Concordia
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Posts posted by Concordia
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It varies, probably by university and department/degree program. "Leave to continue " only refers to people staying at the same university. At Cambridge you might only need a high 2:1 from the outside even if you need the equivalent of a first if you are to move up from their own MPhil. And, obviously, KCL wasn't too rattled by my classmate's Cambridge dissertation marks although his other master's degree surely helped get them comfortable.
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See what they say on Monday. They have reasons.
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Do you mean "leave to continue"?
That means (at Cambridge, anyway), that if you do an MPhil that isn't at least a 70 (used to be 67 for some degrees), you can't apply for the PhD. I don't know that it applies everywhere, though. I had a friend who didn't get great marks on his dissertation for reasons still not well-explained-- so he probably wouldn't be taken by Cambridge even if he felt like sticking around-- but in spite of that, he's starting a PhD soon in London.
Of course, leave to continue doesn't imply acceptance to the doctoral program. It just gives you a bye on one of the filters they use for new applicants.
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Before you go, decide if you'd accept on the spot or if you really prefer the other.
If things don't go badly over lunch, they might intend to surprise you with an exploding offer.
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Keep on the waitlists until April 15, certainly. Until then, it's all in the air.
If you're high on the list, something good might happen. If not, you won't hurt anyone.
Also, if one of your schools invited you in before the 15th, they may be trying to figure out what they want to do. This is a lousy time of year to be putting effort out on that kind of courtesy if they mean nothing by it.
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I'm a little curious about this, as I'll be doing a research-only (more or less) program, and I am prone to depression and distraction. If I get in a nice groove, all will be well. But I can see how it wouldn't.
Apart from all the above advice, which looks right on target, one useful hint I've seen recently has to do with structuring one's day. You can generally work pretty well for an hour and a half at a time, so think of blocks that long. The first is 9-10:30-- chances are, you won't have your head completely together so do something mechanical that absolutely needs doing but requires no real decision-making. Organizing citations or filing, maybe-- the equivalent of paying bills. Then tea/coffee, and by then you'll have figured out what to do in the other three blocks. Those would be 11-12:30 (+ lunch break), 1:30-3, and then maybe 3:30-5. Or, if you take a later dinner, go out for some exercise in mid-afternoon to really clean out your head. For me, practicing my instrument and/or taking a long-ish but finite walk to a part of town I don't know could be a substitute.
Perhaps looking ahead on Sunday night to punctuate all this with the lectures you'll want to go to, and any other commitments or deadlines will help put some overall shape on the week.
Of course, I can't report on that technique's success yet. I'm still at home, sorting out family, office stuff, applications (finally finished), leaving less of a mess behind me, and the various vices that keep me sane-- all while thinking about next fall. A lot is falling through the cracks. But when I finally have one main job squeezing out the others for a few months at a stretch, while living in a small room, this might work.
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Another outsider's point of view, which can easily be overruled by someone who knows better:
It seems there are a number of upsides to York (the faculty, the chance to do a dissertation). Downside, I suppose, is that it is less world-famous than U of Toronto. I don't know how big a deal that is in English Lit.
At U of T, you have quite a lot of downsides-- it may be harder to generate a paper that can be used as a writing sample (or build an impetus to the doctoral program, if that is what you want to do). Also, while it is nice to swim with the big fish, the course-only calendar gives you 8 opportunities to get lower grades than everyone else, and not a ton of time to carve out your own space. Will you get to know professors at U of T, or is this a nuisance assembly-line for them? Or will they push you harder than anyone would at York? You didn't give any information on that. [I see in one of the ratings pages that York has over twice the number of students/staff member that U of T does! Does that matter in your program?]
If it were me and I didn't know about doing a PhD, I might choose Toronto. It would be a cool place to be, and it might be an eye-opener to see who's hanging out on the top level. If I had no idea how good I was, and wanted to take a lot of courses to get a better idea of what to do (while living in a nice city), it makes a little sense.
But if I already knew what I wanted to study and was disciplined and hell-bent on a doctorate (with its own opportunity costs and dicey employment outlook), York would seem like a better bet. There are a lot of threads here on the prestige of MA programs, and consensus seems to be that it isn't a big deal all by itself. Whereas money in the humanities is.
Now, if you know you need to slay the dragon in Toronto because of the last time you were there, that's another thing. But maybe you've seen what you need to know about the place for now, and can come back in a year or two with a strong PhD application.
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On 3/1/2017 at 2:35 PM, allisonsmith said:
Hi there!
I've recently been accepted to Brandeis for a PhD program and was wondering if anyone had advice about Brandeis and/or the Waltham area. I'm currently finishing up my Master's at UMass in Amherst, so I know a fair bit about Massachusetts generally, but very little about the Waltham area.
