Marge_Simpson

It depends on what you would be paying in rent in Corvallis. If that cost is around $700/mo, then your stipend seems livable, although tight. It's hard to say without knowing what your other expenses are. My current MA stipend is $1,650 in California where rent is really high - I pay $1,200/mo. Food is expensive too ($300/mo for groceries) so I don't have much left over after those costs. It's possible to be resourceful though - for example, my campus has a great food pantry, I buy clothes at thrift stores & alter them with my sewing machine, etc.

I am moving from the West coast to start a program at U Chicago in the fall, but my current teaching assistantship wages will not cover moving costs. Neither do I have any financial support from family, etc. I need at least $300 to ship my books. Is it possible to get funding for moving costs, as one often does with a "real" job offer, or is it inappropriate to ask? I think that Chicago would have the funds, but I'm not sure if this is a 'thing' and do not want to embarrass myself.

Just a note about grad life at Berkeley. It's striking to me how many students on Grad Cafe express their unwavering desire to attend Berkeley for doctoral work. And when so many don't get in, how disappointed they seem on the results page & forums. As someone who has spent the past two years in the department (was rejected for PhD in 2016, but offered a funded MA degree, which I accepted), I just want to say that, your rejection to study at this institution is not actually a loss on your end. Support from faculty is minimal, more students seem to be unhappy than happy with the program overall, funding is not good - especially when weighed with cost of living in the Bay Area, teaching jobs can mean you are responsible for 80+ students per semester (the school loves to have you as a laborer - not a researcher), average graduation time is 8+ years (again, due to lack of support, terrible funding and other factors). Once you get to know it, Berkeley is not the thriving, energetic place of your academic dreams! In fact, the hallways of the anthro department are stagnant & silent with every professor's office door shut. This is all coming from someone who is, on the whole, optimistic; I haven't had a bad time at Berkeley, but this is my honest reflection as I leave here for another program. I think we should all realize that the status of Berkeley's name does not reflect the actual experience of being a grad student here. So don't be hard on yourself for not getting in, and know that there are other programs out there that are less 'famous' but far more supportive.

I didn't apply to MA programs because I've always been told that they're not funded. But at Berkeley when I was rejected for PhD, I was asked if I wanted to do an MA program with full funding (TA position that pays tuition/most fees, and the rest of my non-resident tuition covered). I have to pay $700 in fees every semester, except the department paid these in my first semester when I said I was not able to. It's almost free for 2 years as long as I can keep finding TA jobs, which is tricky, but not that difficult. So, you have to ignore this truth that MA programs are not funded. Funding in academia is dismal, but it is always changing! Grants come into departments, individual professors find funding, all sorts of things. My advice is to apply to a ton of MA programs and see what happens. Berkeley's MA program is folklore (which is perhaps not quite how it sounds; you can focus on contemporary issues, looking at themes like narrative, myth, ritual, etc.).

Sorry that's happening!! Could you find a job in another department? Not ideal, but I happened to get a job teaching a neuroscience course, which was really hard, BUT I loved the professor and felt more supported by that department than my own. Are the grad student workers represented by a union at your school? That might be a good point of contact.

Last year I was admitted to an MA program in anthropology at Berkeley, with promise of a TA position for the two years. Most grad students have their tuition and some fees paid by working as a TA or researcher. I.e. you NEED a 20 hour/week job to get your education funded. You of course get paid a [small] salary too. I write here to let prospective students know what's going on at Berkeley, in anthropology. Funding prospects are dismal. Half way through my first year, the department informed me that I would not in fact have a TA position for the spring. So I had to search for work elsewhere at the last minute, during finals. I finally found a job teaching a course in another discipline for which I knew nothing about, & it was a big struggle to learn the material while teaching it. For my second year, coming up in the fall, the budget to pay TAs has been drastically cut (about 25%) and therefore many anthro students do not have jobs in the department. Again, they must look elsewhere and hope they can find something, although there are budget cuts across the campus. The financial support for Berkeley grad students is dismal, and seems to be getting worse. My PhD friends face the same issues; they must find a job in other departments, find their own summer funding support, etc. No wonder the average graduation time for anthro PhDs is over 8 years? Rethink applying to Berkeley just because it carries status; there are a lot of problems, the largest perhaps being financial in nature.

