[2018 Interviews and Results Thread]

8 hours ago, anthrobserver said:

I applied to the MA program, but have yet to hear back. If you don't mind me asking, how long are they giving you to decide whether or not to accept the offer?

hey there! In the letter they say the deadline for submitting the tuition deposit is March 21st. Hope it helps!

[2018 Interviews and Results Thread]

Just got admission to an unfunded MA in sociocultural anthro at Columbia after being rejected from their PhD program. Anyone with similar result?

[2018 Interviews and Results Thread]

3 hours ago, telesto said:

Now I'm getting a bit anxious about not getting any confirmation of the interview date. What if they call me on Thursday instead of Friday (my proposed date)? In Hong Kong Thursday's already almost over...

Have you got a reply back yet? I'm just about to email the POI.

No I still haven't received a reply either and I've scheduled the interview on Thursday afternoon (PT) which is just a few hours ahead. Getting nervous as well.

[2018 Interviews and Results Thread]

5 hours ago, sideeye_emoji said:

So many more Berkeley interviews coming up on the results board than in previous years! I can claim one. But I'm curious about how big their shortlist is this year... from the email I got (which was from the head of the adcom, not my POI), it sounds like there are a lot of interviews to schedule. I remember last year someone said they heard it was around 20, but there were many fewer interviews on the results board then. Any other invited folks want to share their experience?

I'm invited as well (sociocultural). Super excited at first when I read the word "finalist" in the email but then I became more sober seeing all the interview posts in the forum. Well there is still a long way to go! My POI mentions also that the interview is going to be about 10-15 minutes. I wonder how such a short meeting is going to play out in the application.

2 hours ago, telesto said:

Hi all,

I have a question to Berkeley sociocultural interviewees (Skype) if you're out there.

I got an e-mail about the interview with two dates for selection (on 22/1) to which I replied. But I still haven't got a reply back confirming which date. Is this normal? Not sure if they will confirm or not - should I just be waiting for 1.5hrs on my proposed date?

Another related question, the professor who sent me the e-mail seemed to emphasise that the interview was not necessary. He said that since I'm in a time-zone that might be difficult, or Skype can go wrong etc, even if I can't do the interview it won't penalize my application. It had me confused for a bit, thinking whether it was really optional. Any thoughts?

Cheers.

Same international applicant here! I also did not receive any feedback after sending out my proposal of interview time. Judging from your profile and the wording of the interview request email, I guess it's pretty likely that we share the same POI! 

[Anyone applying to FU Berlin?]

On 2017年4月15日 at 8:03 PM, Matthew3957 said:

The application period opens today. I am planning to apply for North American Studies and potentially English Studies there. I just want to study literature, history, and critical theory.

Does anyone have any experience with the process? It looks like GPA is all that matters, but I am nervous about actually getting accepted. Any clue what GPA you generally need to get in? I have a 3.6 from a University of California school. 

Anyone else planning on going to Berlin for school this October?

Hey there! I am currently doing my master in Media and Political Communication at FU. Guess you've already finished the application as the Uni-Assist deadline has passed. Wish you all the luck!

As for the GPA, I just want to add that it's not just about the final scores but also about matching your BA coursework to the institute's own BA module plan (so-called fachliche Einschlägigkeit). I felt that this is a German specialty when I was applying two years ago, because some universities claimed that they would look at every individual lesson I took and recalculate the GPA only by the courses they recognize as relevant. That is why I added a detailed course description alongside the transcript of Records, offering AdCom clear clues on what each course is about. Other than this, I think a GPA of 3.6 is in itself good enough. You can check the newest admission data (http://www.fu-berlin.de/studium/docs/DOC/ncliste_master.pdf). Somehow all the applicants of MA North American Studies last year were offered study places (weirdly enough).

Do note that FU and HU are located in totally different districts, one in the bucolic southwest suburb and another in the middle of Brandenburger Tor, Friedrichstr as well as the Museum Island. They incorporate two disparate universes to me, but this living east-west contrast is exactly why Berlin is so charming from an foreigner's eyes haha.

[Prepping for the 2018 cycle!]

4 hours ago, EvelynD said:

Same here, applying is even more of a challenge for us as international students. I also applied to for big schools, but I work in a niche ánd I did my MA in a different field. 

Although I'm excited to try agian I'm also getting a bit anxious. What if I doesn't work out again this year? How many times am I going to give it and will my proffs be willing to write letters again this year?

Definitely! Since you are also applying Anthropology from a different MA field (what is it?), I assume you must have a very strong and particular motivation to begin with. Don't lose it however unrealistic it may seem! Anxiety hits me from time to time too but it keeps man going further and getting better right?

For practical reasons, I am going to do an one-year MA research training program in Social science which starts in October this year, filling the gap year before the successful admission into an PhD program. In this period I will count on my RA salary in a university research center to make the ends meet. 

 

[Fall 2018 Applicants]

16 hours ago, infovore said:

I'm working on my list of schools to apply to right now. I am applying to science studies-type programs, programs with a lot of support for interdisciplinary work. I know that I want to do some mix of sociology/philosophy/history of science/medicine, but narrowing it down from there is hard.

I have a similar position regarding your idea of sociology as a big tent. My BA is in Communication and I am about to graduate from MA in Media and Political Communication (Sept. 2017). I am considering switching to Sociology in PhD because I have grown a particular interest in deaf/ disability studies, a field relatively less investigated by communication scholars.

Do you have a particular research question? That will probably guide you a lot in deciding the theoretical and methodological canons. As for me, I am currently using critical discourse analysis in my master thesis to detect statist ideology hidden behind the propagandistic stories of deaf Chinese promulgated by state agent. For the PhD I want to explore how the relationship of Chinese state and deaf citizens have been shaped and transformed through top-down government projects and bottom-up actions. In order to answer this broader question I’ve pinned down political sociology as the framework of inquiry and comparative-historical analysis + ethnography as empirical methods.

That being said, I am still trying to carve out a coherent research idea in my SoP, alongside with reasoning why I want to switch my focus from communication to sociology. Last year I also tried to apply to Cultural Anthropology but it didn’t work. So hopefully the second time is a charm!

[Prepping for the 2018 cycle!]

Hey there!

This year will be my second round of application. The 2016 cycle ended in a total disaster (applied only to 4 big-name programs in Cultural Anthropology, no interviews), but I still enjoyed the process because it motivated me to gather a lot of information and to build Initial networks with POIs that will be of use in the new cycle. As an international student living outside the States, every piece of insider information is precious haha.

I am interested in the intersection of deaf/disability studies, political sociology/ anthropology and media studies. That being said, I am still trying to crystalize a coherent research question that well connects these fields (e.g: how are state agents actively articulate the national identities of local deaf citizens in the background of rising global deafhood activism?). I have been trained in a media-centered discipline (BA Communication, MA Media and Political Communication) but want to embed my research in a more sociological/ ethnographical framework.

Last year I started my formal application in October (TOEFL and GRE obtained earlier) while I was doing an exchange semester, which seems quite pressing in retrospect. This year, with more time, I am going to:

1. finish my master thesis before August and graduating from current MA program,

2. advance sign language skills (I am hearing),

3. familiarize myself with relevant fields, especially anthro of state and anthro of disability, to polish the SoP, and

4. retake GRE on Summer.

Besides that, I just had a co-authorship book chapter accepted by Springer VS in March and it will be published by the end of year. It’s an empirical research paper based on Social Network Analysis, a method I am hoping to keep using in the PhD project. Maybe the publication in CV will be better looking.