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spcgsw96

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  1. Upvote
    spcgsw96 reacted to scarseed in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    I have a MA in Geography and have applied solely to Anthro programs but put in an application to Hopkins Pol Sci. I know little about the dept.s ranking and or its odds. I saw on Petersons they accept about 10%. Curious if anyone here has more experience or info about getting into the department. Thanks and good luck to all. I've been through this waiting game once before and it's always miserable. 
  2. Upvote
    spcgsw96 reacted to StrengthandHonor in Questions to Ask after Admission   
    If you have the sort of really minor logistical questions (dress code or office norms, whether professors seem to be pro-technology or anti-technology, etc.), save those for graduate students (maybe your "host" when you go to the visit--or just observe. 

    For talking with your POI, ask questions about their upcoming projects, future projects/grants they might be working on, how they tend to work with their TAs or RAs, etc. Try to feel out how collegial and collaborative the environment will be. It's also a good time to ask probing questions about hiring plans, etc. Ask specifically about placement records in your subfield, and ask about students your POI has advised, and where they are/what they're doing now. 

    For talking with the DGS, ask about funding, summer funding, conference funding, and more funding. Ask about TA or RA policies. Ask about fellowship aid. 

    For graduate students: Ask honest questions about living situations. Ask them whether they can live comfortably without taking on debt. Ask about the atmosphere of the department. Ask about fun things to do, places to grocery shop, public transportation or parking, good places to begin looking for apartments, etc. 

     
  3. Like
    spcgsw96 reacted to apolloscreed in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    Same boat here. If Columbia had sent out their full set of admissions then I suspect there would be more results posts.
    I also suspect Chicago may be trickling out. Perhaps some subfields met and finalized this morning and the others will get together this week. Or not—but I'd like to sleep soundly tonight so I'm going with that prediction. 
  4. Upvote
    spcgsw96 got a reaction from PoliSci-freak in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    Thank you! No and it was an MSc program (I applied to a lot* of PhD level programs and a few MA level)--no word on funding though (though I doubt it's going to be much) but I'm prioritizing my PhD applications anyway, so it's fine
    *too many, in retrospect
  5. Like
    spcgsw96 got a reaction from Gik in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    LSE acceptance!
  6. Upvote
    spcgsw96 got a reaction from sabine in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    To anyone with the:
    To date, no decision has been made on your application.
    Please note that most decisions on graduate admissions for fall term are made in the months of March and April and therefore you should not anticipate a decision much before that time period.
    for UCLA it doesn't necessarily mean it's a waitlist or rejection. Had that notice as my decision until today but just received a letter of acceptance!
  7. Upvote
    spcgsw96 got a reaction from ArcierePrudente in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    LSE acceptance!
  8. Upvote
    spcgsw96 got a reaction from izmir in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    LSE acceptance!
  9. Like
    spcgsw96 reacted to PoliSci-freak in Questions to Ask after Admission   
    You're welcome!
     
