Warelin

April 15th is the deadline to accept funded offers. Offers without funding are not included in the April 15 resolution. Withdrawing from a university (after April 15) after previously accepting an offer requires written permission from that university in order to be released in order to accept another offer. It is not recommended that you accept two offers. While it is legal to accept two offers, it can result in burned bridges as academia is very small and based on connections. The April 15 resolution regarding this addresses what I said below: "Students are under no obligation to respond to offers of financial support prior to April 15; earlier deadlines for acceptance of such offers violate the intent of this Resolution. In those instances in which a student accepts an offer before April 15, and subsequently desires to withdraw that acceptance, the student may submit in writing a resignation of the appointment at any time through April 15. However, an acceptance given or left in force after April 15 commits the student not to accept another offer without first obtaining a written release from the institution to which a commitment has been made. Similarly, an offer by an institution after April 15 is conditional on presentation by the student of the written release from any previously accepted offer."

@LAKSHYA GANGWAR Are they all offering similar amounts of funding? How do you feel about your potential advisors at each college? How do you feel about where each college is located? How would the work you'd be doing at each differ? Are the places where they're placing after graduation similar to what you'd like to do?

Are you applying for an MA or PHD? What's your funding like at each school? Is it enough to live in the city? What are the employment prospects in each city for your partner? Does each program allow you to have flexibility in the person(s) you work with? Can you imagine yourself living in each city for several years? Do the faculty members you'd be working with have a prior placement record in previous schools they've worked at?

I'm not sure if the two can be compared. Cornell's concentrations are in: Marketing Management Operations and Revenue Management Real Estate Entrepreneurship UNLV's concentrations are in: Gaming Management Meetings and Events PGA Golf Management Restaurant Management Which are you interested in? Of the two, Cornell is more well-known but the degree won't benefit you if you aren't interested in what their concentrations are.

The board below might find that information more helpful! https://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/95-speech-language-pathology/

I'm not sure if Illinois is sending waitlist notifications. I think they prefer to accept people once spots become available. I'll likely be turning down my spot this week.

This thread has also been created here in 2012.

I think this helps to prove that fit is ultimately, a very weird thing and is not only determined by how well faculty matches, but where the department is hoping to be (which is really an impossible thing to determine in any given year. Applying broadly to schools that have a major interest to you is a very important thing to do as you'll never know where you might fit into a school's puzzle. The ivies have often been said to recruit from the same pool but @punctilious' husband earned 1 acceptance, 1 waitlist, and 1 rejection from the Ivy League and had mixed results elsewhere. It's important to not apply only to top 10 schools, but also to not discount schools just because they are ranked highly. Faculty fit + Institutional goals + class profile all play a much larger role which may be invisible during the whole process to us as applicants.

Congrats @la_mod!

think Vermont is a really hard offer to beat for the following reasons: 1. PHD students aren't competing with you for a professor's time. This might seem like a small thing now but less graduate students mean that you'll be able to develop closer relationships and might be given priority when certain projects become available. 2. Guaranteed funding means you won't have to worry about being able to present at a conference you want to due to funds. Presenting at the conference you want to present at based on interests means you'll be able to make connections sooner and with people that you're more likely to be interested in. It allows you to better understand current scholarship in the field. 3. It sounds like the Lake could be a good way for you to 'recharge' or 'relax'. I think both are incredibly important because you will be a member of the community and there will be days that you need to unwind in the city.

I don't believe that ranking does matter at the MA level. A lot of this is due to schools not being ranked at the MA level. However, these are things I'd ask about both programs when comparing the two: 1) Placement rates: You mentioned that both have great placement rates. How updated is their information? Where do students get accepted after finishing the MA? What percentage of students apply for the PHD? Are these the types of schools that you're interested in? 2) Professionalization experience. Does the school offer funding for conferences? (At my current school, funding is not guaranteed by the department but everyone who applies for it, generally gets it as long as the funds are there. It's been my understanding that the funds run dry around mid-spring. If you apply before then, they'll reimburse all costs (transportation, food, hotel, conference registration) up to $1000 total. The limit is even higher for international conferences 3) Do they offer opportunities to teach? Be an RA? Tutor at the writing center? 4) Program: How big is each cohort? Can you take programs in other departments of interest? Can you be happy in the city that each is located in? What times do they offer most grad courses? How many courses are you expected to take each semester? Do students seem happy there? How closely will you work with professors?

