mountainroad

Meglet, I was under the impression when I was visiting Duke in late February that the decisions had been made.... have you been in touch with them?

It depends; there isn't a universal answer to this question. I think the best answer I can give is yes, it does matter somewhat. However, going to a prestigious program does not guarantee your success and going to a lesser-known program does not prevent it. I graduated from a regional public university after transferring from community college and got accepted by a top PhD program with full funding. It is possible. Like SMG said above though, there are resources available at some programs that do make it "easier." When I visited the department of the program I will be attending this fall, I observed that every graduate student I met there had done their undergraduate studies at Ivies or other top programs (like the University of Chicago) and some of them had earned master's degrees at those places before applying to this PhD program. As an illustration of the point I am trying to make, when graduates there met me, they asked who my undergraduate advisor was. They were all so accustomed to their peers having been advised by famous anthropologists as undergrads that they assumed that they would probably have heard of the person who advised me, as an admit to their program. One of the greatest advantages of getting a bachelor's degree from a highly ranked institution is that there is a good chance that the faculty looking at your application at the graduate program you are applying to will likely know the people who wrote your letters of recommendation. Everything else equal, people are going to be inclined towards a recommendation given by someone they know and trust.... With all of that having been said, as evidenced by people like myself and SMG and certainly others on these forums, it is possible to distinguish yourself as an undergraduate just about anywhere. However, you might be forced to be more proactive at some places versus others. When you get to the point where you are applying to graduate schools, you will need to have some body of evidence that you are a capable scholar and have the potential to do the level of work (particularly research) that is conducted in graduate school. Though I did not go to a top-ranked program with famous advisors, the anthropology education I received was of good quality and I was fortunate to have advisors who cared and provided me with the resources I needed to stand out. Thanks to my undergraduate advisors, I was able to apply to graduate schools with a well developed research project, a couple of conference papers, a minor publication, and the theoretical knowledge to write a good statement of purpose that explained why my contribution is important in the context of anthropology. The cultural capital that facilitates those things is simply more abundant at the "big name" programs. Depending on how supportive the faculty are at whatever program you attend, you might find yourself having to figure out how to do all of those things on your own. You can do it but it is easier if you are being advised by someone who knows the system inside and out and whose signature on your letter of recommendation will ensure that it is read closely. One more thing: whereas having a good GPA and GRE scores is not the highest priority (the quality of your research and your "fit" to an institution is), you must make good grades and do as well on the GRE as possible because a low score can preclude funding even if the faculty at the program you are applying to like your research and believe you are a good fit. Also, I am assuming that you know how mind-numbingly competitive that PhD programs are. If you go through these forums, you will find countless very smart people who are good scholars and capable of doing academic research of the highest quality. As I was told by a POI at a program I visited (that ended up turning me down) who expressed a lot of interest in my work, sometimes the admitting faculty have to practically look for excuses to turn some people down. A department that is able to admit a maximum of 10 graduates might get 200 applications. A majority of those will be fully qualified to do the work. They will have to narrow them down a lot and might get down to about 20 candidates that they all think are great and would be more than happy to admit and work with. At that point though, they have to find some reason to turn half of that group down. You want to eliminate every possible deterrent on your application because at that point, the difference between who gets in and who doesn't can be almost arbitrary.

Anybody going to Duke?

I guess it might vary from program to program. I know that for most of the PhD programs I applied to, graduate work from other institutions could not be transferred in. The primary reason for pursuing a MA in these cases would be for the purpose of scholarly development, either to try and make up for a less than stellar undergraduate record or to gain more research experience and publications/conference presentations. In both cases, the purpose of getting the MA was to become more marketable to PhD programs. Many people consider it "worth it" if getting the MA (and the research conducted in the process) helped them get into a good PhD program, having had the understanding from the beginning that none of the course credit would transfer.

This is true and contribites to my actually having managed to get into a good program. However you frame it, having your project in the United States automatically makes this already absurdly difficult and stressful process even more challenging though.

