Quickmick

Wherever you live your biggest expense will probably be housing, so you might want to make that the first consideration. If you are looking at cities with especially high rents, the first thing I would do is check into graduate housing--which is often subsidized.

corn hole

yup... I might hear from two in the next week, two in the following and the remaining 3 within a couple of weeks after that. Thank goodness for this place--even with it I think my wife is jamming cotton balls in her ears.

@ericthebrave all good points and along these lines, there is something else at play (again, that we have no control over). Part of how many your sub-field takes is contingent on how "full" they are. If they gave out 6 admits last year, expecting 3 to attend--and they all came--there may just be a glut of people. In this case you might be the best xyzist prof poi has ever seen, but she is still full from last year. A TT prof told me at a conference that when he applied to Hopkins they took zero in his field...two years in a row.... just tough sledding.

@terraaurea I applied to TAMU (Nautical), Berkeley, Cornell, Northwestern, UCSD, Princeton, Georgetown (History: Environmental/Latin America), and my MS institution. I am (I think) mentally prepared if I am shut out at the first 7, though I think I have a fair chance. I aimed high, as--to me--the only viable percentage for academic plans comes from attending a top tier school/faculty. If I am shut out it may just be an indication that I am right where I should be! We will see what happens in the next few weeks, though I won't know about GRFP until probably late March. However it shakes out, any of these options would be a privilege, and going through this process has certainly brought introspection if nothing else. good luck!

All good points, and I would imagine most people decline as soon as it is practicable, just also important to remember that once something is in the "no" pile it is polite to inform the school which I imagine almost everybody does.

festive us

While I would agree that people are entitled to make decisions however they deem best, I would mention that when I went through this process to get into my MS program I only kept one admit in hand at a time. That is, I evaluated them as they came in and would decline them ASAP to give the next guy down the list a chance--but that is just me. Holding multiple offers wouldn't change how I evaluated them, either heads up on the fly or waiting on the whole batch--unless funding was pending.

Social Distortion

At least you aren't gone with the schwinn!

Nautical Archaeology here. Who am I? Tough one. Inter disciplinary UG (history/philosophy/environmental studies) currently in the home stretch of a MS Environmental Science program and looking to fold that training into the social sciences/humanities with the goal of becoming a complete scholar on the other side of the rainbow. I applied to 1 Anthro program, 6 History programs and 1 STEM program. Haven't heard anything yet, but don't really expect to until the first week of Feb (maybe some news in the next couple of weeks).

maybe adcomms think that if the humanities students are going to be the last to graduate they may as well be the last to know if they are in, too!

Just curious, why "immediately accept?" With so much going into the application process, isn't it to your advantage to see what comes down the pike?

1. The grades seem fine. 2. Depends on how you define high paying.

I wouldn't fret about it, this isn't their first rodeo. When i TA'd for a lab there were about 6 TAs, we had a weekly meeting to go over the next week's lab. At the outset of the term we got together and divided the sections between us according to what worked for our schedules as individuals. I am pretty sure you wont have to choose between attending class and being in a lab in a working capacity. In our case, i had to be at each lab meeting (or arrange to have it covered) as I was the only instructor in the room. Also you might get tasked with some lecture related chores (e.g. entering grades). All these remarks are products of my experience so how they run your stuff will vary, but again don't fret--it will all work out.

"The tribe has spoken."?

Interesting you say this...we seem to be in similar situation (wife/child). In retrospect, my application list seems to have been finalized when i was at a point that I really couldn't rank them. I don't know how old your child is, but if you are stuck between choices=ceteris paribus-you might want to look at if they have a lab school. Some of the schools on my list have a school my daughter could attend at reduced tuition based on my status. Good luck!

I wouldn't think so....maybe couch it more along the lines of, "The work at OverTheRainbow U offers cutting edge blah blah blah, and I would hope to take that training and foster growth along these lines in AU--where developments are not as far along--to advance the study of JandalHandles on the trail that Dr. Suess at Rainbow has blazed." Just saying, you might be able to spin the lack of work in your home country into a positive.

Again, this might be uni dependent... maybe call the registrars office for the quickest/most accurate response?

Well, @inooradd who knows, maybe third time a charm. It sounds like you took steps to be a more compelling applicant, good luck!

South Bend--and ND--has (like everywhere) pros and cons. Sorry about the news, but I am confident you will get a positive result.

@trey333 I, too have an app out with TAMU in a different department. If you have logged in to AIS recently the banner at the top says "we are receiving thousands of documents daily, please all 14 days to process." 14 days just to process the inbound correspondence. My potential advisor let me know they try to get results out early Feb, and this is for a program that usually only has to wade through 30 applications.I thought the timeline might go something like 12/1 apps due, the office of the graduate school organizes them and has them ready to hand out before the break (but they stay in the bin). Winter break, nothing happens. People trickle back in last week, the apps go out to departments where they get a couple/few weeks with them then they go back to graduate studies w/a recc.That is all waded through and decisions go out. Feb seems very reasonable in ths light, and I won't be contacting anyone unless I haven't heard anything by late March--but that is just me.

Huzzah!

I think there is quite a bit out there regarding the power of prestige in academia generally: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2015/02/university_hiring_if_you_didn_t_get_your_ph_d_at_an_elite_university_good.html https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/13/study-suggests-insular-faculty-hiring-practices-elite-departments From the second, "The top 10 programs in each discipline produce 1.6 to 3 times more faculty than even the next 10 programs in the ranking. And the top 11 to 20 programs produce 2.3 to 5.6 times more professors than the next 10 programs."

Doh!