vtstevie

As a Western New York native let me tell you that there are worse places in the world than Ithaca. It's def. small so if you're used to, say, NYC-style large then it'll be a shock, but there is no lack of stuff to do and having two major colleges gives the place a nice university-town vibe. Beautiful part of the country and Rochester (my home town!) is way, way better a city than its reputation.

This is such an important point for all of us rejectees to remember

congrats on the princeton waitlist! i'm still waiting on any word from anywhere new over here...are there any other davis applicants on the board these days? i got word that they released acceptances/rejections but only one popped up on the results page and no one posted anything here, so i'm holding out hope...

i haven't heard anything since northwestern released rejections over a week ago, this is getting to be too much!

I don't know how common they are, but I had two in my MA program (my first year, with TAships the second year) and what they entailed depended on the person I was working with. They were both great, but one was much more low key/less responsibility than the other. I'd expect to be doing any of reading over rough drafts of articles/chapters, helping with actual research/confirming sources and wording, conducting archival research on your own, helping plan classes (I did this but got the feeling it was sort of a special case), and generally spending a lot of time at your particular professor's side. It was a lot of fun, but seems like an extremely variable job.

Just an FYI for people waiting on UC Davis - I have it on good authority that decisions were being made last week, so hopefully we'll be finding out sooner rather than later.

there are still lots of schools left for both of us, don't sweat it yet. my best fit and "safety" schools still haven't released any decisions yet (save that one UC Davis outlier from today), and i bet you're in the same boat so just pour a drink and pull out a book and try not to think about it 'til tomorrow!

no admits? yeah, me. just one rejection so far.

congratulations on the columbia admits today...no email for me yet so i'm not optimistic, but it wasn't a great fit for me anyway so i'm pretty resigned to my fate

hey what's the story on that UC Davis acceptance? they're my top choice and i'm chomping at the bit for any and all info my heart skipped a beat when i logged in and saw that this morning but alas all my emails were from ticketmaster

yeah congrats, i've heard nothing but great things about the program and about minneapolis as a place to live

Yeah, I asked specifically as this schools' online app had no place to upload any documents. I was given a list of e-mail addresses for the various items.

Hmm got an e-mail from one of my schools asking me to send them a writing sample before a decision has been reached, but I definitely e-mailed mine to the correct person almost a month ago...I understand departments are swamped right now but geez, don't play when my heart when I log into my e-mail in the morning like that!

Pretty bummed my first result is a rejection, condolences to my fellow Northwestern deny-ees

probably not very until we start to see rejections coming out - i doubt they make all their decisions at once

congratulations!

man i just did that thing where i was refreshing my email/results page repeatedly and decided to go out for lunch assuming there would be SOME news when i got back, only to find a slew of pure math and biochemical engineering results and an email from work waiting to disappoint me upon my return. i dunno if i can do this for two more months guys

wow, congratulations! i guess i'll be refreshing my northwestern application page feverishly at work today... edit: and a close friend of mine just informed me that she got her northwestern history phd acceptance, so keep an eye on your emails if you applied, i guess (as if you weren't already doing that)

Hey what's the story on that Northwestern acceptance that just got posted?

thanks for the kind words about the typo on my app, everyoe. honestly i'm more concerned, looking back at it all, that my writing sample isn't quite as great as it could be. we'll have to wait and see, but if i get in nowhere this cycle, there is some seriously soul searching in my future i suppose. anyway, enough whining from me. congrats to ther berkeley folks and let the excitement begin!

i'd love some stories from experienced grad cafe folks who realized a major flaw in their application and still got in i'm sure most of my feeling is just having to get up at 7 on a saturday feeling slightly hungover as it is...why isn't it february yet?!

hey everyone - i'm proctoring an ACT practice test for some of my students right now and figured that was an appropriate time to see how everyone is doing. between work and feeling stressed about apps i sort of figured i'd do better NOT hanging around everyone else who is freaking out and now that all my applications are in, i can't help but check with you guys to hear where folks are getting in (or not). i'm honestly feeling pretty pessimistic right now - i know i spelled one of my POI's names wrong once in a SOP (UGH beyond embarassing - it's at a school that was basically a last minute after thought but still, nightmare scenario) and looking over my writing sample i know it can be improved. the writing itself is the best i've done, but i wish i had added more context and a table of contents to it before submitting. i'm hoping my recommendations and the quality of the research itself will make up for that though. anyone else kicking themselves right now and feeling like maybe this isn't the cycle for them? or am i just going through one of the many stages of PHD application grief? also, apparently a U Maine result came in on 1/4 - what's the story with that? did you apply super early, or what?

those of you sending chapters of your thesis, are you including any sort of introductory paragraph or anything, outside of what you are saying about it in your SOP?

ukansas also has good environmental history, i believe

i grew up in Rochester so my knowledge base is very much from a suburban 15 year old perspective, but i can back up MyWorkIsDone in saying that Rochester's bus system (and thus, public transport as the subway closed about a half century ago) is useless.