA, and a few others, to give a gist. However, lately I've been thinking that I simply want to be a useful human being for a bit. Serving two years in the Peace Corps has always been in the back of my mind, and since I will be graduating next semester, it seems like next year would be the perfect time to do so. I could take a break from academic life and gain more worldly experience. You know, sometimes I'm not even 100% sure that teaching ethno in a uni or even going to grad school for it is exactly the right path. Perhaps spending time away doing something like the Peace Corps could also be useful in helping me to figure this out. The main issue is, I am unsure if I should join PC before or after grad school. Would graduate schools even care if I was a successful PC volunteer, given that it will be unlikely any PC programs will be related to my field of study (aside from the chance to possibly learn more about local musical traditions on the side while I am there)? Would it be better to hit grad school right out of undergrad? Will I be shooting myself in the foot for doing what will probably be completely unrelated volunteer work overseas before I apply? What about letters of recommendation? I am confident I could get extremely strong ones now; is it unheard of to have letters of rec written and then stored somewhere until use? I also still need to take the GRE. If I joined the Peace Corps, I'm not sure I'd have time to take it before leaving... In summary: if I apply now, I will have some undergrad research experience, language training, one possible publication, and travel experience all related to what I want to study in grad school. But, I feel like taking two years off and joining the Peace Corps before applying might be a good idea. Or not? I don't know. Any insight would be tremendously helpful and much appreciated.