kyjin

I've really taken health insurance for granted since I've been living in countries with universal health care for the last three years. (Japan and now Canada.)

Prime example: Temple. It's a great school, but I'm scared to walk around North Philly during daylight hours. And a friend of mine got mugged when we were walking out of trolley stop on Penn's campus when we were in high school. If you have street smarts and you're aware of your surroundings, usually you're fine, but I'm certainly not planning on living in the neighborhood around USC.

Seriously. When I visited campus, I was in shock how well off financially the school is. The History department is actually hiring new faculty! Coming from a public university in financial straits right now, it's a welcome change. (And my aunt is already making the "University of Spoiled Children" joke with me any time I mention my PhD )

Excellent, thanks for the info!

Finally got my funding from USC, so I'm feeling a lot better. Waitlist land still sucks though. Anybody know what the funding is like at UMichigan now?

I'm an American currently finishing my MA in Canada. When I was accepted, I was guaranteed full funding from my department for two years. That covers my tuition plus a small living stipend. (PhD students have a much higher stipend, bit I made do with a second job on campus to cover the difference.) My department does not fully fund all of their students, but they make no distinctions between international or domestic applicants when it comes to funding. (Ie there are a few Canadian students in my dept who have no funding, while several of the international students have partial or full funding.) It really depends department to department and university to university, though I don't know how Alberta will be in the coming year since the provincial budget just knocked down funding to the university by 7.2%...

Seconding dropbox. Simple to use and there's plenty of free storage available. I also email important docs to myself once a week or so for extra backup.

Still in the weird limbo state: I'm accepted to USC, but still don't have my funding package. (Know it's 5 years guaranteed, and I have the base number, but no official.) And no news from the Michigan waitlist, which I don't have much hope out for, but won't take my name off just in case... Part of me just wants to accept my offer and be done with it. I visited and loved the program, but there's still the "what if" going around. Plus money. Bleh.

Does anyone have recommendations for realtors? 95% certain I'm headed to USC this fall, and one of my best friends is moving out with me. We're interested in Culver City or anything nice along the Expo line.

Haven't officially accepted yet, but I did scout around LA when I was there last weekend for the recruitment weekend for USC. It was my first time on the West Coast, so the entire experience will be new to me. Already planning to fly down at the beginning of August with my mom to apartment hunt. Right now I'm just investigating different neighborhoods online, and deciding what kind of car I want to buy. (And also drooling over potential new Ultrabooks which I'm getting as a graduation present after I finish my MA next month.)

4 here. Considering how specialized my research interests are, these were the only four that would work. A little low for history majors, but considering I got one acceptance and one waitlist, it worked out for me.

Just an FYI to anyone who applied to schools in Alberta: provincial budgeting cut 7.2% to post-secondary education. There are going to be massive budget cuts, unsure of where it will all be. Here's some more info from UofA: http://news.ualberta.ca/newsarticles/2013/march/campus-connects-on-budget-challenges-at-forum

Highly recommended. New England Nat gives excellent tours.

When I applied two years ago, I heard absolutely nothing from the program until I got my acceptance near the end of March. I wouldn't write them off yet; the MAs at the Ivys tend to come later than other offers. Did you hear about any funding from UCLA?

Haha, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of this! XD I was totally googling the regalia for my prospective schools a month ago.

So for those of you out there who have offers and are also on waitlists, what are your plans? Are you still holding out hope for those programs, or are you already seeing yourself somewhere you've been accepted to? Just curious.

That's a major reason why I applied to a majority of History PhDs as opposed to East Asian Studies. With a History degree to my name, I have the option in the future for jobs in both History and East Asian Studies department, while the EASIA degree would limit my options. But the training in interdisciplinary programs can be truly superb, again why I did my MA in EASIA. I got all the training I need in my subfield, but at the end of the day, I'm still a historian, and will be back to a History department this fall.

Beginning of September. UofA started September 4th this year. I'm guessing U of Calgary will be about the same.

Since it seems a bunch of us are into dystopian novels (yay! ), might I also recommend Delirum by Lauren Oliver? It's my favorite of the recent dystopian romantic YAs. The second one is really good too, and the last one comes out next week! I read Graceling back in college and it's really good too.

Joining you guys in waitlist land. I have an acceptance to a really good program, but not knowing for sure yet where I'm going sucks. :/ I just want to be done with this process already!

Congrats hiroshiman!!!

I have not! Thanks for the rec! Adding it on my goodreads

I'm reading a bunch of YA stuff since thesis reading/writing is getting me down. I devoured The Fault in Our Stars in one sitting (so so good.) Right now I'm reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower since I got to see the film on the plane when I flew back to school last month. And I have a pile of dystopian YA novels on my Nook for when I finish my thesis.

Search "history -art" to get rid of the Art History results.

My favorite comment from the results page today: "$175 for taking the GRE, $25 sending of the GRE scores to Columbia, $105 Columbia application fee....Getting rejected from Columbia: Priceless"