any5

New School might

When declining an offer what exactly do you say in your email (and to whom? the DGS?)

Wisconsin sociology has a great agro foods subspecialty. Cornell also in dev. Soc. And thru their ag school

well they sent out one email that wasn't bcc: regarding a neighborhood tour, and counted no less than 40 to: addresses..

For those of us Wisconsin admits planning to attend visit day, I hope to find you among the *40* prospects who are going !

I am the opposite.. I am "dropping out" of the 'real world' to go back and get my PhD. I have done well for myself over the past 15 or so years working full time in a lucrative industry, but which was ultimately not very personally rewarding or beneficial to society (i.e. capital markets), and where technology was every day creeping in to shunt the mental capacity of its workforce, or eliminate workers (and entire departments) altogether. The grass is always greener on the other side, but the grass is always brown. That said, I know what it is like to work and be self-motivated. I did complete an MA (evenings, but classified as full time) while working days full time. I understand the competition in the labor market. But the competition in this labor market is little different from others. "White collar" jobs are increasingly outsourced to foreign labor or to technology. My brother is a lawyer, went to a great law school and works at a decent firm. He hates every single living minute of it. But he can't leave because he'd never find a job again save start his own practice and struggle in competition with all others who did the same. My best friend growing up is a doctor. Very successful, but never sees his family or friends, is constantly exhausted, and has been so traumatized by stuff he has seen as a medical student and then resident in an ER that he openly admits it has sapped his humanity. His sister is a dentist, that should be better right? Maybe when she has paid off the $275,000 in student debt & professional insurance premiums she owes. Even computer programmers are unable to (often) move up the ladder and get stuck doing the same old repetitive coding on the same sort of projects day in and day out. I rather have the potential for intellectual reward and academic success than have a manager telling me what to do, and who can fire me or downsize me at any moment. Worse, I could be the manager who makes a bit more salary but is even more self-loathing (ask any mid-level manager you may know to confirm or deny). I understand the awkward financial position that many new straight out of undergrad or out of entry-level work find themselves in. The grass has to be greener working for a stable corporation. Right? Perhaps stability (financial or otherwise) is a fair trade for monotony, under-appreciation, and slim chances of breaking through the glass ceiling. At my last job, everybody had at least a Masters degree. It's needed just to get the interview these days. At least with a PhD you can figure out a little bit about how the world works. Or not- but at least you tried and maybe even got paid to do it. Otherwise, exchange that stimulation of the mind for a cubicle, commuter traffic, and truly depressing happy hours

Is it worthwhile to ask for a "relocation stipend" instead of asking outright for more academic stipend?

I'm going for MORS + Sociology program (joint with bschool).. Its more an on campus interview.. I booked my flights and they'll reimburse up to a certain amt

Ok, looks like I am in the same boat. I was supposed to get a waitlist email last week but for some reason they never sent it..!

So weird.. I didn't get an acceptance or a rejection email from NYU, but today I got an email inviting me to their Open House visit day.. I called the dept. admin and she said she can't give decisions over the phone, but that somebody should've contacted me days ago... so strange - did they forget to notify me? I am still not sure if I've been accepted..

with that did NYU invite you to their visit days?

This is something to bring to the attention of the media.. it's really a bad mistake..

I forgot to mention where I'll be: Northwestern/Kellogg on 2/29, Wisconsin-Madison on 3/11, Cornell on 3/14

It appears that many of us will be potential cohortmates. It may be a nice idea to coordinate meeting up with each other on visit day(s) so that we at least "know" some people there. Maybe post on this thread your planned visit days and then we can pm each other to coordinate

@kelris, what were your stats so we can give better advice?

Oh nvm I see my travel stipend.

I am glad you are relieved, but take your computer science sweating it out over to the appropriate thread. (I thought engineers were good at following directions?)

I have received two or three emails from UW-Madison admin folks encouraging me to reach out to professors. Out of the 6 emails I've sent, 5 have written back eager to set up an appointment. So, I would suggest the heuristic is you need to take the initiative on that and it has no bearing on your 'desirability'. If they didn't want you they'd have rejected your application. BTW did Wisconsin offer you travel money for its visit day? (I didn't get any)

Something else to think about is how much health insurance (& other benefits) is subsidized. Especially relevant if you also have a family, how much they'd be subsidized. This can be worth $10,000+ a year

Choices aren't binding until April 15. If you make a (perceived) bad decision you can always change tack. Unless you've outright rejected other acceptances in order to clear up their wait list. But you are by no means beholden until April 15th .. this is a tacit agreement that the Graduate School Council (or whatever it's called) has mandated.

that wasn't meant for you specifically. It is general words of wisdom. Take it with a grain of salt, coming from an average advice giver.

The decision itself is a distribution. On average, you are average (you will learn this when you take stats maybe;) But seriously you can be a 5 sigma star at a 25-50 school and blow everyone away. But on average you will be average. At a top 10 program on average your distribution is just better. You can be a 1 sigma achiever and place where you'd need to outperform by 5 stdevs below. Not that you can't - statistics say you CAN, but that on average you wont. But maybe you're not average. You might be below average. By definition some of us are going to be below average. It's safer to be below average at a top10 because they have a better distribution. These distributions aren't normal curves either, but who cares what shape they are. You're probably, on average, average. So am I. But some of us are going to be way above average. In summary, if you are an average person aim high, the distrubution at the top will benefit you. If you are above average, you will likely succeed at places below (given the same opportunity set!). If you are below average and got into a top10, go there and cross your fingers. The average person self-reports being above average. Keep this in mind.

Here: starry-eyed hopeful naive and excited There: jaded tired frustrated realistic experienced The grass is always greener, my friends. And the grass is always brown.

I've been invited to flyout interview for NW-Kellogg joint PHD MORS+Soc.. unsure if that decision timeline corresponds to the Soc program by itself

All my LORs were from economics dept.