43pennsylvanian

A bit late, but yes, I will be at UCI in the Fall ❤️

I went to undergrad at a small school in PA and I got my MA also from Ohio. As an international student, I would say that my life in Ohio has been much easier because the flights out of Columbus are generally cheaper. State College has a very small airport so flights are also often more expensive. However, you can also easily take the bus to Philly or NY to fly out of the country. If you have any more questions, feel free to reach out to me. Also, the whole corona fiasco happened while I was on a plane to LA to visit UCI, and as soon as the wheels touched the ground, I got more than a dozen emails saying that every single visit has been cancelled, including UCI. However, UCI still go head with the event because 4 admitted students were already in the area. It was such a strange feeling to arrive to a deserted campus on a rainy day, with only robots running around, felt like I was in one of Philip K. Dick's novels. My own school in Ohio just told me that I should not return to campus. The funny thing is that because I have discussed with other schools about multiple visits, they have been more than generous to fly me to and from other schools. But as schools were cancelling one after another, I am now going to get stuck in LA for several days before I could board a flight back to Columbus. I still have two months left of school but by now, I think I'm finished ???.

UC Santa Cruz was one of my top choices but I ended up not applying because of this reason. The housing cost is outrageous because the landlords there don't like college students, they want to appeal to Silicon Valley employees who have a six-figure salary. I totally support the students there. UC Santa Cruz was having this problem for too many years and the admin did not even attempt to find a solution. Last year they even sent out an email to faculty asking if they can let students stay in their spare bedroom, since 6,000 students could not find housing. And Janet Napolitano and her team is trying to get an extra 20,000 students next year. This is BS.

I also received an offer from Irvine and I will be more than likely to attend. I lived in LA before and it was a disaster (the ridiculously expensive rent and terrible traffic). However, Irvine is much better than other SoCal areas in my opinion. Most of the properties in Irvine are controlled by the Irvine company, so the rent is geared towards the working professionals (2k/month). UCI Housing, on the other hand, is truly subsidized. The rent is affordable (I am looking at Palo Verde and Verano Place) with an average of a 2-bedroom apt is $600-700/person (if you don't mind sharing it with someone else). I remember there is a reddit thread that has a lot of details about housing at UCI. I feel living on campus will be better as a first-year. You can walk to classes (which save a lot of money on gas because gas in California is really expensive). Internet is included (you only have to pay for electricity). Palo Verde and Verano Place are graduate student housing so you won't encounter random undergrads. They are real apartments, which are not... rooms. I'd recommend buying a car. It will be the best thing to do because Irvine is very flat. You will need a car to go grocery shopping anyway. I heard the bus system is not that great. And as I remember, Palo Verde and Verano Place have "permitless" parking so you won't have to pay for it. I don't think working part time would be a good idea as a PhD student because doing a PhD requires a commitment. I don't know about your personal finances, but I think 21k/yr is livable in Irvine. For me, a $1.5k monthly stipend is more than enough because I cook (which saves A LOT of money than eating out). So, if you spent about $700 rent + $300 for grocery, then it will leave you with about $500 for other activities (Netflix, Spotify, car insurance, etc.). Do you have any significant spending that will takes up the majority of the stipend besides housing and grocery? Overall, I think UCI's on-campus housing is worth it. It is notorious for undergraduate housing, but it's much better for graduate students. Also, I'm genuinely surprised with how UCI handles the soaring housing prices. UC Santa Cruz is facing a crisis right now and people are on strike. I don't think UCI offers relocation funds but that was expected :). Many programs do not usually fund relocation because their funds are getting tighter.

I did not contact anyone before applying, and I even got accepted without an interview. In the science, the nature of lab/research changed annually and it is more difficult to be updated with availability. In the humanities, most professors work on a project for years, or even decades so it is easy to identify their areas. Most of the time, they are writing a book. For example, the majority of the faculty at UC-Irvine has a strong emphasis on critical theory (many of them work with postcolonial theory and gender studies) while Pittsburgh is now a rising institution for genre studies with a strong focus on horror films. Of course, there are people who work on your field everywhere, but each school has its signature emphasis. Also, labs get their funding through different sources every year, so their research interests can change a lot. I know at my school, the engineering school just got a big funding from the army, which made it a hot place for students who wanted to work on drones. I guess what you are asking is whether if establishing a relationship with a POI is necessary for admission in the humanities? It is true in Europe and Canada that you should always reach out to a faculty first before applying. I know a few schools in Canada even listed faculties who were accepting graduate students on their website. However, in the U.S. it's not a must. I know many people who got accepted without having talked to a POI. I'm not opposing to the idea that a student should reach out to a faculty, but I think they should only do so when they have a very specific question that they cannot find the answer anywhere else. I don't think building a relationship with a potential advisor will increase your chances of getting admitted, because the admission committee is on rotation every year (at least to a few schools that I know of).

To all my fellow Chicago rejections, I reached out to one of the professors at UChi today and he told me that there is an unusually high number of applicants this year and the department simply cannot take them all. He even wrote me a note (with details about my statement of purpose) and mentioned how strong my application is. From the tone of his email, it looks like getting into a program now is just a matter of luck. A student from my cohort here got her MA at UChi and she also said the same thing. It's just pure luck to get into a PhD program now. I'm sure we all deserve a spot somewhere! On the other hand, I'm waiting desperately to hear back from other schools and every day that passes by makes me die a little inside.

