eurocentric

yup. I did turn them down. Good Luck!

Yikes JTH, just because you were outright accepted at some PhD programs gives you no right to kick dirt in the face of someone who is waitlisted, it comes off as quite elitist. First, if you actually read the post that you quoted you would have realized that Septimius used the caps to clarify "why" and "to whom" he was posting, as this was a point of contention in the earlier posts in this thread. Second, while you have every right to wait until April 15 to notify it is extremely self-centered to do so just for the sake of doing so. I notified all programs right away that I had no intention of accepting, and wavered on Brown and Chicago but once I was sure of Chicago I notified both the very next day. I was raised to have respect and courtesy for others, and I think that if you know, you should notify. Not to be cheesy here or anything, but there is a thing called karma, and the golden rule. No reason to join the forums here just to brag, attack and belittle... Besides, I thought surfers were supposed to be laid back.

My hats off to you Septimius! I couldn't agree more on everything you said. I notified to schools that I had no interest in ASAP, and only wavered between two, and once I knew which one was right I notified both immediately. Here at Berkeley, the profs all have informed us to not sit on offers you have no intention of accepting, and to be courteous to those waitlisted by doing so. I'm not sure where the school is that you're waitlisted for, but I chose Chicago, and all others I rejected, so if any of mine in my signature are the one you're waiting for, good luck! Yeah, to think that a school cares about whether your grad stipend is 15% higher than it would be otherwise is, well, just plain stupid. No offense to you personally ResPublica, you're just reiterating the advice, but your adviser sounds kinda like a douche. Many of my friends were also waitlisted to their top choices, and some have finally been accepted, so keep hope Septimius! And hopefully more people will do the right thing, and stop treating their answer like a poker hand, and just just show it already.

I think that the best choice is to go with ND. The funding is better, the faculty is more in tune with your interests, the requirements of grad students for funding is less, and most importantly you already seem like you feel that ND is the best choice. Whatever you decide, good luck!!

Decisions decisions.... This is a tough call here, but if you already were accepted to top public-ivies now, imagine how good it would be after a MA. That being said, what school is your "dream school?" And while it is painful to say publicly, and you very well may be a private person, what ones turned you down? This is helpful since if you only applied to say, Stanford, who knows what say Yale would have said. Also... try to contact the DGS at denied schools and see if they can give you any indication of where a weakness lies, and most important: is this weakness something that the Harvard MA can remedy?

...Also, if you don't mind disclosing, what is Duke offering?

Thanks! yeah, I think that unfortunately UNC will loose a great deal of their top applicants due to their awful packages... This could also have long-term effects on the prestige of a UNC PhD if the quality of their graduates begin to slip.... Although, for that to happen the current economic situation would have to remain as is for quite a while. Hopefully for everyone's sake it ends soon.

The standard UNC funding package, according the DGS, is 14,000 plus health insurance.

The Chapel Hill area is very, very pricey. Unless you live a good distance out of the area and commute daily the funding offered from UNC (Well below the 20k mark!!) will not be sufficient. That whole area is over-priced and inflated. Maybe not as bad as say Manhattan is for Columbia grads, or Palo Alto is for Stanford Grads, but it is bad. One big misconception going around in the forums, is that, "well I should be happy with whatever I can get." Well, yeah, it is great to get accepted and offered funding, but it's almost worse when you're offered a sub-standard package and after taking a realistic view of it all, you realize that it is undo-able. Now, obviously funding is expected to be a little lower at schools than it has been in years prior, and funding is never supposed to give you even a "normal" standard of living, but UNC has made massive cuts in the funding that they're offering. My friend that is there now, and has a much better funding package, is by no means high maintenance, and even she, working part time as well, has a hard time getting by.

I hate to be bearer of potentially bad news, but UNC notified their accepted students about two weeks ago, and then last week their waitlisted applicants. If I had to guess, and for your sake I hope I'm wrong, but if you haven't heard yet it doesn't seem that good. But, UVA is a great school, and as I was saying, things in Chapel Hill are bad... real bad. I'm sure that most that are accepted there and have other options will turn it down. NC is not a great place to be right now, and I'm a little worried about what "would be" the funding from Duke if I get chosen from their waitlist. My area of focus is German history during the Third Reich.

Well, now that we can do some turning down, who are you giving the axe to? And more importantly, who are you accepting??? I, after a good deal of solid notifications and offers, (a mixed bag really) am unsure of where to go, and who to turn down. Honestly, UNC has offered their accepted students a garbage package and after speaking to the DGS on Friday, apparently North Carolina has had one of the worst economic issues in the US, well, next to CA. Also, a close friend of mine is currently doing her PhD at UNC, and she told me some things about the the history department, and especially some new changes there, and ones rumored to come that honestly make me question the reputation that having a PhD from there in 6 years will be. Anyways, just trying to get some insight on where other accepted applicants are going, and who they're turning down....