    You want to keep the funding questions to the Director of Graduate Studies. There is a difference between the Director of Grad Studies (which is a faculty member) and the Coordinator (which is a staff member). Those names may vary across departments, but the idea remains the same. The coordinator (staff) takes care of your paper work etc. The DGS (faculty) is the one who decides your funding package. You want to ask the DGS about extra funding. Individual profs cannot change your package, BUT if your POI is a big deal in their department, they can in fact do so indirectly, by telling DGS 'I'm very interested in this student, can we get them some extra money'? You want to keep your questions about funding to profs at a minimum, only after an extensive conversation, in person (not in groups), ask about options for potentially increasing your funding. Then with DGS, be more direct and say you are hoping to get a two-year fellowship etc. Again do this with DGS in an in-person meeting or over email before/after the visit (don't email about this DURING the visit). They want this to be a personal conversation because if you do it over dinner for example with other students around, you are encouraging other students to ask (which is great) but the DGS won't like that.
    Also, you cannot get all the info you need about funding online. Students come in with very different package and it is rarely because one students deserves better: usually because one students was more confident to ask. Just ask about it. Then insist (politely). Say it will be difficult for me to move (with my partner/kids or giving up my current job etc) without some extra support. Show them other offers you've gotten (if they are more money/fellowship, even if it's a less ranked department, they want you and would rather you go there than to that less ranked department because of $3,500 a year, for example.
    Totally legitimate if framed right. Ask about placement record, say 'have your students placed well'? etc. Those are questions you can answer yourself of course, but you need to ask about placement. Maybe ask about an aspect not available online: how do they prepare their students for job talks etc? Also, if you are going there because you are interested in feminist theory and they only have one faculty working on that, ask what is your vision for department growth, any new hirings soon, what about this area?
  10. Upvote
    spcgsw96 reacted to PoliSci-freak in Questions to Ask after Admission   
    I would encourage new students (as a current grad student) to ask questions about funding, it's very important. Some of my suggested questions (on funding and other issues):
    - Ask if you can get a fellowship your first year. This is important because it is an adjustment time and you want to do well in your first year.
    - If you are a comparativist, ask if you can get a two-year fellowship: one for your first year, another for your ABD time so you can do fieldwork for a year.
    - Overall, ask for reduction in teaching load. If your funding offer says you need to work 5 years, ask if you can get a fellowship (which means money for no work).
    - Conference funding: many departments have a $300-500 cap. This is not enough. Ask if you can get, as part of your package, a guarantee for $1000 conference funding annually. This is difficult to get but doesn't hurt to ask. 
    - If you are a comparativist and are going to a university that does not have a center that works on your region of interest, tell your DGS you need some fieldwork support (summer funding). For example, you study Africa, and your university has excellent support for those studying Latin American and Europe. Say you need to have funding to do your fieldwork, given that your fellow grads have that funding in area-centers and you do not.
    - Don't ask about note-taking with a laptop etc. This is not appropriate: you are expected to be in the seminar even if you use a laptop. Everyone in my program uses their laptop during the seminar but they are fully engaged in discussion. You cannot let them think you're still thinking like an undergrad. Don't dream of a laptop for your TA position... it's unheard of.
    - Office space: you just cannot negotiate this, but it's important. All else being equal (similar ranking/funding/placement record), between two departments, I'd choose the one with more generous office space. 
    -  Try to negotiate a relocation fund as part of your package: I know people who got as much as $8,000-$10,000 from a public university for a move from the coast to the Midwest.
    - Ask if they can sponsor your membership in APSA (or ISA or w/e you want) annually.
    - Job market support: practice job talks, mock interviews, etc?
    - Summer funding, summer funding, summer funding...
  11. Like
    spcgsw96 reacted to greekdaph in Questions to Ask   
    I wrote up an exhaustive--and exhausting--list of questions before my visit last year and am pasting it below. Keep in mind that encoded within these questions are assumptions and preferences that are likely specific to me and what I was looking for. Also, though I asked many of these questions during my visits, I also found that, in the scheme of things, most of these questions--or, I should say, most of the answers--didn't really matter in my decision-making process. In much the same way that stats tell you something, but not necessarily something useful, about what programs are looking for and what your fellow applicants are like, these questions often tell you structural things about a department but not what it actually feels like to be there. Everyone's mileage will vary, of course, but I found myself not caring if, say, prelims were written or oral (though I had a preference) if everything else about the program was appealing. In the end, if it's a program you love, you'll jump through whatever hoops it presents. I highly recommend visiting schools, as there were programs at which my instinctive reaction told me everything I needed to know after about 5 minutes of being there. Additionally, visiting schools lets you make contact with people who will be important to your work regardless if you end up working with them directly. Good luck! It's an exciting, if unnerving time, and as difficult as it was last year to weigh the options, I found myself missing the sense of possibility after I had made a decision that I was (and am) very happy with.


    -PLACES TO STUDY AND WORK
    -Where do most people do their writing and reading?
    -What study spaces are available? Do students get a carrel? Do those who teach get or share an office?

    -LIBRARY
    -What is the library system like? Are the stacks open or closed?
    -What are the library hours?
    -Are there specialized archives/primary sources that would be useful to my research?
    -Are there specialist librarians who can help me with my research?

    -FACULTY
    -Are the faculty members I want to work with accepting new students? Are any of those faculty members due for a sabbatical any time soon?
    -Are professors willing to engage you on a personal level rather than just talking about your work?
    -Are there any new professors the department is hiring in areas that align with my interests?
    -Students’ relationships with their professors – are they primarily professional, or are they social as well?

    -FUNDING
    -Is funding competitive? If so, do students feel a distinction between those who have received more generous funding and those who haven’t?
    -How does funding break down among the cohort? i.e., how many people receive fellowships?
    -How, if you don’t have much savings, do you make enough money to live comfortably?
    -Are there external fellowships one can apply to? If so, what is available? Does the program help you apply for these fellowships? How does receiving an external fellowship affect internal funding?
    -If people need more than five/six years to finish, what funding resources are available? (For instance, Columbia can give you an additional 2-year teaching appointment.)
    -Do you provide funding for conferences or research trips?
    -How often is funding disbursed? (i.e., do you get paid monthly or do you have to stretch a sum over a longer period of time?)

