pietjekanarie

Sounds like an interesting experience Litvak! It's sad to hear about people losing their funding because of studying there though..

Litvak: Were you in Belarus for work/study or just traveling? I've never been there. Tried to go for a short trip when living in Kiev, but it would cost me a bit much for such a short trip due to the visa. I might go there this spring though. I think my time at McGill was a bit too short to really improve my French. Maybe if would have worked out if I'd lived with francophone roommates. I lived with 2 people from Ontario and one American. This is by far not improving your French! My neuroscience program was also really anglophone and I only had 1 true Quebecer in my program.

@ Litvak: I studied at McGill for a bit (study abroad for my Neuroscience study - yes, I know, Neuroscience and Russian sounds like an insane combination, I just did two different studies at the same time). McGill is very anglophone so I met loads of Koreans, Americans, Canadians from anglophone roots, etc. That didn't help for the French of course. I had a hard time getting to know the accent at first. My French is not that bad, I understand most spoken French (in France), but this was quite different. The fact that my study environment was Anglophone didn't help me improving my French that much (besides my understanding of it). I've lived there last year. I loved my time in Montreal. About Belorussian: well, even in Belarus Belorussian is not promoted at all. It's mostly Russian there. They always make the joke that Belarus is more Russified than Russia.. So I think finding a course in Belorussian language acquisition will be hard. Romanian on the other hand must be available. It is also pretty easy to learn if you know French. My university had quite some courses in Romanian language acquisition, it must be easier to find something like that than Belorussian.. Also, your reasons to start a MA before a PhD are really understandable. I'm not sure yet if I want to do a PhD at all, but this interdisciplinary MA will help me to determine what subject I want to specialize in. I really don't feel ready to choose one discipline yet. @ Russophile: I've lived there for almost a year, for an internship. My work environment was Russian speaking though. Do you know Lingvo? It's computer software that has a dictionary in it and also a lot of grammar overviews. My Lingvo has Russian-English, but also Ukrainian-English and Russian-Urkrainian. It is really easy to translate if you read a text, because you don't have to use a dictionary, but you can just type in the word and you get the suggestions. Because it has so many different languages, it is easy to compare, for example, Russian and Ukrainian with each other or with English. Maybe this is really old news for you, but I found that nobody in my university knew this program while everyone in Ukraine was using it. http://www.lingvo.com/

I see. I find Ukrainian difficult, did you take Ukrainian in undergrad? I like the language, it is more melodic than Russian. I only speak Russian, but picked up some basics when living in Ukraine. I can't say I speak Ukrainian though, but I can read it a little bit and understand some. I never had the opportunity to take Ukrainian in undergrad, but I'm definitely interested. If you only need to be able to read those languages, I'm sure you'll be able to learn this pretty fast. My courses in linguistics and Old Church Slavic really helped me in those things. The roots are often the same in those languages and although Serbian, for example, is really different from Russian, there is a lot to recognize. If you already understond spoken Polish, I'm pretty sure you can pick up the reading by just doing it (with a dictionary). I learned German and French in high school (it's mandatory, of course English is too), but I have to say it's pretty rusty. I read it without problems, but when speaking I feel like an idiot. And for some reason living in Quebec also didn't really improve my French, besides the Quebecois swearing.. Something as useless as your Spanish I guess

double post

@ Litvak: I'm also waiting for Columbia. It's one of my top choices. I understood though that they do not fund the Master's degree. There is an option to apply for some kind of funding for current students for the second year. I assume you applied to Mars-reers? Maybe it is different for American students and the no-funding rule only applies to internationals. If I get in I'm only going when all of my external funding will be forthcoming. I simply cannot afford it otherwise and it seems way too much to go into debt for (since I have an offer from Oxford). Living in NYC is expensive.. @ Russophile: 5 languages! Wow! How many do you speak already? I'm pretty fluent in 3 languages, although I can speak 2 more, but only limited. Which languages are you interested in? Good luck to everyone!

