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Oh, and I just noticed that I missed some replies that followed re: acceptance timelines, cost of living, and reputation. I already received my acceptance, and it was dated on March 6th (at which point my status on yorku.ca/myfile was also changed to reflect this). This is EARLY for York, and as I said I do know that they usually admit in several batches, taking applicants from the waitlist. I think last year the first PhD applicants heard back around April 10th? Cost of living in Toronto is expensive by Canadian standards, not sure how it compares to the US. Rent downtown is about $700-$800 for a bachelor apartment, about $900-$1000 for a 1 bedroom. As far as reputation, no one is arguing that York is generally considered to be the "Harvard of the North" or whatever, but it's astonishing to see this common adherence to such a narrow and quasi-statistical interpretation of what "reputation" encompasses and entails. Are there more people who have heard of U of T than York? Probably. Does that have anything to do with the quality of individual departments comprising the universities, much less sub-specialties within them? No! I mean, if a program is highly ranked for having ten world-renowned scholars who work on the US conservative movement and I want to study migrant workers from Guatemala, their general high ranking doesn't change the program's non-suitability and lack of good reputation in the far more important matter of my particular area of study. U of T is fantastic for some areas of political science, but that doesn't make it a better or more reputable program for everyone!

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Having obtained my MA at York and having been admitted to the PhD program for 2008, I just created an account here in light of some of these egregarious (or at least strange) misperceptions about the York department. 1. York is the second fiddle to U of T here Really? According to...? I think it's important to remember that York and U of T generally attract wildly divergent sets of academics, and what's best for the person working on, say, senate reform is not necessarily going to be the same as what's best for someone doing work on, say, discourses of bordering and queer bodies. I was accepted at both York and U of T and chose York because of its ideological climate and reputation for producing exciting scholarship. I have numerous friends who turned down more lucrative financial offers from U of T to attend York for their PhD. 2. Finances. York has adopted an egalitarian funding model, for ideological reasons. Each admitted student gets ~$11k for an 8 month GAship. The amount for PhD students is significantly higher (I think around 20k?) and this amount is offered to every admitted student. I'm not sure what U of T offers to PhD students, but they generally don't fund MA students at all.