    -COHORT
    -Do students get along with each other? Is the feeling of the program more collaborative than competitive?
    -Do students in different years of the program collaborate with each other, or are individual cohorts cliquey?
    -How many offers are given out, and what is the target number of members for an entering class?
    -Ages/marital status of people in the cohort – do most people tend to be married with families? Are there younger people? Single people? What sense do you have of how the graduate students interact with each other socially?
    -Do people seem happy? If they’re stressed, is it because they’re busy or is it because they’re anxious/depressed/cynical/disillusioned?
    -Is the grad secretary/program administrator nice?
    -What is the typical time to completion? What are the factors that slow down or speed up that time?
    -I’ve read that there are two kinds of attrition: “good” attrition, in which people realize that the program, or graduate study, isn’t right for them and leave early on, and “bad” attrition, in which people don’t finish the dissertation. What can you tell me about the rates of each, and of the reasons why people have chosen to leave the program?

    -JOB MARKET/PROFESSIONALIZATION
    -What is the placement rate? How many of those jobs are tenure-track?
    -What are examples of institutions in which people in my field have been placed?
    -How does the department prepare you for the job search? Are there mock interviews and mock job talks?
    -Are the people helping you navigate the job search people who have recently gone through the process themselves?
    -If you don’t get placed, is there anything the department can do for you? (e.g., can you stay an extra year?)
    -How does the department prepare you for and help you attain conference presentations and publications?

    -SUMMER WORK
    -What is encouraged/required?
    -If there separate funding/is the year-round funding enough to live on during the summer?
    -Do people find themselves needing to get outside work during the summer in order to have enough money?
    -Am I expected to stay in town in the summer, and what happens if I don’t?

    -LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT
    -What is done to help people who don’t have language proficiency attain it? Does the university provide funding?
    -What is the requirement, and by when do you have to meet it?
    -Given my research interests, what languages should I study?
    -When do you recommend doing the work necessary to fulfill the language requirement? (i.e., summer before first year, summer after first year, while taking classes, etc.)

    -LOCATION REQUIREMENTS
    -How long are students required to be in residence?
    -How many students stay in the location for the duration of the program? (i.e., how many dissertate in residence?)
    -How is funding affected if you don’t stay?

    -Incompletes on papers at the end of the term: What is the policy, how many students take them, and how does this affect progress through the program?

    -TEACHING
    -What sort of training is provided?
    -What types of courses do people teach?
    -Does teaching entail serving as a grader? Serving as a TA? Developing and teaching a section of comp?
    -How are students placed as TAs? Is there choice about what classes you teach and which professors you work with? Do classes correspond to your field?
    -How many courses do you teach per semester/year?
    -How many students are in your classes?
    -How does the school see teaching as fitting in with the other responsibilities/requirements of graduate study?
    -How do students balance teaching with their own work?
    -Is the department more concerned with training you as a teacher/professor or with having cheap labor to teach their classes?
    -How, if at all, does the economic downturn affect teaching load/class sizes?
    -What are the students like? Can I sit in on a course a TA teaches to get a sense of them?

    -METHODOLOGY
    -Is a theory course required?
    -What methodology do most people use?
    -Where, methodologically, do you see the department – and the discipline – heading?
    -Is interdisciplinarity encouraged, and what sorts of collaboration have students undertaken?

    -Typical graduate class and seminar sizes

    -What should I do to prepare over the summer?

    -Ask people I know: What are the questions – both about the program itself and about the location – I should ask that will most help me get a feel for whether this is the right program for me?

    -Ask people I know: What do you wish you knew or wish you had asked before choosing a program?

    -Is the school on the semester or the quarter system, and how does that affect classes/teaching/requirements?

    -What is the course load for each semester, and how many courses are required?

    -What kind of support is provided while writing the dissertation? I worry about the isolation and anxiety of writing such a big project. What does the program do to help you break the dissertation down into manageable pieces, and to make the experience less isolating?

    -What do writing assignments look like in classes? Do they differ based on the type/level of class and/or based on whether you intend to specialize in the field?

    -Ask professors: what have you been working on lately?

    -Ask professors: What is your approach to mentoring and advising graduate students?

    -How long are class meetings?

    -How often do professors teach graduate courses?

    -Are course schedules available for future semesters (10-11, etc.)?

    -Can I see the grad student handbook? Are there any other departmental documents – such as reports on the program prepared for accreditation – that I can see?


