hantoo

I talked to someone about this earlier today---apparently if you contact the department to request more funding, they will ask you to write a one page "petition" as to why they should give you more. I would suggest communicating to them that you are very interested in accepting the offer, but you will not be able to attend without additional funding. Someone else who has done this before might be able to give your more specific advice about this--I won't be accepting the MAPSS offer i.e. have not personally had to request additional funding, but this is just advice I've received from others.

Almost laughed out loud when this exact scenario happened to me this morning after having posted about it yesterday---I actually do have a friend in MAPSS right now and I texted her immediately after receiving the offer to ask her some questions. Feel free to message me if you'd like to know the advice she shared with me! Obviously@suavesana will have great advice for you as well!

I'm in the same situation with UChicago, but I do know that someone posted on the results page several weeks ago saying they called the admissions office to follow up after interviewing, and they were told accepted applicants had already been notified and there was "no waitlist." I would be surprised if any of us who didn't interview got accepted, but I would also be surprised if there were "no waitlist," unless all of the admitted students accepted their offers immediately. Also, I remember reading that in previous application cycles (like almost every year) there are students who are not admitted to the PhD program in Anthro, but are instead offered admission into the MAPSS program (MA Program in Social Sciences) at UChicago, and there seems to always be a big debate about the pros and cons of that particular program. At this point I'm anticipating a rejection from UChicago, but ya never know! It's not over til' it's over, so don't lose hope yet!

Can anyone claim the UPenn admit and let us know whether or not you interviewed in the weeks before you were accepted, and your subfield?

Thanks for the advice, friends--will definitely apply.

I was just admitted to a PhD program in Sociocultural, but a lot of my research background has been in archaeology. I finished my undergraduate degree fairly recently, and it was in general anthropology, and I do not have a Masters. Over the past few years, knowing that I wanted to focus on cultural anthropology, I kind of had to get more creative in the ways I gained research experience in that subdiscipline, and it involved a lot of interdisciplinary work. For example, I did a study abroad program outside my major during college because I knew it would involve more hands-on fieldwork. I ended up participating in a geography/sustainability study abroad program in Peru, where I was able to work with indigenous communities to study the impact of tourism and new infrastructure on their local environment and livelihoods. It wasn't an anthropology course, but it provided me with a really significant amount of experience in ethnographic fieldwork that I don't think I would have gotten through another program and certainly not in the classroom. Even if you're not currently in school, there are programs to research abroad out there that can be really helpful in gaining experience in the field and figuring out exactly what your interests within sociocultural anthropology are. You might consider checking out a "continuing education" certificate program with a particular focus related to your cultural anthro interests, or if you're really unsure of what it is you want to focus on, maybe even consider doing the Peace Corps in the area that you want to research in--a lot of cultural anthropology people do that before going to grad school. In regard to making your archaeology experience fit with your current interests in cultural anthropology, I think it's really important in an SOP and on a resume or CV to emphasize how that background informs your current research focus. My proposed research focuses on the impact of non-profit women's cooperatives on traditional ceramic production in a specific community in Honduras, and how these changes influence social roles and environment. My previous experience in archaeology, specifically in ceramic classification, production, and chronology, certainly played a role in how I developed my research questions, and in my application materials I really tried to explain that. Obviously I don't know exactly what your interests in cultural anthro are, but for me, my research focus is certainly informed by my archaeology background. Also, it's important to remember that a lot of people who enter anthropology graduate programs (esp. in cultural I think) may be coming from completely unrelated fields. In the end I think it's about how you explain your research experience and education background and the ways those things have influenced your current interests.

Would really appreciate some advice on this: So I was accepted into one of my top choice programs, and I am still waiting to hear about final funding decisions, and I am also waiting to hear back from other programs still, so have not formally accepted the offer. However, the school I was accepted to just sent out assistantship applications for the coming Fall semester, and the deadline to apply is March 3rd. I would like to apply even though I have not accepted the offer, because I want to have additional funding options available to me if possible. Would it be unwise to apply without having accepted the offer, or to email the graduate coordinator to ask how I should handle the TA application while still waiting on other schools? I just doubt I'll have a response from every school by March 3rd.

...that seems super weird? And also how would they know that/hear that? I was rejected from Berkeley last week as well and it seemed like a pretty clear and solid no to me, which I was expecting. They also had done interviews and accepted a few people some time ago so I feel like that's a pretty weak rumor. Additionally, they rejected a lot of people over the past week or two so I doubt that was a mistake.