I would say that it really depends on the program. I can only tell you something about the general reputation these schools have in Europe. Actually, I only know the University of London. This university is quite known and I believe it is the biggest university in the UK. The University of London holds King's College London and University College London and especially UCL is known as an excellent institution here. I have never heard of Royal Holloway College though, but that might be my ignorance. The East Anglia and Bristol are not as known as the University of London, but that doesn't make them less good. I just don't know those. I would think about what you want to do in future: do you want to live in Canada? Do you want to start a PhD after this MA? If yes, I'd ask the profs in the department of your interest what they think of UK degrees. I sometimes read stories here of people having difficulties getting into a US program with a UK degree. If your goal is a PhD in Canada, I can imagine you want to do a MA there. On the other hand, a MA abroad is adventurous and adds to the experience and maybe you're not interested in a PhD anyway? I personally would not go into huge debts for a MA.

Congrats on the PhD offers JustChill. I understand it makes no sense to go for the MA if you have a full funded PhD offer. If a Russian history PhD is your goal, it is great that you got an offer now, although that means turning down the Harvard offer I think Oxford doesn't have a lot of funding available in general for masters students, but tuition fees are much lower than in the States for me (3390 pounds, in comparison with 30,000 USD or more in the US). It will depend on my external funding if I'll go to the US or UK. If I get into one of the US programs, I expect to not get funding as an international (most programs don't fund international masters students) and it would not make sense to go in debt for a master's degree.

Congrats Justchill and Litvak on the Harvard acceptance and Russophile on the IU acceptance! For now I got an official acceptance from Oxford and one unofficial acceptance from Cambridge. I'll have an interview for a scholarship the end of the month. Fingers crossed! For everyone: What were your reasons to apply for a MA and not directly for a PhD? In my country it's highly unusual to start a PhD after your undergrad (you have to hold a MA), but in the States it seems pretty common. Is your goal to start a PhD at the institution where you will start your MA?

s/o at the result search posted something about that, but you prob saw that too. I think it was 18k and tuition waver.

I'm curious about that too! It wasn't me (I heard nothing from them, so expect rejection).

Thanks Grad Hopeful! That is some very useful info! I got a rejection letter from Stanford and the letter said that if I had any questions I shouldn't hesitate to contact them. I asked the prof a few questions about this degree issue without expecting details on my rejection and he gave me a real nice reply. He told me that a a three-year Bologna compliant bachelor’s degree is accepted and no extra coursework is needed with such a degree. It is equivalent to the 4-year US variant. Since I have a degree from a country that takes part in the Bologna process, everything was fine with my degree and a service like WES is indeed not required (so people, save that 200 USD, unless they specifically ask you to use WES). He also told me the reason I was rejected: my previous coursework didn't really match their program and that he advised me to apply for a 2 year program instead of such an intensive 1 year program they have. He even advised me to apply to program X, because he thought I would do well there. He's right, Stanford was a long shot and all other programs I applied to are two years. I didn't expect them to tell me the exact reasons of rejection though. I always assumed it was kind of a no go to ask, but because this letter stated that I should contact them with questions, I did and I only asked specifically about problems with my degree. I suppose my degree won't be a problem for evaluation of my application in other universities either. I hold two Bachelor's degrees so I think they will all agree I did do enough coursework. Also, I'm only applying for a masters, not a PhD.

Good luck Dodonizer! I hope you'll get in!

The universities I applied for do this themselves, for example Columbia states this on their website "Judgments concerning equivalency of international baccalaureate degrees are made by the Graduate School." I asked a few schools if they want me to get a report like this and they didn't (good thing, saves me about 200 USD). It still feels bad though, if I have to fill out a GPA of n/a or 0 when filling out the online application.. I also send them my diploma supplement, which is full of information, but I doubt if they have time to read stuff like that.

Call the department. The International Office covers the whole university, so they simply forward this and have no clue whatsoever. Apparently the department doesn't really do something with that forwarded email. If you call or mail the department, or email a professor you talked to before, you will have more chance I suppose. Those people know about the decisions and might be able to do more. Tell them that you have offers that need answers. Is this your first choice? This situation is pretty bad, I'm not surprised though. Administration and communication between departments at these universities is sometimes a problem. Do you still have a chance to get that scholarship?