That's so interesting - why is that? What if you need to decline because of an illness? Doesn't UCSF offer a joint MD/PhD in med anthro program? http://dahsm.ucsf.edu/programs/medical-anthropology/

I think that U Southern California offers an MA in visual anthropology. But you should email the department to check, because the website says they have a PhD track but that isn't true, they did away with that a few years ago.

I haven't heard yet either. Have your application materials been uploaded to that online portal they gave us accounts for? None of mine have yet.

I had a friend in the MA program. She was not offered funding, and had to take loans. Otherwise she liked it...

I don't know how much admissions departments and/or faculty weigh one's GRE scores. No idea. I know that personally if I apply again to programs next year - which I might, as I have been accepted into programs but not offered funding - I will keep studying & take the GRE again. Now I'll have almost a whole year to study, whereas this past year I studied for a few months. You don't have to put in 'countless hours'. What about 6 hours/week? Also why can't you strengthen your SOP and study for GRE at the same time? Again, you'll have almost a year to work on this stuff, before winter 2016 when they're due. What about programs that don't require GRE? U Massachusetts Amherst is one that I know of (UMASS). There must be others.

Who did you propose to work with? I'm just curious. I went to their open house back in October, and thought about applying.

I applied to 7 programs for this cycle (2016) - 5 phd & 2 MA. I worked on applications for 8 months & had a very organized process, did a ton of research, etc. (My project also focuses on modernity & class, although in the Amazon, not the US!) What I did to identify programs was to look at websites for every 'top tier' school's anthro program, as well as some state schools in areas where i thought i would like to live. I had a list of all of these programs, and scratched out the ones that I had already gotten info from along the way. Looking on the website, I got a quick, general sense of what the program focus was - and I did find a ton of programs for which class is a focus. BUT I did gather that most anthropology grad programs out there do not grant an MA by itself, rather, you earn one along the way to PhD. I know that McGill gives an MA. I applied there, and also to Berkeley's MA program, but that is a folklore emphasis & might not be fitting for you. The AAA has a guide to filter programs, and could pull up those that grant MAs, although I've noticed it's not 100% accurate & updated: https://secure.americananthro.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?Site=AAAWeb&WebKey=cc464c00-c91e-497c-b51a-7e0d27b96daa I quickly browsed through every faculty bio on each site. I took note of professors who I thought might be interested in my project, and made an excel sheet with those programs & the faculty members' names. I think that you should generally try to find a program that has at least 3 faculty members who are working on something similar. It doesn't have to be exactly your project, but should share some themes. Maybe that's not true for an MA though, but just a PhD where you need a committee of 3 anthro profs. to work with. I then had a list of about 20 programs. I researched professor's work in more depth, by browsing papers they've written in databases (google scholar can be great, and there are free ways to access if you aren't currently enrolled anywhere). Sometimes there are youtube videos of faculty giving lectures or something like that. You can look at their CVs too, to see a full list of their publications. This allowed me to narrow down to about 13 programs I think. I then wrote to the 'main' professor (or maybe 2) in each department, very briefly introducing myself and my project, and simply asking if they would be taking any grad students in the next cycle. Sometimes they will not be (no funding in dept, going on sabbatical, etc), so you can eliminate that program from your list. Emails, I think, should be very short. So a few months before deadlines, I had a list of 10 programs to apply to, but it became too much work to apply to this many - I have been working full-time while doing this. I narrowed the list down to 7. Each has to be tailored to the program & its faculty a good amount. Similar advice is given elsewhere on this site (see forums about application advice! like the recent thread called '2013 repository'). But what's most important is identifying faculty that you'd like to work with, who share the same interests as you - rather than saying "i want to go to harvard". There might not be anyone at Harvard who can or wants to advise your project if it doesn't 'match'.

Did your TA/RA-ship open before you started the program, or after?

I need a new perspective, or more info, or...something. Feeling puzzled & disappointed. I was accepted to the anthropology program at Suny Buffalo, and was really excited. My letter said nothing of funding, so I inquired to the graduate department coordinator, who wrote back that the department has limited funding for new students, cannot offer any at this time, but will let me know if things change. I think that I will write back to the coordinator and ask her how often funding does become available in this situation, but can anyone relate to this? And how did it work out for you?