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I'm not sure where else really to post this, but I wanted some help deciphering UC Santa Cruz's pay scale. I see what's listed on the funding form here, and I got an unofficial offer that similar, but then I looked at their pay scale on their website and I'm confused. Really, I just need someone who gets the money part to untangle it a bit, if possible. They list their teaching assistant salary as $46,493 and their teaching fellow as $54,509, which seems really high and is way higher than all of the other pay I've seen, but I don't see any other scales for TAs listed anywhere. Help? https://apo.ucsc.edu/compensation/salary-scales/index.html https://apo.ucsc.edu/docs/scales-crnt.pdf

This application season sucks. I know I had a really strong application, and I started off with a really good acceptance--personal, told me to send them all my offer letters, etc. But like, then all the rejections just kept coming, and today, just two hours apart, rejections for my top two schools came in. I knew Cornell was a long shot, but University of Michigan is such a perfect fit and I'm honestly devastated. I don't know if I can even afford to move to my first acceptance, but I really don't want to stay at the same university where I did my BA and MA. I know this doesn't really accomplish anything, but I just needed to put it into the void.

Sooo I saw a bunch of Cornell rejections today, and I still don't have one, which is leading me to be very cautiously hopeful that maybe I'm on the waitlist. What are the odds of that? Anyone else in this weird liminal space? ?

Wait a minute, @s.renteria, it says you got into UMich. Any info on that? When did you get in? Email/call, and which program? (Can you tell I'm desperate for any information ?)

So anyway I've been manifesting a Cornell acceptance up the wazoo - any word on if all the Cornell acceptances have gone out? Should I give up hopes? Honestly started off this season with a great admit and a couple of bearable rejections, so I was feeling confident, but the confidence wanes daily ?

Got the UMass Amherst rejection, and saw someone got a Cornell acceptance so I'll just be sad now ?

I saw the Cornell accept a couple days ago, and Cornell is very much my dream school, so now I'm just sitting here refreshing everything constantly ? And UMass Amherst very rudely has had my status at "Update Pending" for over 24 hours

Hello! I just got an unofficial offer of acceptance to UCSC so I've been researching a ton. I come from Hawaii, where rent is insane, and I didn't think I could be scared by another housing market (apart from San Fran or New York) until I read this forum and looked at Zillow/Apartments.com ? I live with my partner and we don't want to live with roommates anymore, but I've only really seen people suggesting roommates. We're both probably going to make about the same--between $20,000 and, at a very generous estimate, $35,000--so more expensive housing isn't ideal. Family housing at UCSC is a little over $1700/month, which is a lot for me but sounds like a steal compared to what I've been reading. Is that right? Is it plausible to get a place for just the two of us that's not more than $1500/month and also isn't in a sketchy area? I'm also wondering how plausible it is to commute from elsewhere if Santa Cruz really is too expensive. Are there towns nearby? I know someone mentioned coming from San Jose (and a 40 minute commute (at least according to Google Maps) is roughly what I face here with traffic) - is that feasible? Is there somewhere better to be looking? One last question, less housing related - what's the job market like in Santa Cruz? Again, I'm moving with my partner and he'll need to find a new job. I'd prefer it not to be too stressful for him with the move, so a place with a reasonable, non-hunger-games job market is ideal.

Tfw you get in to your top schools and get an interview with your top-top school, and then you wake up from a dream and have to run into a meeting ?

I saw someone got in to UMass Amherst and I've been trying to check my status, but I just activated my SPIRE account and it won't recognize me when I try to login. I know it said it could take a few minutes but it's been like 20 minutes. Did anyone else have this issue? ? Edit: Never mind, IT helped. Unfortunately still no news ?