What are some good bars/restaurants? What is the best way to find affordable living (I'll be living with my husband)? How good is public transport?
Thanks!
I know less about Waltham than I should, especially since I live one town over. That might tell you something all by itself.
My general impression is that it's a town that hasn't quite pulled itself into affluence, but is gentrifying a bit. There are a lot of ethnic restaurants in the downtown section. Although I've been to that part of town, and have been to the Brandeis campus, I have no idea how to get from one to the other. It could be walking, biking, a bus, or a circuitous car ride for all I know. From what I can tell, Brandeis is in a little pocket just off the highways and doesn't feel especially connected to anything else. For that reason, you might do just as well looking for options looking a few miles away in a cheaper town, if such can be found. (Not Weston or Wellesley.) Your best resource will be other grad students, more than likely.
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Make it clear not that you have all these issues, but that you have solved them.
That way, you can get your work done and he won't have to worry (too much) about it.
- rising_star, Revenant and TMP
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As far as the dissertation goes, you have about a year to get your butt in gear and submit a REAL proposal that a committee thinks is worthwhile and that you can manage. Much of the first three terms is supposed to be spent making this possible. Until then, you aren't a real candidate-- Cambridge calls that first year Probation and there's doubtless a similar term at Oxford.
Also, be careful about the term "Scholars." That generally means quite literally someone who's won a merit scholarship.
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There's supposed to be one in the Sapporo airport, but it wound up being just a very large boutique (albeit one with excellent Japanese chocolate).
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Toxic waste and the Meadowlands don't do it for you?
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23 hours ago, Neist said:
I'm not going to be leaving this state for a while, but I completely understand. There are a few museums that I want to visit that are highly particular.
For example, American Banjo Museum, anyone?
Reminds me of the Far Side cartoon (from Hell): "Maestro, your room is in here..."
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On 3/17/2017 at 5:42 PM, Captain Cabinets said:
Hello lovelies! Accepted for a DPhil at Oxford and I'm waiting not-so-patiently for college and funding results (nominated by my department, but obvio that means little at this point). I'm also considering a wonderful offer from UChicago, though, and I'm already obsessing over the prospect of having to choose between the two (despite Oxford not really technically being an option as yet, so long as funding isn't guaranteed). I wanted to ask my fellow DPhil applicants, specifically as I presume most of you are Americans, what draws you to Oxford (or the English system in general) over the many excellent US universities out there? Not sure I'm making sense, but I got the impression that in the US, at least, Ivies and T10 US programs are more highly regarded (and seen as being more academically enriching) than Oxbridge, and I was curious as to what some of you make of this? Sorry, I'm being horribly vague, ignore me if I don't make sense
You do sometimes hear that the US PhDs are more rigorous, as they give you a very nasty MA component with languages and comprehensive exams before the dissertation, all while you hold down a job as a TA. At Oxbridge, you start on the dissertation right away and aren't required to do all the other stuff. You do need a separate master's degree first, but those aren't always run as pre-PhD bootcamps.
For me, the brevity is an advantage since I'm a few decades older than most applicants. There's no point in my finishing when I'm 60 while trying to get over the Stockholm Syndrome after years of under-minimum-wage slavery. One observation I read a while ago-- maybe on this board-- is that in the UK, your supervisor more or less works for you, when he/she gets around to it. In the US your supervisor is effectively your employer. Very different situation.
I don't know that I'd be doing this at all, actually, if I hadn't stumbled upon a part-time master's at Cambridge a few years ago. That led to a problem I thought I should work on a bit more, a set of marks that the Brits take seriously, and a good relationship with my supervisor. [He's at Oxford, which is part of a much longer story, and that's where my first acceptance has come from.] All very helpful in the UK system, even if selling that package to a US admissions committee that wants its graduates to become young academics would probably be hard.
One thing to consider, apart from the specific skills you will or won't pick up, and your ability to sell them: what is the culture of the place you're joining? I don't have a lot of comparisons to make, but Oxbridge seems to encourage a certain way of getting to know people that isn't necessarily typical of the US. Whether that's going to be good for you, or relevant, or even true in your case with your particular choices is another question.
Congrats on the funding/college place, BTW. I am still waiting to hear about my college, and I wasn't told about being considered for any of the flashy scholarships. Let's hope I at least get placed somewhere I like.
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Sorry-- that should have been "undergraduate certificates and diplomas at Cambridge."
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Do the two programs have the same classes and peer group, or would you you doing night and weekend classes for the part-time?
One of the nice things about doing a career-changing degree full-time is getting to know a lot of people in the same boat as you. Also, sometimes recruiters may be more focused on the full-time people, under the assumption that part-timers may just be trying to advance where they are already.
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Make sure to cite it properly-- it's not often I am first to an important new discovery.
