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catchermiscount

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Everything posted by catchermiscount

  1. I can help, too, though I tend to be an a**hole when giving advice (I SWEAR I'M JUST TRYING TO BE HONEST).
  2. Garage plates at Rush raise difficult problems. Should you ask to go out for one the first night so that you stink up Harkness Hall on the business day of the visit? Or should you ask to go out for one the second night so that you stink up the airplane on your flight home? Our bathrooms are probably better than an airplane's.
  3. It hasn't been THAT bad. This year has been kind of nuts, really---I doubt we've even had 20 inches this year so far. And this happens the year I decide to trade in my special edition sporty sedan for an SUV. Crap.
  4. In general, it's a fruitless endeavor. That said, the first time I applied to grad school, I faced a decision between and MA at Chicago CIR (unfunded) and the PhD program at Michigan State (funded). At the time, it seemed like a really tough decision, so I emailed the DGS at a department I had been rejected from. She responded, and the response was nice, honest, and very helpful. I applied to the same place again when I had to transfer, and I got in that time. In the acceptance email, she put a PS with something to the effect of "I'm very pleased to see things went well after on your last decision." In general, expect nothing. If done properly, you might get something, though the probability is slim.
  5. Re: Rochester, it appears that almost all calls are out (I think two are still left) and that those calls will be made today. Hope this helps. Also, I am being dragged into co-coordinating Rush 2012, so if any Rochester visitors have questions about the visit, feel free to PM me. We're looking forward to a great Rush.
  6. I love all of you very, very much. I even wrote you a haiku. Bipolarity. Warm golden sun is acceptance, Nighttime rejection. Heart heart heart u so much 4 eva.
  7. Ska-pow. Larry is good people, for the record.
  8. This features prominently on the "Things That Didn't Happen in the GradCafe Acceptances Thread My Year" list. Kids these days with their rock and roll music and their newfangled hairdos. It all started getting worse when they stopped say "sir" and "ma'am."
  9. I think I was unclear. I don't mean to say that geography should matter or that you should let it be a factor. If you put a gun to my head and told somebody what to do, I'd say "in general, ignore geography and go to the best department for you; if indifferent, maybe consider geography." My only point was in clarifying just what the tradeoffs are---if you go someplace and let yourself get depressed because there isn't good produce, then you're not going to be successful, etc etc.
  10. Not entirely sure that Rochester is out/done. Could be wrong.
  11. Were the words "spoiled" or "brat" used? Not cool. It remains: pick a good program and work like hell when you get there. Transferring is not pleasant, and going in think it's possible is icky.
  12. Do not think about transferring unless a situation arises where you must. It's that simple.
  13. Now, I will say that my own function weights geography not at all. I also was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the town I now live in (and, more importantly, have been thrilled with my academic experience). The geographic stuff can wash out pretty quickly, but it's still your own function, which looks different than my own.
  14. None of us can tell you what your utility function looks like. But, you should go to the department where you will have the most success as a graduate student. Will your unhappiness in a setting be so great that you drop out? Or will it affect your day-to-day productivity? Will you spend less time in the office? And so on. The only thing that matters is your success. Your happiness is an input in the success function, but it's not the only one. Balance tradeoffs wisely.
  15. By the by, some of the best advice a current grad student can give a proposective grad student is: go to the job talks. All of them. It doesn't matter if it's in your field or not. They are among the most important parts of your graduate education.
  16. Adding an interview would definitely resolve informational problems without the need for the GRE Verbal, yes. And anything that can be done to help on that front is valuable. But man, those job talks. Ugggggggly.
  17. Exactly right, yes. But again...so, I can't speak for other departments, but the department I go to doesn't really cut the pool down with the overall GRE or the GRE Verbal---they only use the Quantitative. So that's good news. ...and an SoP and a writing sample can certainly tell a lot about overall command of english in job talk settings, but those can be revised again and again. You don't get to revise again and again at your job talk, and those Q&As get brutal FAST.
  18. Oh, and it goes without saying that there are far better measures out there.
  19. If I may play devil's advocate (I have no strong views either way, I don't think): the job market will also be discriminatory against people that don't speak english well. Taking that into account, isn't the GRE Verbal a potentially useful screening mechanism? Tough question to answer. Happily, many places functionally ignore the GRE Verbal.
  20. They are certainly on the low end, though living well in Madison can be done more cheaply than in some other places (e.g. San Diego).
  21. I'd say the letters you get from grad school are of more help than your grad school grades, which typically are somewhat uninformative.
  22. I don't know how to define "safe," but I have seen untenured associates that did NOT list it on their CV. Obviously, most associates are tenured.
  23. Let's not get into the practice of bugging The Realist too much. But, I will attempt to follow his/her advice on this one (that is, helping today's applicants) by putting my two cents in (I am interested in conflict broadly, but take this for what it's worth). If you're interested in domestic-IR, Penn State is a very good place. Glenn Palmer is a nice, smart guy that appears to be a good advisor (for example, Phil Arena got placed at SUNY-Buffalo, has been productive, and has co-authored with Palmer). There are some other examples of good IR placements. Generally, good technical training. Penn State is certainly worth considering hard.
  24. Nothing from Rochester this week, and probably nothing until the end of next week (at best). Sorry to not help with heightened anxiety.
  25. I first read this the second time I applied (three years ago), and it gets truer and truer every year.
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