Called to withdraw myself from the Miami waitlist (Rhet/Comp PHD in this case) where I was previously told I was on "the very top" of the list. Good luck to everyone.

I think it's important to note that Berkeley Rhetoric and English are two separate programs. Unfortunately, rejections always come much later than waitlists and acceptances for most programs.

Programs will only accept you if they believe you can succeed. They will not accept you if they do not 100 percent believe that you would succeed in their program.

I hope you're wrong and that you get accepted at UCR! From my interactions with talking to multiple programs this year, most seem to be accepting fewer applicants outright and a few have managed to better utilize their waitlist because they're no longer accepting twice as many people as they have spots.

I think there's a good chance that you'll make it off the waitlist.

Thanks for the link. I've come across that link before and have used it at one point to determine LWR but a professor told me that it was outdated. The ratio given back for Austin and Boulder seemed to be off due to their recent spikes in prices. She said that MIT's living wage calculator was the most accurate tool she has found to date with cities she's familiar with.

From my understanding, fellowships are not taxed during the semester, but you are responsible for paying federal taxes on it when you file taxes. Stipends and Fellowships are not taxed social security or medicare because grad students are exempt. However, each school may have various fees that you are responsible for, a portion of the healthcare bill you're responsible for paying and the cost of books throughout the semester. I think a fair estimate is that you'll be taxed 10-12 percent of your stipend. But International rules of stipends earned in the US may vary country to country so it's best for you to consult someone at your school that specializes in that to determine what, if any, portions should be saved for such a case. The current living wage for each school does not tax anything, so everything listed is pre-tax.

It reflects the purchase power of the stipend in that city.

@maengret's first link is how I've been calculating it since it seems to be the most recently updated version.Living Wage *2080. Stipend divided by yearly cost of living should get you an "avg" cost of living. A cost of living of "1" means you're at the cost of what a living wage is for that city. A living wage below 1 doesn't mean that the stipend isn't livable. However, a score closer to 0 might mean that you'll need to room with roommates or live farther away from the university or the city. I felt adding the column would be useful to show how far different amounts get in different places and to show that a higher stipend doesn't always mean a higher offer.

Thanks for your contributions.

Small note here: The April 15th rule only applies to schools that offer you a stipend package. It doesn't apply to schools offering no package- those deadlines vary unfortunately.

Off the waitlist indeed! I had a wonderful time at the Prospective Students' weekend last week. Thanks!!! I stared at the e-mail for a few minutes before realizing what it was! Thanks

Accepted at WUSTL.

USNews rankings for English are determined by 14 percent of respondents who were department heads or director of graduate studies. As such, it's hard to take rankings those seriously when a lot of the rankings are based on "name brand". There are some schools (like Notre Dame) who don't rank highly on the list but is arguably the school to go to if interested in Early Modern/Renaissance. UConn has a nice collection of faculty interested in 20th Century American Literature. As long as you can see yourself living in the area and are content with their recent placements in that subfield, I think it would be a very strong decision. UOregon has most recently been known for its ecocriticism. When I last spoke to the department, it seemed to be trying to grow this program more but they were still trying to expand their other specializations. Both programs are ones I've had very positive interactions with and faculty were more than happy to talk to me about my projects and goals. I think that support is crucial to pursuing an advanced degree. I wouldn't place much focus on overall ranking but would place a lot of focus into how well the faculty shares similar interests and how well they place into areas you're interested in.