franglaisish

Official rejection from Princeton. No accepts so far, and 2 more schools to hear from (not counting Columbia since the day isn't over and I'm trying to be optimistic).

Does anyone know what is going on with Duke? Looking at last year's results, they seem to do two rounds of rejections with admits sandwiched in. Today's poster has me very anxious. Anyone else hear from them?

Congrats to you both! Nervouscomparitivist- it must feel nice not to have to be nervous anymore since you now have an accept in hand for a great program!

Good point flyers. There are a couple of figures floating around this thread. Gopher implied one year when he wrote "Are there opportunities to spend a year at an overseas uni?". Carrar's take requires much more distance: "move every 2 years, sometimes to unsavory places". I went with Gopher, as he started the thread and hopefully knows what his SO is interviewing for. My basic point still stands though. Earlier in the thread Gopher wrote "....I worry about the ramifications for our relationship if I turn down an interesting PhD offer (resentment, etc.)". I just want to raise the possibility that this sentiment cuts both ways. FSO positions are hard to get (like PhD slots), and the gvt's funding for hires tends to oscillate. At various points Gopher has said that s/he is "knowledge driven, not career driven and that a "consistent, healthy relationship takes precedence over my career". With the caveat that Gopher is the only person here who knows the SO and her hierarchy of preferences, it sounds like Gopher might be the best candidate for trailing SO. Anyway, Gopher you asked about taking time away from school. I have definitely seen it done, usually by students in my bf's computer science program and less so among the PhDs in my home department (selection bias alert- if they're gone I don't know them as MA students have a shorter time horizon). I think that permission for working at a distance tends to depend on your desired level of funding, supervision that you require as well as your relationship with your advisor, etc but it can be done. All of the people I know that have gone very far to be with an SO for periods of months or years have been married. Since you are IR/development, if you do end up traveling with her, you could end up with some really, really sweet opportunities for field research

Gopher, forgive me if you already addressed this, but where are you applying? There are a number of great programs within a few hours of DC (DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Princeton, even NYC, etc) and my quick scan of the thread seemed to indicate that your SO would probably not have more than a year or so out of the country. You might be able to manipulate the situation so that you are long distance during the week but together each weekend. With all due respect to flyers29, I think that you should tread very, very carefully if you plan to ask her to hold off on an FSO career until you finish. To my ear, not only does it sound selfish, it is extremely selfish. After all, a lot can change in 5 years- maybe you have a few kids in grad school, she needs to find some other job, etc and the FSO job becomes no longer feasible. If you do propose that she defer, I would also suggest thinking about whether you can put off school for a year and then try to find somewhere close to her in DC. Both grad school and long distance is hard enough that you don't want to start out with resentment. Good luck. I've been doing both long distance and multi country for almost two years now, and it really sucks.

Hate to break up the discussion of Yale's MA program, but thought I'd stop obsessively lurking and join in the fray. Since we're a week or two (or three... or 5 for Cornell....), I'm getting realllly nervous. I'm applying for Fall '10 on the IR/comparative border. My totally unrealistic list of schools is: Cornell, MIT, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, and UCSD. Since apparently Stanford sent out their acceptances last week, I figure that I'm out of the running there. No huge shock. So, hi all.