waltzforzizi

I GOT INTO BERKELEY!!! No funding info

I GOT INTO BERKELEY!!! No funding info

I GOT INTO BERKELEY!!! No funding info

I GOT INTO BERKELEY!!! No funding info

I GOT ACCEPTED AT PENN STATE!!! I LOVE THEM AND IT WAS GREAT AND I'M DEFINITELY GOING TO GRAD SCHOOL THIS FALL 

Berkeley acceptance.....things are heating up

I'm going to order myself an extra large buffalo chicken pizza from my favorite pizza place. I'll splurge on a 6 pack of not-Natty Boh beer. I'll call my mom, my dad, my fiance, and my advisor. and then i'm going to freakin' celebrate. 
The next day I'll write thank yous and think strategy, but that first acceptance will be a celebration that I have a next step. 

I will eat all the carbs. I'm talking a pizza from my local pizza joint, a cake, a few donuts and many, many last word cocktails. 

So many arch acceptances showing up, yay!

Apply for your visa early. Mine got delayed for stupid reasons and I almost didn't get it in time. Start as early as you possibly can. 
Fly into Manchester, use Trainline.com to book you train tickets to Sheffield. The train is cheaper if you book before you get on, takes less time than buying at the station (though you still have to pick up your ticket from the auto kiosk), and is much more convenient than taking the bus. Costs less, too, if you book for a specific time, but give yourself at least an hour, maybe more depending on whether its a big day for student travel, to get off the plane to get to the train. Border control for student visa holders can sometimes get really packed with all the students coming back. The train station is an easy walk from the terminal. Manchester to Sheffield takes more or less an hour. DON'T COME FROM LONDON UNLESS YOU WANT TO PAY A BAJILLION POUNDS. London to Sheffield is 4 hours. If you choose to take a trip to London, take the bus. RyanAir is your friend. Travel often.
Sheffield is ridiculously hilly. Like, for real. Unless you live in City Center which is 5 mins from uni, student housing in Endcliffe is a half hour up the hill, Ranmoor is 45 mins. Getting to class, the walk is nice, coming home, it...takes getting used to. You can take the bus, but I'm cheap and appreciated the walk at the end of the day to clear my head. I lived in Endcliffe, where most students live. It was nice, felt like the suburbs. I often took the long way home to walk through the Botanical Gardens (so much so my friends thought I lived in the gardens, but check them out, they're beautiful). The postgrad housing is not in the same complex as the undergrads, so it's quieter (though we did have this one guy who played endless ukulele at all hours of the night...don't be that guy). It is near a couple tiny kid schools, so you will see many small children in uniforms. I thought it was adorable, but it did get dicey to go running in the afternoon trying to dodge them (i joke) (kinda). 
Classes are harder than in the US. Your entire grade in a class may be one 3000 word paper. Paper writing is also different, more scientific. Prepare yourself by analyzing what makes a journal article good (organization, clarity of descriptions, concision). The grade scale is also different. A 70 is an A and they're hard to get, 50s and 60s are things you will probably get. It's based on the idea that a Nobel Laureates best work is a 100 and everyone gets graded on that scale. Being 70% of a Nobel Laureate is an A for a Masters student. 
Fear Human Anatomy. That class literally made people in my year cry it was so much work. I was osteo, so I didn't have to take it, but I was told the best thing is to just trust Pia to get you through it. Though it's hard af, the human osteos knew so much about the body by the end of the year, it was awesome. Also, Human Osteology quizzes suck, but again, you'll feel like a superhero by the end of the semester because you'll be able to identify any bone in the body by feel (literally you'll have to do identifications of a bone in a cloth bag by feel) (it's cruel, but also kinda fun). Lean on your fellow students. The archaeology department is big into discouraging a competitive atmosphere between the students. They want you to collaborate (not cheat, obvs), so embrace the camaraderie and raise each other up.
The archaeology building is different this year as Northgate House was falling over (), so I can't speak to the labs, but I've been told they're better than before, and they were awesome. If you get after hours access to the building, take advantage of it. You seriously will need that hands-on time to study.
Get involved in everything. The Human Osteo people are great, so are the Zooarchs (I'm still friends with a bunch of them, profs included). Take advantage of the fact that the archaeology department has a pub. You will spend more time at the Red Deer than you'd think is humanly possible. Embrace it. Embrace Sheffield. It's really a wonderful place and I miss it so much.
I'm going to stop writing now as this is getting ridiculously long, but if you have more questions, please ask. As you can tell, I could talk about Sheffield all day. 

Nope, not a peep about interviews or decisions here. I did get a question about my research interests from a potential PI, but that's it. The wait is excruciating... I've got my fingers crossed that at least one of my programs release results this week!

