anothergradapplicant

Re the Illinois ICR posts, haven't looked at them myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were real, I remember them being the first to get back to me.

Health comm people looooove MPHs as far as I understand.

To my understanding, it's a fairly common practice for PhD programs to not/rarely accept their own undergrads/master's students for the reason of intellectual diversity, and for the same reason, it is rare to see programs hire their own PhDs as tenure-track faculty straight out of the program (now if they go somewhere else and establish a track record first, that's a whole another story). The idea is that every program has its own its "school of thought" and schools like to take in new ways of thinking while spreading their own elsewhere. The more cynical side of me thinks schools like to be able to brag they attracted students/faculty from _insert notable institutions here_, while having a lot of students/faculty taken from within looks comparatively eh.

To everyone bummed out about Friday, bear in mind, last year, I woke up to my Penn acceptance hungover as hell on Sunday morning after a night out with friends...

I can tell you from my own experience comparing east coast and west coast institutions that there will be, in my opinion, a cultural difference between the two. I personally find people a little more rushed, serious, to-the-point, and socially formal on the east coast, while on the west coast people will be a little more relaxed, informal as long as there's clear respect/order and things get done, organic, and socially casual. For example, I feel like more faculty out east are less open to just letting a conversation or work meeting develop organically and instead expect all inquiries prepared in bullet point form; like, yes, I'm a proponent of having a set list of things to cover, but some things work better in an in-person meeting versus in umpteen rounds of bullet point email-response dances. So as you can imagine, I personally prefer the west coast, while to my understanding there are people who prefer the east coast - e.g. I was talking to a more east-coast-loving friend in another field who said she doesn't like how her PI likes to take people out to dinner or whatever because she feels obligated to go even though she has her own life, while I myself miss being able to casually emailing professors to set up a time to catch up and chat over coffee/lunch without mulling over the how to go about it and if I should as if I'm about to ask someone to high school prom.

Congrats on the interview invite I noticed in your post. Well, I can't really speak as to the comparison between being part of a comm school vs SPS. What I can speak about, however, is that if you plan on continuing in communication at any point in the future, the Annenberg name carries a (un?)surprisingly hefty weight in the comm scene. Thought I do also imagine people go all :OOOO about the Columbia name, too.

With regard to what CFBrown was saying, it is incredibly rare that any master's program will offer any sort of substantial funding, particularly such professionally oriented programs. I've taken courses with folks in SPR at USC, they seemed quite satisfied with their program.

Hi all - Wanted to pay forward the conversation and feedback I got last application season. At Penn Annenberg now, happy to offer my personal $0.02. Also, not gonna post it here because it's self promotion, but I penned a fairly lengthy blog post sharing my thoughts on grad admission that I'm happy to link you to if you message me.

I just wrapped up my own decision making process, here's my $0.02 based on all the discussions I've had with my colleagues and mentors. I can't speak as to the variable thrown in by the J-school aspect, but assuming everything's relatively even: Part of it depends on how flexible you are with your research interests. The high level assumption is that if you wrote about your research interests on your SOP and got in, the department ad-comm with their decades of expertise thought you would be a fit and decided to take you. Now, you may not see any faculty who do exactly what you're interested in, necessarily, which is where the flexibility part comes in. Are you absolutely hellbent on working on this one particular thing you've decided you're interested in right now, or are you open to letting your interests change based on the school of thought that your new institution would teach? I also found it interesting that on the whole, the younger academics I talked to seemed to emphasize fit and where it 'feels right', while the older veteran academics I spoke to told me that I would not regret having the stronger school name on my resume in the long run and that it makes a difference in long term income potential. Can't necessarily say which group is "right", but certainly something to think about.

Decided to accept the offer from Penn. It's finally all over... But we're only getting started!

2/15: Email, accepted to the doctoral program in communication at Penn.

2/13: Yep, rejection from UM!

Greeeaaaatttt.

So what does it mean if I haven't heard anything at all from Michigan? @_@

2/9/2015: Waitlisted by Cornell, email.

Dude I totally feel you.

CONGRATS!!!!

2/4: First rejection - Stanford, via email.

Think it went well, the professor seemed interested in hearing what I thought about various things, went pseudo-off-topic a couple times, I liked all the research he said he was doing with his students. He said we should be hearing "very soon".

2/2: Got an email from a professor at Cornell I've emailed with before saying that the faculty had some questions regarding my application, scheduled a call for tomorrow. Wish me luck! First phone interview, not sure what to expect but poring over their faculty profiles and reading articles.

Congrats Pedanticist! I got waitlisted by USC =\

1/23: Received email from UC Santa Barbara inviting me to their Recruitment Weekend in February.

Media, Technology, Society

Yep! "Travel expenses, hotel accommodations, some meals."

1/22: Received email from Northwestern University inviting me to interview on-campus in March.