jomo

Hi everyone, My admission cycle has officially come to an end after getting accepted to NYU's MCC Ph.D. program. I received a call a couple of hours ago and I am still processing this new reality. It has been a tough ride but I am happy that it paid off. I am also writing this to share my journey, hoping that future applicants can be guided by my experiences. I am an international student completing my MA degree here in the US. My bachelor's degree is from my home country and my research interest centers on news media and what shapes their coverage of contentious issues. I began the applications in June, 6 months before the December 1 deadline. While many people wondered why I did this, I am glad I started early. This made me narrow down to seven schools that had faculty members who worked on topics that I am interested in. This also allowed me to reach out to faculty members early enough. I started sending out emails in July and also had Zoom chats with some of them. This demonstrated that I am proactive and it allowed faculty members to me and my research interests. These conversations also shaped my personal statement. I started working on it around the same time. My draft has been seen and edited by at least 10 people; my colleagues, mentors, past professors, etc. This helped sharpen my writing and made it clearer. I wouldn't have achieved this if I did not start early. By December 1, my statement was concise and very clear. Please, start writing this document early. It really helps make you research interest clear and easy to read and understand. Doing it a couple of weeks or even months might make it difficult. If you are really interested in grad school, start working on the personal statement at least four months before. This will allow you to make changes as you read more academic work. You will also get time to share with academics and mentors who will advise and critique your work. As I mentioned, I narrowed down to 7 schools; accepted by 2 (NYU&Rutgers), waitlisted by 2(UT Austin & Indiana), rejected by 2(UPenn&Harvard) and Columbia is yet to decide. NYU was my top choice so I will go ahead and accept. If you are waitlisted by Rutgers, I will decline my offer to make sure waitlisted candidate get the offer. To everyone who got admitted, congratulations. To the ones who didn't, it's not the end of the journey. Prepare and come back stronger in the next admission cycle. Thank you all.

Hi. I am a fellow International Student. My advise would be wait for the funding decision before requesting the I-20. This is because the funding will be reflected in the I-20 document which is crucial when applying a US visa. Those officers will check and if you get full funding it demonstrates that the department will play a part in taking care of you financially. So just wait since the funding will be out hopefully by April 15. And you can always apply the visa in early May (after Ramadan) and you will get soon enough. That's what I did. Got my I-20 with funding, applied early May and had my visa by June. Best wishes!

hi! Yes! I got waitlisted as well. I was also wondering the same. Is UT your top option?

Congrats! ASU is a good school! Some schools do this. It means they have more admitted students than they can fund. So they are waiting for extra funding to give to the unfunded students. This happened to me in 2019 in my MA applications. Mizzou (the communication department not the J school) admitted me and waitlisted me for funding. The chair reached out and mentioned that they are waiting for funding details and this was in April but I had already accepted another offer.It is always good to have options. I hope you have applied to other schools as well.

I wouldn’t recommend that since it’s too early. So long as you haven’t received an explicit rejection, you still got a shot. I’m sure we will get decisions in the next two weeks.

Stay strong. It’s too early. I’m keeping myself busy and trying to avoid this forum to reduce the anxieties. hoping for the best.

Interesting to hear that. Let’s hope for the best. I didn’t mention Sharon but I guess she was there since she’s the grad committee chair. I’ll keep you posted. It’s one of my top choice too

Media studies

Hey! Congrats! They said the “next few weeks” so maybe by mid February. Did you get interviewed by Dr Sharon?

It’s one of my top choices. Waiting to hear from the rest before deciding.

No. I applied to the School of Journalism and Media.

Hi. Yes. I got accepted to Rutgers and interviewed UT Austin. Waiting for the rest. Any update on your end?

Hello good people and thanks for this thread. 2020 was tough so congrats to everyone on managing to put forward solid applications. No matter what happens, I believe the fact that we made the applications is a massive achievement. I applied to Columbia J school, NYU, Rutgers, UPenn, UT Austin, Indiana University, and Harvard (a different program). No feedback yet. Best of luck to you all. Thanks!