Where I studied, it seems to be pretty similar to the UK system. Three years is common in Europe, but apparently, the universities in the US don't always recognize it. I experienced the same as you did. I never had to apply like this and have no people in my environment that did, so it is hard to find out how to present yourself to the adcoms. I did learn a lot about all of this when I studied in North America though (just for 6 months) from people there. Unfortunately, I only discovered this website after applying and even after my first acceptance (although the last thing is good, otherwise I would have freaked out over the result search for sure )

I'm Dutch, but with a Belgian degree. I'm not actually. I'm simply applying for a master's program that isn't available here (max 2 years). I never said I have a low opinion, this is just my previous experience in North-America when I studied there abroad at a very well known university. People don't know, like I don't know every capital of every state in the US. I said I don't even mind, I'm just wondering how they'll interpret my degree then. I'm not expecting any funding, since funding for Masters isn't widely available and I'm counting on only going with my own funding (external). So I'm not that worried about the funding issue.

I'm often doubting whether the Adcoms in the US have a clue about my previous university. Often, people in the States do not know where my country is situated, or think the city I'm from is an actual country itself. I even once had the question if my university was Canadian.. So I don't expect them to know. Anyway, I do have 3 degrees from this "foreign" university with a grade system that is hard to compare with the US system, especially since we don't have the grade inflation like in the US (the highest grade in our system is only given when absolute perfection is reached: never). I also don't have a GPA on a 4-scale and my university doesn't count major or overall GPAs.. My university generated a transcript with an explanation of the grades and a suggestion how to compare them to US grades. I kind of had to force them to make it and I even made one myself which they printed and signed... At least I got something with an explanation, but still.. How do they evaluate my degree in the States? One student from my country that applied to UCLA had a problem, because her undergrad degree was only 3 years (although this person also has a 2-year Master degree on top of that). Our undergrad degrees are always 3 years, that would be common for many European countries. It's mainly due to our different high school system and because we are not allowed to make things like cooking class count towards our degree I guess (example from Caltech). Apparently UCLA didn't understand that this student really holds a BA after three years (Bologna process, so it is recognized). I know universities like diversity, but I'm wondering: if they have to choose between me and a US student with a US degree with about the same qualifications, wouldn't they rather pick the US student, just because they know what they did in undergrad. While picking me would be a higher risk: I studied at the University of Whatever, I come from a different system, I might not now what grad school in the US stand for, I might not fit in, etc. And this is even besides funding issues (although I applied for external funding from my home country, and if that's forthcoming, I'm not at all dependent of US funding). I can understand their choice to pick the US student over me, a student from a very small country somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic, for sure. And I'm sure it's the same in my country (it is probably a pain for a US student to come here for grad school). What do you think about this? Where are you from and how do you think your degree will be evaluated? Will they understand your grades? Or does your university US grades anyway (in my country this is going to be the standard in a few years)? Are you worried about this? I am some times. Not that I think it is unfair, I just wish I had a US degree and that this would not be in my disadvantage. I'm also curious about experiences of current grad students that got in with their foreign degrees. Did you hear anything after admission about how they evaluate those degrees?

This would be a MPhil by the way. I'm not applying for PhD, so that might be different.

I get this: Tuition Fee: Fee rates for this programme have not yet been confirmed for 2010/11. For an indication of your fee level the 2009/10 rate was £3,390, but note that this is subject to change. The 2010/11 Home/EU (ELQ) rate is £6,800 College Fee: College Fee rates have not yet been set for 2010/11. For an indication of your fee level the 2009/10 rate was £2,343 but note that this is subject to change. However, that 3390 GBP is like 5000 USD. Still, it is pretty affordable in comparison with the 30,000 USD tuition fees in the States.... I applied for a lot of funding, but if I don't get it I'd rather go to Oxford than to a US school. I won't get any money from the US schools, so I'm dependent of external funding. Cambridge also charges 3390 GBP for my program.

I'd say yes, but I'm not in the admission committee. Those schools get plenty of good candidates and from here I cannot see how your SOP for example stands out. I applied to those universities as well, though a different program, and I think I won't get in. I red the history of the current students on the Stanford website and it was impressive. "Summa cum laude, I also have my own company, I hold three Bachelor degrees and did them at the same time"-students. Can't beat that.

Mine says Complete - Yes. They're changing it only now, because they're just very slow. They updated the status of my transcripts after 1 month, while they had them even before I submitted my application.

It is exactly what saplingwang says. If they send me a rejection letter, I can just forget about it. I already got in somewhere, so I shouldn't be sad. It is just frustrating to know nothing.