Conky3000

This ^ Makes me wonder if you should do this: Some of the acceptances issues you've mentioned might come down to getting focused. From reading through this board a few times (and granted I'm not going to read all 20 threads over, but bear with me), my hunch is your rejections are not because you aren't a bright and qualified candidate, but because you're still in the exciting stages of learning what you want to do, which isn't a bad thing, it's just PhD programs tends to want people with laser sights on what they already want. You might find, as I did, that getting your MA/MS before applying to PhD programs will not only strengthen you as an admissible candidate, but also help you determine exactly exactly what you want to do, be that Comm/Anthro/whatever. It's good to have a focus area, but I myself was quite surprised by how specific some places want you to be. Some schools want you to pitch them ideas for research in their interviews! So not just subareas of communication scholarship, but tangible specific problems you see that you want to investigate. Personally, I am glad I got my MA before I started applying to PhD schools. I was able to sandbox several ideas and interests of mine at a respectable, regional MA-only program at an R2, got tons of one-on-one help from professors, and developed a much sharper sense of what specifically in the communication field I wanted to explore. Now that I'm applying for PhD, I feel I've got enough under my belt that I can 'come in hot" at a R1 level program. Only time will tell, of course! Just a bit of unsolicited advice from someone who was in your exact same spot two years ago. I hope your search goes well!

+1 on the NDSU recommendation, although if application deadlines are now a motivating factor behind which schools you will go, you might have a bad time. I knew a friend who fast-tracked an application to get it to a later deadline because he didn't get into his initial small list. Got into school, hated it, dropped out after first semester and now lives in a van down by the river (actually just went into industry). I totally get where you are coming from, and I'm sure there is more reasoning behind where you will go, but no shame in taking a year off to build the CV and be more competitive next year at more schools. Just my two cents, good luck on everything!

Thanks for the reply! I recently emailed about a week ago to update some information on my application, and was told it would be early February. So at this point, I'm just biting my nails and waiting, as I don't want to pester anyone. The answer for me may be to just take some antacids tablets and keep waiting. :-)

Anyone know about UIUC results? I know the ICR stuff got sent out, but a friend of a friend of mine claims they were emailed an admit to the Comm Studies Phd. Just wondering if anyone has heard anything, I checked results but didn't see anything. I've dug through years of results, and based on some of the rejects I've already seen, I'd like my rejection already so I can stop thinking about it!!!! Just curious, thanks!