Aloice

I applied to four schools (UBC, Georgetown, Villanova and Penn State), all for funded MA programs. I ended up getting funding from UBC (nearly everything first year, at least a teaching position second year) and Penn State (fully funded TAship) and could potentially have gotten funding from Villanova as well (I crossed them out when I got accepted by the other three schools since I liked the other three a lot better). I wanted to do either Romanticism or Science Studies since I majored in Bioengineering and minored in English for my undergrad; I'm going to be attending UBC in the Fall. Reasons not to attend Georgetown: No funding, the school's strengths didn't match up that well with mine, the professors I really admire won't really be teaching during the two years I'll be there. RNA Villanova: I'll be staying in the same area as my undergrad (Penn) while I like traveling and moving; strengths didn't match up that well with mine RNA Penn State: I didn't really connect with their R & SS professors during my campus visit, I don't foresee my job prospects really going up after just getting an MA there, and having spent the last 7 years of my life in Houston and then Philadelphia, I don't particularly want to stay in State College for the next ~5 years of my life (since their MA program usually feeds into their PhD program). Reasons to attend UBC: Decent funding, a strong science studies department (also interdisciplinary with history, philosophy etc), several professors I'm interested in working with, more networking possibilities (especially considering I'm an international Chinese student), Vancouver (beautiful accessible city).

If it helps, I had a funded offer from Penn State and I just turned it down, so at least my spot will be opening up?

Sounds like you would have a blast at Oxford or Columbia anyway, congratulations on those acceptances! I still haven't heard from Georgetown and can't see anything on MyAccess even though I could log in.... hm. I'll probably ask them tomorrow when I visit.

They haven't, but I also am international which means that they asked me to provide some financial details before they can "formally" accept me, and I've just been ignoring them since it's very unlikely that they'll be able to top my Penn State/Georgetown offers.

Try Cheryl A. Mohr? She's the Graduate Program Administrative Support Assistant who has been talking to me. Otherwise try Debra Hawhee, the Director of Graduate Studies.

tfw Georgetown and Penn State's open houses are basically on the same day...

Have you contacted them already? If you haven't done so before, definitely write to them. I also applied to their MA and they've already sent me out forms to fill out for a campus visit at the end of the month.

I don't think you absolutely /have/ to reply, but replying an email saying that you appreciate the offer and asking a few questions you might have about the program probably wouldn't hurt anything.

I emailed them to ask about funding b/c I need to decide whether or not to commit to UBC by tomorrow, and they wrote back to me this morning saying they're still apparently in the process of deciding funding ("we hope to have more definitive information for you over the next few weeks as we are currently in the process of deciding funding offers").

Congratulations to you! I just got notification from Georgetown as well, although I haven't yet gotten the call for funding. Did you get the call on the same day as the email? I'm sorely tempted to go but I also have a fully funded offer from Penn State and it'd be tough to pick an unfunded Georgetown offer over something with a 19k/yr stipend.

I'm finishing up my undergrad in engineering and applied to four schools for an MA in English - got into Penn State and UBC so far, still waiting on Georgetown and Villanova. UBC gave me a 15k/10k package (w/o a tuition waiver) and teaching opportunities in the 2nd year while Penn State is giving me a more generous TAship, so it's going to be hard to choose uvu I'm holding out for Georgetown though, because I'd love to study with Duncan Wu.

I applied to their MA program and heard back on Sunday - their administration seems to be pretty swamped right now because I was promised an email by Monday but only got it today (after asking them to hurry up). So I'd guess that PhD decisions would take a while yet.