farflung

@Argentina-- thanks for sharing the news - and glad to hear it! Wenner-Gren readers are tough. It's awesome to get to the second round though, so be proud! I'm beginning to think this lack-of-notification (even in spam folder) doesn't bode well for my proposal. Is anyone else still waiting?

How strange - they e-mailed your advisor but not you? No word for me yet. I guess I could start pestering my advisor...

Harvard has a strong human rights focus, from what I understand, as do Brown and Tufts. All of these universities have strong interdisciplinary centers that deal with issues of human rights. Miriam Ticktin-- the New School-- also comes to mind. You might also look at reaching out to legal anthropologists who tend to think about these issues -- Sally Merry at NYU maybe? The anthropology of human rights is kind of booming right now, so you could probably pitch the project at any number of schools and see what happens. On the topic of indigeneity, I think your choice of program/faculty would really depend on your regional focus. Are you interested in indigenous social movements in Latin America for instance? Practices of sovereignty within native North America (e.g. Jessica Catellino at UCLA)? Many many anthropologists work with indigenous people, so again, I think you could pitch your project at a variety of places.

Hi May Wenner-Gren 2015 applicants - Any idea when to expect a first round notification? Last time it went straight to my junk e-mail folder and I nearly missed it.

Hi! I was in a very similar situation to you when I started grad school four years ago -- similar amount of debt (although most of my loans were subsidized), and a desire to start paying so that I didn't accrue interest well into my mid-30's. I will assume your stipend allows you to meet basic costs of living and perhaps even have a small emergency fund. If that's the case, I encourage starting to repay -- I'm so glad I have the past few years! I make a monthly payment of around $300, which disperses across my federal loans. Loan servicers generally consolidate all student loans into a single monthly payment. Once you begin repaying loans, you can (and should) set up a monthly automatic payment, which deducts directly from your bank account. Do this. Don't ever think of that $300 (or whatever your payment amount is) as part of your negotiable monthly budget -- the money is just not yours. I believe you can often choose your monthly payment date, so you might consider having them draw your loan payment from your account a day or two after your paycheck comes, so you only see the money in your account for a day or two before it disappears. You could also open a checking account specifically for loan payments, and just always make sure you have your monthly payment in there ready to go. My loan servicer (Mohela) notifies me a few days in advance of drawing a payment, and notifies me when they've taken it as well. First step -- contact your loan servicer and try to talk to someone about entering repayment. What would it look like? How much would your monthly payment be? I still don't have a target date for repaying all of my loans-- I assume that's a decade or more off. I know I've paid down a few thousand during grad school though, so definitely made a dent. Perhaps one day I'll have a 'real' job and be able to make larger payments, but I'm fine with humming along!

Let's revive this! Any bets on when we'll hear back from Fulbright-Hays?

You sound qualified to me! Even with your current GRE score. I wouldn't put yourself through the extra suffering of taking it again. To be honest, as someone on the 'inside' of one of the programs you've mentioned applying to, admission depends on your statement & whether a few faculty members are willing to raise their hand at the meeting and say they'd like to work on the project you propose. It's also about creating a diverse cohort -- people who work in different regions of the world, will have different committee structures, and are interested in a variety of trending topics. So, it both is and isn't about you as an individual. I've heard faculty members talk about the SOP and letters of reference when discussing the applicant pool, but literally never heard anyone mention the GRE. These are anthropologists who tend to be very skeptical of standardized measures.

A few suggestions for you: Stanford (you mentioned Garcia, so I assume you're already looking into it), Johns Hopkins University (Veena Das has worked on issues of morality, I think JHU's program has a philosophical bent if you're interested in that), Brown University (Bhrigupati Singh, worked w/ Veena Das, you might look up his new book), Vanderbilt (Edward Fischer has a recent book on the anthropology of wellbeing). Good luck!