There are hardly any posts about Berkeley. I am well aware of it's close proximity to Oakland, but where are the current or former Cal Berkeley students at? 
 
Where did you live? What would you suggest for newcomers? What is the culture like? I have visited Berkeley one. It was INCREDIBLY cramped and made me anxious. However, this was way before I traveled to metropolitan and cities around the world that are way more compact and overcrowded. I loved it's diversity though.

I’m a finalist for Emory! I’m pretty psyched 

Opened my e-mail this morning and saw an e-mail that said "Application Status Update", became really excited, and opened it to find that it was changed to ready for review by program...
This is going to be a rough month of waiting, haha. 

If I am not mistaken, these statistics take into account the total number of grad applications the department has received per given year, at both the doctoral and master's level (some departments offer more than one graduate program). I know that UMass Amherst offers a terminal Master's program, so perhaps these statistics reflect applications for the Master's program as well.

There's a reason many people take two cycles to find a decent offer - there's lots of competition, especially for programs that fully fund all their students.  When I applied last year, the DGS at the program I ended up at told me they received about 75 applications.  They accepted six people, and we ended up with a cohort of four people.  Ultimately, I think it's best not to think about the numbers game and just try to control what you can control.  You will get the right offer if you keep at it!

Anyone else dealing with chronic/metal illnesses? 

Turn your best work so far into a working paper.

I'm applying for Fall 2018 and I was wondering what people typically do the summer between undergrad and grad school. 
Most REUs (Research Experience for Undergraduates) and my school's research opportunities don't let graduating seniors apply, but there are still internships and a few other academic jobs I can apply for. There are non-academic jobs, too, of course. Depending on where I end up, I may also be able to start rad school earlier in the summer. I definitely want to be doing something, but I'm not sure what.
Any suggestions or perspectives on this?

@Bschaefer ah, okay. I had just over an hour long Skype interview with my POI back in September. Seeing as they took around 4 months to actually have time for it, I guess I wouldn't receive a yay or nay from them right away. Congrats either way! Should I view my Skype chat as an interview? I'm not sure. 
Is it your top choice? It is my top choice as a historical archaeologist. 

Well, it's like I've said a great many times on this forum: if you were a fully finished scholar, capable of drafting impeccable academic manuscripts, then you wouldn't need to be in grad school.  They likely don't care too much about how graceful your prose is, they care whether you demonstrated that you are capable of forming interesting and original ideas.  This is probably especially true of applicants whose first language isn't English.
I've personally taken @GreenEyedTrombonist's advice to the extreme.  I applied to grad school in 2012 and I haven't laid eyes on my writing sample, or any of my materials, since then.
Your committee will help you become a good writer.  I'm in my fifth year now and I still seem to catch a bit of hell from my advisor for technical issues every time I get feedback on a draft  For now, what's important is demonstrating you have potential.
 
@waltzforzizi, I'm sure the POI will make sure your documents get to the right place if they went through the trouble of asking you for them.  Try to imagine the faculty at the programs you're applying to as people not so different from yourself (after all, that's what they are, a more experienced version of you).  Would you cut yourself some slack in this situation?  If the answer is yes, you probably don't have that much to worry about.

@waltzforzizi 2 of my programs send out interview invites in the next two weeks (I think my only two programs that do interviews) so I'm currently freaking out. One of them is super high on my list (as in, depending on how visits and acceptances go, it would probably come down to it and the school I've already been accepted to) so I keep checking my application status and the results page. x]

Lots of students in strong PhD programs come from all over in terms of their BAs and MAs. Rank isn't necessarily a determining factor. It's more that strong programs will also have more/stronger faculty and often more resources, hence there's a correlation. 
No one can give you a number. 
But what you want in an MA program is strong training and opportunities. You will need three strong LORs, probably at least two from your MA program, if you can manage it. You want the opportunity to generate a strong writing sample. And you want to be able to establish some kind of research trajectory that you can discuss in your SOP. If you get to present some work, that's a plus. It's useful if you attend a school that has a history of placing students in good PhD programs. That's something you can ask about; and if you know what your potential PhD targets are, you can spend some time on the People pages of those programs to see where the current students there got their prior education. Past behavior is one of the best predictors of future behavior: an MA program that's done well placing their students in good programs in the past will probably continue to do so in the future. 

Hey everyone,
I figured we should start a thread where we could report interviews and admissions results for 2018. That way, it won’t get buried in the other threads! 

Yay, more people to freak out with. Since finishing my applications, I have zero to no motivation at work. I really want to return back to CRM. I have around four months to go until my current contract ends.