Even though it's not super easy to do, I would recommend maybe searching for some research opportunities outside or in addition to CRM. This past year I've been working at my internship (which is awesome but unpaid) as well as a part time job, which is difficult and was especially challenging while I was applying to schools, but I think more than worth it in the end. I gained incredible research experience through my internship and had access to resources that I didn't have during undergrad. Even if it's a lot of work and obviously challenging to make much money doing this, I think it really is worth it for the experience and the connections you make in the process. Also, I do think schools like to see that you're the kind of person who can balance/handle a lot of work at once--grad school is hard and they want to know you won't burn out. Also, although my focus is sociocultural anthro, I can say that I've really tried to get interdisciplinary experience over the years, and I think that's something that a lot of grad programs like to see. I've done archaeological field schools and lab work for many years, museum research, and NGO and community outreach work, all of which contributed to the development of my proposed graduate research and helped me connect with more people in the academic community. You might consider getting any job you can in a museum or research institution just to get your foot in the door--I have close friends who worked in visitor services or front desk jobs at museums, and then were able to make connections with the anthro departments there which helped them gain experience. One friend in particular (although she was formally working at the front desk selling tickets) was ultimately able to volunteer to do lab research, become a part of a curator's reading group, and get heavily involved in an amazing anthropology department at the institution she worked at, all of which helped her get in to a lot of great graduate programs. There are also, believe it or not, paid research and lab positions out there if you know where to look. You said you have a Masters degree too--you could probably find a museum research job or more relevant position at an institution because you have that additional experience/certification. I would also recommend staying in touch with the people you work with, former professors, etc. because often times they can offer you amazing opportunities to add to your CV. For example, I'm currently working on a publication with a former adviser who I had stayed in contact with--she was one of the people who wrote my LoR's, and she somehow got my university to pay me for working on this project with her. We all know it's not easy (maybe even nearly impossible) to be really successful in this field. It's important to be creative and reach out for every opportunity you can find, because if anthropology is something that you're truly passionate about, it's worth working for!

Well, you guys were right--got the acceptance letter from University of Florida a little while ago. Had been in close contact with my POI's there and they had seen my SOPs before I even submitted my application. They haven't decided on funding yet, but fingers crossed I get something! Just finished undergrad in anthro in May (no Masters) and have been interning in the Anthro Dept. of the SI Natural History Museum since, so wasn't necessarily expecting to get in first try. Very excited, but still waiting to hear back from 5 other schools. Hoping the rest of you hear good news soon!

@EvelynD that's what I'm hoping---Guess I'll have to keep waiting though!

I agree with @klasik--as multiple people on this thread have said before, admissions committees don't seem to have any specific/magic formula for who they choose to be the ideal candidate for their program in any given year---it's just who turns out to be the best fit or win the support of the people in the room on decision day. I don't think any of us should rely too heavily on the results page, but if you want to try and make sense of it, you should acknowledge that last year there were people admitted to the same program, in the same sub-discipline, from the beginning of February to the beginning of April!! There's no reason to lose hope so quickly or take anything personally. We're all competing with the best of the best in our field, and what will be will be That being said, I also have been feeling intense anxiety 24/7, so I feel you guys---I have a question for you all though. I posted last week because I received a notification from one of the schools I applied to that an official email account had been set up for me with the university, but there was nothing in my new inbox and the email said nothing about admissions. This is different from my application portal where I go to check my status. I called admissions this week to ask what this was all about, and they were pretty vague and said some decisions had been made but not all, and I hadn't missed anything important. I also called IT at the school to make sure the account was not a mistake. It wasn't. Do you guys think this is strange? For those of you who have received your response from schools, did anything like this happen? I don't want to get my hopes up too much (this is one of my top choice programs) but I really don't know why they would set up an email account for me if they were going to reject me, or why they would do it at all if I hadn't heard about my admission status yet. It was particularly painful because the subject line of the original email was literally "Welcome to such-and-such University!" -___- smh

Hey did anyone else just get an email account set up for University of Florida? It doesn't say anything about admission they just gave me an email address??!!! I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack what does this mean?

To the people that applied to UC Berkeley for sociocultural, I'm not sure if all admitted students get interviews or not---in looking at previous years on the acceptance page you can see that some people got accepted in Jan/Feb, and some didn't get accepted until APRIL (ugh). It's obviously a super competitive program though and this year the top programs seem extra brutal---the only school I've heard back from so far was a rejection from Indiana, and they only had 8 spots this year.