Hi all! I've perused some threads regarding moving, but I've been having trouble finding information about moving a long distance and doing it on a budget. I live in Hawai'i and unless I stay at my MA university for my PhD program, I will guaranteed be moving across an actual ocean and potentially a whole continent. I've never moved off-island (I lived in Italy for a semester, but you can do that with a suitcase and no furniture) and I'm still living in my first apartment, which I got to move to over about a month since I'm only about 10 minutes from my parents. Of course, moving cross-country won't work that way, and it's definitely daunting to do as a relatively not-well-off graduate student. As an additional component, I'll be moving with my partner. He's got a bit tougher of a situation than I do (we manage our own finances, but share the load, of course; he helps his family with some financial obligations, so his money is a bit tighter), so I'll probably be taking on most of the moving costs (totally willingly). I'm also not fully sure how to navigate moving with a partner, especially since where I get into school will dictate where we move, and I won't know for a while. I'm nervous about his job hunt and how difficult that will be, and I'm really concerned that we might not qualify for graduate student housing (if we go that route) since we aren't married. Can someone who's moved with their partner weigh in? I could really use some advice for peace of mind ?

So I can see that I'm half a year late to this thread, and I'm sure you've made a decision, but for others, I have at least a bit of thoughts. I'm close with a lot of professors in my department, so I've been able to hear the faculty/admin discussions about all of this. We're in Hawai'i and have a major element in our university system about being a Hawaiian place of learning (of course, debate abounds over how faithful the admin is to this, but the point stands). Because of this and the improving COVID situation (though Hawai'i is not doing so hot now), there is a lot of talk about living requirements and a large push for students (and ESPECIALLY faculty, including PhD student teachers) to live in Hawai'i. I'm not sure how other universities will handle this, but I don't doubt they're similarly considering living situations and feeling antsy about keeping the university community a somewhat loosely organized physical community. NOW that's only one side of the story at one university, but maybe that will give a bit of insight into the climate that might be faced in the university system surrounding locale and relocation.

So, I'm certainly not an expert as I applied a few cycles ago, got into the BU MA program, and decided not to go, but I can tell you at least part of why I decided not to go. Of course the main thing was finances (it wasn't a funded MA), but vibe was part of it, particularly in specialties and focuses. I come from University of Hawaii, Manoa, an English program that isn't classic by any means and has a major focus in world lit, postcolonial lit, and feminist theory, and I had a fraction of the usual lessons in "classics" and general "canon" literature. Boston University is not that. The first thing that tipped me off was that they required the GRE Lit Subject Test, which is 98% canon/classic lit--the fact that they required it shows what kind of student and scholarship they're looking for. Basically that's my bottom line - although you should definitely take all of this with a grain of salt because I'm not in the program and this is observations from afar, but I'm pretty confident that the program is a lot more of a classic approach to literature. As for everything else and actual vibes, hopefully someone else knows better!

Hahaha no, no worries. When I applied for PhD and MA programs out of undergrad, I think I applied to like 15 schools hahaha. It's so nerve-wracking. I do lots of research all the time, and when I applied to undergrad, I knew all the stats and ranks and everything, but graduate school is so different. It's not as much of a numbers game (and, ugh, the numbers are terrifying because most programs accept between 8 and 20 (thought 20 feels very high)) as it is a fit game--it's all program specializations, faculty interests, and who is or isn't in the program already. It's a wild time. I think this year, with all of the insanity of the pandemic and with my own personal business, I'm too exhausted to be as obsessed and nervous about applications as I was last time around ? Still, I don't think 11 or 12 is too much, especially if it eases your mind, you know? And I still got 4 acceptances out of 15 (I don't think I was ready, on paper or in actuality, for a PhD yet), and I'm at a program I love! So it's worth it, I think. Much luck!!!

Hey! I actually work at the UHM Center for Biographical Research. Let me know if you want to get in touch and I can tell you more about the program and faculty! From the work I do, a lot of the bigger programs aren't in the US - many are in Australia, the UK, Canada, and some other European countries. I'd say UHM is good, too, for anyone look at both a theoretical and creative approach - we're one of the few universities that offers a PhD in creative writing.