I got accepted to the Film & Media Studies program at UPitt and I applied through the English department. As far as I know, they notified candidates (who they think are a good fit for the program) pretty early, and we must respond by Feb 12 so they can issue a formal offer (coming from the Graduate College). After this date, if they did not hear back from the candidates (assuming they are going somewhere else), they will send out a second round of notifications. And UPitt will not update the portal. Although I got accepted, the portal says my application is still in review. I am still waiting to hear back from other schools. I know some people got rejected from them already so I think I might still have a chance. I guess no news is good news then... Good luck!

No, it was one person who interviewed every candidates. The person from UT-Austin said they can put me in contact with other professors if I have any other questions, but it was mentioned briefly in the email so I did not follow up with that.

I think it varies by programs. I applied to the Visual Studies program, should have specified. Which program did you apply to?

I also had the same experience with Austin. The conversation was quite informal but my profs said it's a new thing that Phd programs are doing now. And the same with UC-Irvine the other day. My interview was only about 20-30 minutes. I guess today we have to "win" the interview by implying our interests through the questions. On the other hand, I'm international student, so most of the time my interviews were just about to test if my English is comprehensible LOL.

According to my professor, virtually no graduate student published before entering a PhD program, and as I am applying to graduate schools this year, that's very true. Publishing should be a goal, not a requirement. And honestly, most PhD programs train students to write papers for publishing, so don't worry about getting papers published when you are still in an MA program. When they say "published works," what they really mean is peer-reviewed academic journals, edited volume, etc. I'm not sure if you piece belongs to this category but if it does, you definitely should include that in your vitae. Do not feel discouraged by the quality of your paper. You have another year to work on your writing. Sample writing and SoP weighed much more in the admission process. Instead of focusing on getting published, you should try to attend 1-2 conferences (SCMS, ideally). It's easier to present at a conference than to publish in an academic journal. I can assure you that admission committee doesn't care if you have published or not.

I'm in the humanities so I don't know if this helps. But in my first year, I bombed my Survey of Western Art final and I got a C for that class. I was paranoid and I didn't know what to do. But it did not stop me from taking upper-level courses in Art History. I changed my studying style, be more stringent. And by the end of my junior year, I was offered to do an honors thesis with my professor in the Art History department. Even though I studied Art History and Communication, I still had to take Computer Science and Calculus, and I still got an A for both of them. Somehow they are not that difficult for me like for other people. On the other hand, my friend got a C+ in her Organic Chemistry in her freshman year but an A in Survey of Western Art, and she is a STEM major. She really tried in her next two years and eventually she was offered a research position in her senior year (at my school this is only offered to the most promising students). So, these two years make all these differences.

Hi, I would recommend to retake the GRE if you still have time. But please remember that to increase even two points in the range of 160-170 is extremely difficult. GRE has a super score option now so I hope you can take advantage of that. I know that my friend retook the GRE and she got lower scores than the first time, but she is at Stony Brook now with full funding. 164 Quant is great (87%), but there is no way GRE is the only factor in your application (LORs, Statement, Research experiences, etc.). My sister had an almost perfect Quant score (around 96-97%) but still rejected by UCLA (her top school). She got in few CS programs though, with full funding (Iowa, Michigan State, Colorado...). One of her colleagues had a perfect 340 (and still got rejected from those Ivy schools). On the other hand, I got in Columbia without GRE score (because my program is in the humanities and does not require GRE), but I still declined the offer and I'm at a lower-rank school with a much more generous funding. I know if I'm at Columbia now I would be miserable. Getting in a program is difficult but so is funding. Is funding going to be a problem for you? If it is, I recommend you to look at other schools than those in the top. Your scores may be in the top of the application pool and it would be more likely to get funding. Overall, no one can tell if there is a "good" GRE score, but I can tell you that admission committee will look at your application as a whole and it is important to make everything about your application speaks well together. I don't know if this is true or not, but my professors said today getting in a PhD program is pure luck. It matters more if you research interest fits with the program or not.

This is my first time TA for this professor, who has a very bad reputation at my school. He doesn't teach much in lecture, just showing films and talk briefly about the readings (this is an intro level class). The midterm exam is in two weeks and after a first look at it, I realize there is no way my students can finish it (not even to get an A). They are supposed to write 8-10 essays in 120 minutes (usually they are 5 short essays, and 4 long essays). By short, I mean around 450-600 words, and by long, I mean 600 and above. So, the total amount would be about 4000 words at least. I did the math and physically, it's impossible to write that many words in two hours. At first, I thought he meant "short answer," but he actually meant "short essay." When I approached him regarding my concern, he simply said the students will be graded against each other, but he did not provide any rubric or anything. He also said that in the previous years, 7 essays have been too low, and 11 was too many. I didn't believe it, so I asked my roommate's girlfriend, who took this class few years ago, and she admitted that there were 10 essays but her TA gave out the answers for everything so that the students would pass the exam. The exam is in two weeks and honestly, I don't know if I should just give the students the answers or not (other TAs are thinking of doing that, too, or they would grade them very easily, which means to ignore all of the standards). I feel really bad for my students because some of them have been doing very well in my class. There is a bad reputation of this class that it all depends on the TA whether you would pass the class or not. I guess I'm just disappointed now because I either have to do something so unethical to save my students, or to let other students get a grade that they don't deserve. Although I have heard a lot of horror stories about being a TA, this is so far the most outrageous thing ever happened to me. Did any of you have the similar experience? What did you do in that situation?

I totally understand. Just heard back from Columbia, I got waitlisted so it wasn't that bad. I will very likely to go to the other school, less prestigious but they offer money so that will be it. 3a/1r/1w, kinda happy now.