Since there are some fundamental methodological differences between sociology and anthropology, it should not be the case that a project should not be deemed "sociology" just because of where it is located. However, this does happen and sociology does not have the bias against projects in the United States that anthropology does. Fundamentally, I believe that it is just a matter of tradition because as has been noted in this thread, there are many great anthropological projects located in the United States. However, the process of learning a language and "going abroad" to conduct fieldwork is something of a rite of passage for anthropologists. For a group that is so concerned with rituals, conducting fieldwork abroad is dearly held in the anthropological cultural cache and important for earning legitimacy and status within the group.

This post is spot on. I know that I have a good project and am fortunate to have been picked up by a good program this time around. However, I have received similar feedback to what you describe here. The bias in anthropology against "Americanists" is a thing. I was turned down by one program that had expressed a great deal of interest in my project and told me they believed it was very "important" while cautioning me that it is difficult to find funding for projects in the United States (this conversation occurred before I applied). My POI at that school works as an Americanist now but went through graduate school and did original fieldwork in Asia. The faculty at the program that accepted me told me how good they think my project is while also acknowledging the difficulties of attaining "legitimacy" as an Americanist anthropologist in the United States. I'm fortunate to have been given a chance but I was told that I will really need to distinguish myself because the bias will raise its head against me again when I'm looking for a job and for grant money in years to come.

We are all weird in one way or another; I'm sure you belong somewhere.

I suppose that it depends how much those particular programs mean to you. I see that you have been accepted into some good programs so this isn't a matter of whether or not you get to go to grad school at all. Campus visits are certainly important but are no guarantee either. I paid out of pocket to visit one campus (my top choice at the time) and I thought the visit went extremely well and left believing on some level that I would be accepted. I ended up being rejected by that program anyway and am just out the time, money, and effort I spent on that trip. Fortunately, I was accepted with full funding by a program that I did not visit until after they accepted me. I realize now that though I had a "good" visit and an individual POI expressed interest in my work, I am a MUCH better "fit" at the school that I will be attending. Importantly, though it was expensive, I did not go in debt and it was not a financial hardship to pay for that one visit. I would not recommend someone in your situation paying for a campus visit out of pocket if it is a financial hardship.

I don't have experience with this but I am somewhat in the same boat. When I start my PhD this August I will have an eight month old.

Have any of the people who were waiting on notifications from Duke cultural anthropology heard anything yet? Apparently they received 160 applications for 5 fully funded spots.

This is not entirely true. I went to college when I was 18 years old (in 2001) and did horribly. I was placed on academic probation because my GPA was so terrible and was not allowed to come back to the school for a year. The only option that I saw was to join the military, which I did in 2003. I was wounded in combat and almost killed in Afghanistan and ended up with PTSD from that. After being discharged in 2007, I was a mess for a couple of years and enrolled in community college in January 2009. I had a good first semester but the next few semesters were nightmarish. Like you, I got help and there was a point where my life improved drastically. When I finally graduated from community college, I had been there for three and a half years and was almost 30. Though my GPA was mediocre and had some very bad grades on it, the improvement was obvious and consistent. I transferred to a senior college and finished out there with almost straight A's and graduated Magna Cum Laude with distinction in anthropology. During my time at the senior college, I was a very good student and conducted anthropology research like my life depended on it. One of the worst parts of applying to graduate school for me was knowing that I had the baggage that I did on my transcripts. My only hope was that my improvement would count for something and the fact that my final four semesters were nearly perfect would off-set the bad grades that I made when I had not yet figured out how to work to my full potential. I will be fully funded this fall when I begin working on my PhD, at the age of 32. Trauma and PTSD are research focuses of mine and I have lost a number of military colleagues to suicide. As much as I have suffered, I admit that I have never felt compelled to hurt myself and I do not know what that feels like. I urge you not to give up though. Academia is a competitive world and I can't promise you that you will get accepted into graduate school. I can say though that I have been stuck with an abysmal GPA in a community college hell-loop at a time when people I graduated from high school with were starting to become lawyers and get their doctorates and I do know what that feels like. I took control of my life (which was not easy) and I will be starting a top-tier anthropology PhD program in a few months. Your life is not over.

Greetings. I didn't post it on the results page but I also received my notification of acceptance to Duke's cultural anthropology PhD program on January 27. I was contacted about doing a Skype interview on January 20 and did so a few days later. Good luck, your project sounds interesting.