kurayamino

Congrats WilsonWilson! I was wondering what was going on since it's just your admittance on the board. Were you nominated for a special fellowship perhaps? Not that UPenn was very well represented for acceptances on GC last year, so maybe you're the unicorn in our midst! In any event, I hope you're celebrating!

Given that a number of people have heard from UChicago for every option acceptance/rejection/transfer to MAPH, I went ahead and emailed them. If there's any general info I'll be sure to post it.. if anyone else is waiting that is. Maybe I'm the only one in limbo-land with them.

This has likely been posted before, but it's still amusing: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/what-grad-school-is-really-like#.dlyOZrj6X

Oh yes definitely. I would say that Bloomington has been the most welcoming and generous with their time. The larger state schools have been cordial, but definitely less personal.It felt like a difference between courting someone and being courted.

Ack! I missed this one, my apologies. Congratulations mollifiedmolloy! You rock

UPenn acceptance on the board. Congrats whoever you are!! *pulse steadily climbs up a few notches*

I know. I've been drafting my "turn down" email to Bloomington for the past two days, and it's just so hard. They're so nice and welcoming and bah. It's super difficult, but I know it will open up a spot for someone else so I'm powering through it. Very unpleasant though.

I think, as most others have said, being upfront about your visiting other schools can only be a benefit. In my case a little more money was tacked on for visiting at one school (to cover the difference since I'm so very far away) and a week after that another little scholarship magically made it's way into my package. My adviser said that just mentioning another school is interested in you is a "magic little phrase". So take that for what it's worth

You don't sound bitter at all! It's so unprofessional for schools to not indicate what your status is. I can understand some wishy-washiness when acceptances haven't been sent out yet, but it's unacceptable after they have. Just think of it this way though hannalore, and anyone else who is experiencing this, a bad system for handling application materials and questions from students is most likely an institution that will have even larger problems further down the line and further up the chain.

I know quite a few people who took an inexpensive MA at my home institution (a CUNY) and worked full time while doing so. The cost wasn't super expensive and working gave them the additional money they needed to live and pay rent. They did various jobs from adjuncting at other CUNY schools (always an option with Fordham), editing work at one of the many book publishers around NYC, to private school teaching. I would say that this is possible in a place like NYC where there are so many opportunities to work. However, I would stipulate that they were pretty much exhausted all the time. Commuting in NYC is easy, but it is time consuming and stressful. Getting from the Bronx down to wherever your job might be on whatever campus (or campuses) eats up a LOT of time. In other words, it's a sacrifice not everyone would want to make, but if you do just go into with your eyes wide open.

That's part of the problem indeed. There's hardly any wealth diversity in academia and it takes either fantastic resources from grade school -> right high school -> great BA -> fantastic Phd or an enormous amount of effort to overcome the socioeconomic gap. That's why the GRE is such a useless tool because the only thing I think it accurately tells you is how well you can take the GRE and how much you could afford to pay to prep for it. It tells you absolutely nothing else. I can only hope that the next wave of professors/academics/advisers are in better positions to change they systematic wealth bias. But hey, if you look around this forum alone, it seems like there quite a few of us who are interested and passionate about doing just that.

Congrats Hypervodka on your very impressive clean sweep! I suspect you have not one, not two, but several very difficult decisions to make. That's a great place to be in though! Congratulations!! I'm a fan of the implied rejection too, but Rutgers certainly taught me my own lesson.

So rutgers called... I'm in!

The only thing I can add is from my own personal experience, which is coming straight from BA to PhD. When I realized this was the path I wanted to take I originally expected to apply to MA programs, likely at the same school I was already attending. I had no idea how any of this stuff worked. But, in talking with my advisers, I was told it would behoove me to try and get into some summer research programs to show that I could do the work. I ended up going to two summer research programs where I produced two different 20 page papers and also took a graduate seminar where I produced another 20 page paper. I think, in my case, the ability to research went a long way to show that I was capable of doing work at a higher level because my checkered undergrad history certainly didn't do that at all. I do think that to go from BA to PhD you'll have to do a lot of work outside of the BA to indicate your capabilities. Independent studies, honors thesis, summer research, etc.

nevermind, it's official.

Yeah, same here.

You two are the bee's knees and the cat's pajamas

When two of your three top choice programs notify on the same day you begin to feel a lot like this paper roll:

I'm trying to convince myself that phone calls take a long time to get through for 10-12 people. :S

And you are amazing too! Keep on rocking it!

This is because you are amazing! Congratulations!!!

Congrats to all the new acceptances!

I second this. I'm coming straight from undergrad and I don't even have tutoring experience. The only thing I mentioned about teaching in my SOP was my willingness and desire to do so in addition to my passion for research.