ztshin

One of my cohorts got an interview from UCLA yesterday. I'm still waiting on some Canadian schools.

I'll second @43pennsylvanian From my personal experience, all the schools that I got acceptances or interviews from are those I had no communication or whatsoever before. But some Canadian programs do strongly recommend the applicants to build a relationship with your potential advisors beforehand.

I applied there too and heard nothing so far.

I applied to McGill Comm Studies, not Art History, but in the same department LOL

From my personal experience and what I heard from my cohorts/PhD students, I came to realize that contacting potential advisors is not necessary UNLESS it is required by the program (some programs do require that). I contacted some professors. Those who replied with enthusiasm are implied rejecting me; those who did not reply or those I didn't contact accepted me -- same situations happened to a couple of my cohorts. Most of humanity/social science programs review applications in a committee base -- maybe your POIs are not in the committee this year, or on leave, or just not voice enough for your project for other professors in the committee. Though contacting professors would not hurt your application though, it is just not that important in many cases. However, I would agree that you should go more into your future projects than your undergrad works. Even though you don't know what exactly you want to do in your PhD, it is always a good idea to have a "proposed" project in your SoP. Most of my cohorts do 50% previous academic experience + 50% proposed projects and future interests in their SoPs. I hope that helps.

Big Congrats! I think they are sending all their acceptances for both PhD and MA this week. Glad to hear you are accepted. Might be able to meet you there.

Yes, I am. As I know, USC CMS program invites students living outside the US too. (Bc they've got that money.) I'm not sure about Northwestern though. I know sometimes they will do skype for those who could not make it to the campus visit -- if it is an interview.

Wait..did I say anything about umich?? Did you reply to the wrong person?

They normally do late Jan and early Feb for MA acceptance and waitlist, so I would say you can give it a couple of days.

A big congrats! It's always good that they do accept for MA thing for PhD application. And it's full funding for MA which is rare in most of the film programs.

I am an international applicant with a US degree.

I was invited to Screen Cultures program last week. Different program, same Comm school. And looks like they do same days for the school

Columbia is an obvious choice since Brian Larkin is there. I also recommend looking into The New School's Anthro program because I just realized that Shannon Mattern was promoted as a full professor and she's one of the most exciting media studies scholars out there!

Not focus on Diaspora studies but good to see film and media studies folks!

So I've just done with my USC "interview." It is true that it is not an interview per se, more like a small conversation. Professor mentioned though the committee would get to meet this week, and "admit students aggressively." (I think he meant the results were not finalized at this stage, but would be coming out rather quickly after this week's meeting.) Hope this info helps.

Confirmed. It is NOT my cohort.

One of my MA cohorts was contacted by Yale coordinator around the same time. (Actually not sure if the result page one was her or not.) She applied to Complit + Film Studies though. They might have a different timetable than pure Complit?

USC was me. I also heard from UCSB today about my acceptance. According to the person I know who got accepted by USC last year, professors (normally your POIs) would contact you beforehand for short interviews/talks. She mentioned that they are not some very official interviews, more like casual chats. I will talk to my POI tomorrow or the day after, and let's see how it goes. For UCSB, they just don't do interviews and contact you straight ahead.