Warelin

I'd caution against this unless you have a funded offer in hand. In the past, there have been applicants who have tried to play the game of matching funds. Some schools have reached out to them requesting funding letters of the other schools so that they could forward it to the right contacts to see if they could better match other offers. If you have other funded offers, I'd only would e-mail the school that you're most interested in because funding is often tied to very particular things.

I never claimed that a 20k stipend was high. I said it could be considered high depending on where the program is located. In some places, living on 20k without roommates is doable. In other places, you'll need a roommate or two and/or a long commute to make it work. The living wage calculator also includes higher medical costs (which most universities provide within their funding package at a much-reduced cost) as well as taxes which are higher than the stipend would require. As a general rule of thumb, you don't pay social security taxes or medicare taxes when you're on a fellowship because you're exempt. Most universities also don't consider you "full time" for their records. Grad Students are usually seen as individuals that work 20 hours per week and most universities don't provide stipends for the full 12 months but rather at 9, 10 or 11 months. Some universities provide additional opportunities for summer funding which also allow you to increase your stipend.

This depends on the city. 20k is low for living in New York City, but can be considered high for living in Oklahoma City. MIT has a living wage calculator that can give you a better idea of the local cost of living in various cities.

You are interpreting that correctly!

The only thing I know about UCLA is that they have a history of sending acceptances to more people than they have spots for in the incoming class. This is common practice for most programs. If I recall correctly, I think UCLA does not have a ranked waitlist. All this means is that you'll need either 1 or 2 people from your subfield to reject their offer before they move to the waitlist.

Unfortunately, not something I have access to. If you report it though, an admin can take care of it. Alternatively, I think using the contact us forum and explaining the issue will also result in fast action.

I think you'll go far with that attitude! It is so hard to tell what admission committees want in any given year because we don't know in what direction they're heading. I think making strides to learn more about yourself as an applicant and taking steps to immerse yourself can only strengthen how you appear to any committee though.

I read your interests earlier and before looking at your school list, my mind immediately went: Santa Barbara, WUSTL, Michigan, Illinois.

Congrats! Looks like you'll have some very hard decisions to make in the future.

Congrats @j.alicea, @Sav, @MeginAK and @theotherbrontesister!

Congrats!

Bumping this back up as a reminder.

Congrats to your friend! You're slaying this app cycle!

Edit: Just reread the e-mail that I received in an earlier year. 1-5 is the range that I was given on the number of applicants they accept!

I think it's also good to note that smaller cohorts are not uncommon. Graduate Programs are becoming increasingly sensitive to the market and most are attempting to provide their graduates with as many resources as they can. Chicago and Johns Hopkins were traditionally huge programs with cohorts of 20+. In recent years, Johns Hopkins has chosen to accept between 0 and 6 candidates for each cohort.

The standard offer from Illinois is a fellowship plus teaching one course per semester during the first year. The stipend increase during the second year is in exchange for teaching two courses per semester. I'm not sure if teaching two courses is guaranteed. An enhanced offer includes an increased stipend plus no teaching for up to 3 years. I think there's usually a nomination process for the latter.

Congrats to both of you!

I think Application Season is wonderful practice for the Academic Job Market. Each job on the job market will want a number of different documents. The length of these documents will also differ at each school. Application Season (while stressful) allows everyone to become better aquainted with each school they're interested in and learn how to tailor their application to each school they're applying to which is a crucial skill when applying on the Job Market. The practice allows you to think carefully about what you enjoy doing and which schools align well with your interests and your values in the future. (Are you interested in research? Teaching?) Are you sensitive to temperatures? What about area? How do you feel about a large lecture?How do you feel about small schools? After Graduate School, there are a lot more schools which have the potential to hire you. According to World Atlas, there are 3,026 4-year institutions. That's a lot of work to catch up on if you aren't sure what you're looking for within a university. I think the biggest part this would cause is a huge increase in the number of applications. Less work means people who aren't passionate might apply anyway to get in. In turn, this will lead to less-interested professors who only applied because they were trying to delay something else in life without really caring about what that thing was. On the flipside, it might also mean that universities will only look at students who listed their university at the number 1 or 2 spot because these students are more likely to accept their offer. I don't see that going well for many people. The SOP is crucial because it allows professors to not get overbooked and different people might be interested in the same professor for different aspects. Without the SOP, professors would have to spend more time looking over applications on top of their additional responsibilities which often include teaching, academic advising, publishing, academic meetings, serving on other committees, applying for tenure/trying to get a promotion and so on.

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."

The sheet does have teaching loads on it; usually either under the teaching requirements. Adding lowest-highest temperatures gets a bit trickier because a major cold front can happen at anytime which could significantly alter expectations. It's possible that the temperature drop is so drastic despite it normally being warmer than other cities which didn't experience such a rare low.

They did the same thing last year. https://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=ucsd+english&t=a&o=&pp=25

Last year, we received invitations to apply to their Math Program! I don't think many of us would be accepted, but we'd diversify the majors in the program.

Congrats! FWIW, the offer I accepted was at a school that originally waitlisted me! So, I think there's a good chance this works in your favor.

Congratulatons!

Last year, certain schools sent out acceptance letters even when they were closed. Often, there are some staff and faculty members who work from home or make calls from the office despite the university being closed. Not sure how anyone feels about this, but I thought it might prove helpful to pass along what we experienced last year on this forum.