    -QUALITY OF LIFE
    -Prices – how does the cost of gas, milk, cereal, etc. compare to other places I've lived in?
    -Cost and quality of typical one-bedroom apartment.
    -What does the university do to provide you with or help you find housing?
    -When (i.e., what month) do people start looking for an apartment for the fall, and where do they look?
    -Is it easy to find a summer subletter?
    -How close to campus can—and should—one live?
    -What grocery stores are there in town?
    -How late are cafes, bookstores, malls, restaurants typically open?
    -What do people do to make extra money?
    -Does the town have more of a driving or a walking culture? What is parking like near campus (availability, ease, cost)?
    -Where do most English grad students live? Most other grad students? Most professors? Where is the student ghetto? Do most students live near each other, or are they spread out far and wide?
    -How far does the stipend go in this location?
  12. Upvote
    spcgsw96 reacted to Gik in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    I second @ilyosha on this, though I've been culturally conditioned here in my country to call everyone by their first name haha 
  13. Upvote
    spcgsw96 reacted to ilyosha in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    My feeling is that it's always best to continue with "Professor X" until someone explicitly tells you to address them by their first name. Although I am far more conservative on this than everyone I know, I think it simply never hurts to stay on "Professor" until told otherwise.
  14. Upvote
    spcgsw96 got a reaction from ilyosha in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    I got a really friendly email from a Vanderbilt grad student asking if we could set up a time to talk over skype or facetime! It may be because I’m an international student though so it would be necessary to negotiate the time difference 
  15. Upvote
    spcgsw96 got a reaction from ilyosha in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    Claiming a Vandy interview but by a grad student (which I prefer tbqh) but not sure if that’s a bad sign? 
  16. Upvote
    spcgsw96 reacted to JMCrawfordNJ in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    They even staggering rejections now. The nerve of these people. 
  17. Upvote
    spcgsw96 got a reaction from ArcierePrudente in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    To anyone with the:
    To date, no decision has been made on your application.
    Please note that most decisions on graduate admissions for fall term are made in the months of March and April and therefore you should not anticipate a decision much before that time period.
    for UCLA it doesn't necessarily mean it's a waitlist or rejection. Had that notice as my decision until today but just received a letter of acceptance!
  18. Upvote
    spcgsw96 got a reaction from arctic_ice in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    To anyone with the:
    To date, no decision has been made on your application.
    Please note that most decisions on graduate admissions for fall term are made in the months of March and April and therefore you should not anticipate a decision much before that time period.
    for UCLA it doesn't necessarily mean it's a waitlist or rejection. Had that notice as my decision until today but just received a letter of acceptance!
  19. Like
    spcgsw96 reacted to StudyinMountains in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    Well, I guess I spoke too soon. Just got accepted to UCLA. I'm visibly shaking in shock. 
    3a / 3r / 0w / 7p
     
  20. Upvote
    spcgsw96 got a reaction from StudyinMountains in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    To anyone with the:
    To date, no decision has been made on your application.
    Please note that most decisions on graduate admissions for fall term are made in the months of March and April and therefore you should not anticipate a decision much before that time period.
    for UCLA it doesn't necessarily mean it's a waitlist or rejection. Had that notice as my decision until today but just received a letter of acceptance!
  21. Upvote
    spcgsw96 reacted to SerenityNow! in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    Question about visit days:
    Does anyone have any idea what the dress code is for these weekends? I have spent a few years in the working world at an extremely formal office (suits/designer dresses/NO casual Fridays/heels every day/etc...) and have essentially forgotten that my TAs in college wore. I know it is always better to be more formal rather than too casual but I also don't want to be the only lady in a pants suit and pumps when everyone else is in jeans and sneakers. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!
  22. Like
    spcgsw96 reacted to encyclopediabrown in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    I am on an admissions committee this year. Two things. First, you are an EXTREMELY impressive bunch. It was a pleasure to read through the applications. I was floored. You're much, much more accomplished than I was when I applied. Second, it is completely true that in the end so much of this process is random. There are so many outrageously talented applicants we're making wild guesses about who will be a good fit in our program. These guesses are often way off base. If you're feeling dejected at not getting in, I get it. (I got rejected from nearly every program I applied to and I remember the feeling well.) Try to remember that it is NOT a reflection of your self worth, smarts, or ability to succeed. I know that's easier said than done, but I can tell you from the inside, it's true.
  23. Upvote
    spcgsw96 reacted to BobBobBob in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    Since people are probably planning their campus visits:
    https://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/51130-questions-to-ask-during-your-visits/
  24. Like
    spcgsw96 got a reaction from Albert01 in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    Umass Amherst acceptance + 5 yr funding! I do love them for putting what the result is in the title of the email instead of the forebodingly ambiguous "Result"
  25. Like
    spcgsw96 reacted to megabee in 2017-2018 Application Cycle   
    UCLA rejection at 5 AM, North Carolina acceptance at 8 AM. Now a member of the "acceptance and rejection on the same day" club. The whiplash is real my friends.
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