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Obviously, departments will vary in their priorities, and some will probably prefer that their students have gold-plated transcripts from diamond-crusted undergrad programs. To some degree, that makes people a little more hire-able after graduation, which boosts ratings, etc., etc.
A more useful goal, however, is to have people who know what they want to do and have their act together enough to do it. If you pulled yourself out of the fire when you were 20 and started doing well, that says more than whether you were unfocused (or distracted by commute, or finances, or youth in general) two years before.
England's system is different, but has an interesting parallel. While everyone loves to talk about how bound up in exams they are, and about the progressive filtering by "merit" that screens people out of the best schools at every step, the flip side is that if you can prove you know what you're doing by taking the right exams later on in life, much is forgiven.
Plenty of UK school dropouts do access courses-- which are sort of community college/continuing-ed things for people who want to go on to their university qualifications-- and then use those to get into a "mature students" program(me) for their BA. After that -- if grades, recommendations, and useful plans are in order-- they often go to good postgrad programmes. My MSt (part-time) at Cambridge had plenty of people with great academic records, but also a few who had done some postgrad diplomas at Cambridge, sort of Harvard Extension kind of things in Local History that got you through BA-level work even if you didn't actually get a degree. (Not sure about those-- I didn't quiz everyone on what the deal was there.) At the end of the day, if you nailed your dissertation and had a useful proposal, PhD work was quite possible.
The guy there who heads up the "Cambridge Group", which studies demographics and social history in Britain, did his postgrad degrees at Oxford and Cambridge, but started his career getting a BA at the Open University. My uninformed guess is that he didn't have a bulletproof school record, if OU was his best shot out of the gate.
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I don't know if this has come up before, but @fuzzylogician 's avatar always makes me think of a horse's head until I look at it more closely.zzfuzzylogicianylogician
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On 3/20/2017 at 2:15 PM, ThisGreatFolly said:
Just declined offers at U-Michigan, Brandeis, UVa, and Boston University. Hope that helps some of you!
Woof.
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3 hours ago, usiwenawasiwasi said:
Congrats!!
Thank yew. But we're not pulling the expensive cork (or telling my spouse) until the actual e-mail comes.
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Anyway, the problem just became a hair less hypothetical. No obviously bad choices, especially since my career isn't going to be going in any pre-determined fashion that I can lay out today. But-- my master's supervisor, whom I like very much, says I'm almost certainly getting into Oxford (i.e., he's seen my name on a list on his desk).
The other pending applications are Cambridge (with a young rock star who is almost certainly an excellent teacher, although I might get turned away if he decides that he's not looking at my area just now, or is too popular with the jeunesse d'oree to spare me the time) and one of the less-famous London colleges, albeit one with a rapidly rising history department and a young prof who would love to have me be his/her first PhD advisee. We had a great interview, and I got some great guidance on refining my proposal. It helped that there aren't a lot of students who give a crap about this person's specialty.
On the plus side for Option 3, the advisor was recommended to me by one of the first two candidates, and just did a book on the half-decade I'm proposing to look at. There are some potentially interesting colleagues in the history department as well.
On the down side, I have no idea of who else goes to this place and if they're around to chat with after sunset. I'm thinking not just about other historians or even social science/humanities people--- just intelligent people who are willing to speak to non-scientists in English. I haven't spent any time lurking on their campus talking to anyone who can tell me about what life is like there.
SO apart from all other factors, I'm not sure if I would do better in a smaller department or a smaller city. The choice may be between (a) having a supervisor dying to have me make her/him look good and score points vs. esteemed rivals, or (b) locking myself away from the huge city that I love and having more easily-defined living arrangements, transport, study space, social groups, etc. That's not a totally trivial consideration-- my bad time management and tendencies to depression make me wonder if I don't have ADHD. And, like a lot of people in academia, I am an introvert.
Sorry to ramble. At the moment, even the good part of the story is unofficial, so I shouldn't jinx it.
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I was sort of thinking in those lines, especially since there's a fair bit of self-education going on.
[post from many months ago just "restored" for some reason]
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You'll end up dragging in a lot more variables (time, money, etc.), but there's no question that a good master's performance -- thesis, grades, recommendations -- can make a lot of things accessible that you wouldn't be seeing now.
Very few of those programs are rolling in scholarship money, of course, so you need to consider if you really want to invest $40k on the prospect of going further into poverty. Assuming, of course, that this is what a PhD would do to you. Everyone's circumstances are a little different. And there are posters here who have worked out all kinds of solutions to that problem.
Stanford unfunded Master vs WPI funded PhD
in The April 15th is this week! Freak-out forum.
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If the opportunities are genuinely identical, then think about the opportunity cost of WPI vs Stanford. Being out of pocket $40-60k is one thing-- missing 5 years' salary in what may be a lucrative field (I don't know at all about that) may be worse in the long run.