fuzzylogician

This. Don't feel bad about taking your time to decide, you earned your offers so don't let anybody pressure you. But once you've made up your mind and feel confident about the decision to decline an offer, do it. Don't keep everybody waiting. Tell the department directly so they can offer the spot to the lucky person who is next on the list as soon as possible. You'd want the person taking up your spot at your top-choice school to do the same.

Agreed.

Yes, you're in. Congrats! I've never heard of someone being admitted by the department and rejected by the graduate school, probably because departments don't recommend inadequate candidates for admissions.

That's all remnants of work I brought with me to MIT. With the crazy course workload I don't really have time to develop new ideas, so I only expect to submit abstracts to 1-2 conferences next year (with the same basic idea in mind, a continuation of the work I am publishing now). I hope I can start working on turning the paper/talk in to a journal article, but I don't have time to even think about that before the summer. It sounds like you've actually gotten research done this semester, as opposed to just homework. I am so jealous!

I don't know about choosing no funding, but I did choose less funding (as in, not the best offer in terms of funding) for a better fit. My funding is enough to live reasonably well off of, though, so it's not quite the same.

I oftentimes asked questions whose answers were on the department website and what I've learned is that in most (if not all) cases, you will learn more if you ask yourself. Sometimes the website is outdated, sometimes practice is simply different than what the regulations say it should be. I didn't ask "so do you have to take Intro to Syntax in the first year?" (duh), but I did ask about what are acceptable topics for generals papers, when committees form and meet, when papers are due, how to get 5th year funding, how to apply for travel funding, when students usually TA -- all things the website mentions but in some departments work differently than the website says. I also asked about current projects and grants, opportunities for summer funding, how long students take to graduate, how many drop out, alumni placement, etc. These things were mentioned in the website at least in part, but never in full detail. I asked the grad students most of my non-academics questions; the professors didn't really know - what kind of lifestyle the stipend affords, how's the transportation, what are good neighborhoods to live in and which I should avoid, how safe is it to walk home late at night, how's the night life, etc.

Yep, time management is key. Until the past month I've always been able to go home around 6pm and not come in at all during the weekend. I always hand my assignments in on time and I try to at least skim all of the readings. I hate not to be prepared and I hate even more to be late and scrambling to catch up with things. This month is extra-crazy: I am presenting at a conference on Saturday, I have a proceedings paper due next Monday (hoping for a 7-10 day extension or I am toast) and I have to submit revisions on another paper in 1-2 weeks (no set date but the editor has already emailed me to ask whats up). Once the craziness subsides I can go back to enjoying life, not just as it is seen from the bus on the way to- and from the office.

I assume it depends on the department, but if they allow you to choose your advisor after the first year, they should be open to your choosing whoever you feel is most suitable. That means that they expect students to perhaps grow and change interests after the arrive at the program, so I wouldn't think that they would hold anyone up to what they wrote in the admissions essay almost two years before it's time to choose advisor. There might be complications because you would need to get the advisor's consent and they might not be taking on new advisees, but there is no general reason why you couldn't choose whoever you want. I can tell you that in my department we get to choose advisors after the first year. I do semantics, but the phonologists (=a majorly different subfield) have told me that "they welcome converts".. so no problem there

I thanked them before, during and after, mostly using email and occasionally in conversation when it came up (I worked/took classes with all my LORs on a regular basis). Also sent Christmas cards this year. Professional connections are one of the most important things to make and cultivate during grad school. I try and keep the ones I already have, even if I don't get to work with them anymore.

Your record is strong enough to get you past initial cutoffs at most schools (assuming your GRE is also good), so your grades won't keep you out of grad school. What is missing for us to be able to assess your chances are the parts that will get you into school, the intangibles - the SOP, fit, recommendations, writing sample. Do you have any research experience? A strong paper to use as a writing sample? How strong will your letters be? Your SOP? Start by defining your research interests, which your post doesn't mention at all, and choosing schools that will support those interests. Make a list of schools based on research match, and ignore ranking. After you do that, you yourself should have a better idea of your chances, and we might have a better idea as well.

It's not just you. Science students routinely receive higher stipends than Social Science/Humanities students. Whether you can expect similar offers is hard to tell, but I would guess that his offers will be better than yours. (but I know nothing about Accounting programs funding, so I may be totally wrong.) Relatedly, departments often have more means to fund PhD students than Masters students, and that may be part of the reason why your boyfriend is being asked to switch to a PhD. As to what he should say to that, I'd suggest contacting current grads to try and find out if it's common practice in those departments for students to enroll in the PhD program so they can get funding, and then leave after they receive their Masters. Some schools do that, others will be very displeased if students do it.

I am reading this while sitting in my office, working on a paper*. It is Friday, 11:30 PM. Need I say more? *more accurately, procrastinating while supposed to be working a paper. Details, details.

Congratulations on your acceptance! The two practical things to do now are - ask UIUC for an extension on the decision, and wait until the last minute and see where you stand then. You still have a month before you have to decide, and you'll probably be able to make a more informed decision then than you can now. In the meantime, try and get a clear picture of what your life will look like if you accept the offer - how much are living expenses and tuition, what kind of loans can you take, what are starting salaries of recent UIUC graduates (=how long will it take you to repay the loans). Decide if it's worth it going into however much debt you will need for the degree and job options they will get you in return.

This. All of it.

I applied to 8 schools. Got 5 direct admits, without prior contact with the departments. 4 notified by email, 1 by phone. The other 3 interviewed me. They were all lower ranked departments and not-as-good fits. I ended up withdrawing my application from all three, since I already had offers from better matches. All the contact we had was initiated by them, not me, and was mostly email based.

What does the results search tell you? Have other applicants heard back from the schools you applied to? If not, then the schools obviously haven't started notifying their decisions yet, and you don't have anything yo worry about. If they have started notifying, what kind of notifications went out? Was there an interview event you weren't invited to (=bad sign)? Did the first rejections go out (=good sign)? Did the first acceptances go out (=bad sign)? If the school sent out some acceptances but you didn't hear anything, you could be on an unofficial wait-list. If you know decisions were made but you haven't heard anything, then you can worry.

Maybe this isn't helpful, but an obvious place to ask these questions is your department. Surely you're not the first grad student there who is traveling to a dangerous location - what were other students' experiences like? your advisor? The only semi-practical advice I can give you is that whenever I travel solo, I always wear a "wedding ring". I like to think it keep some of the creeps away. Pay-as-you-go phones sound like a good idea, and maybe mace. Knives sound like asking for trouble to me, BUT I have absolutely no experience with these kinds of situations so feel to ignore me.

I meant that I find it hard to be friends with too many people at once. It's not about time constraints, it's just my character. I guess I prefer to spend my mental resources (pardon the awkward wording) on a few deep friendships than many shallow ones. My attention span is best focused on 2-3 people at a time, no more. I don't know why that is, but that's the way I've always been. I am, however, totally fine being friendly with acquaintances, even if I don't particularly like them. I make a conscious effort to participate in the chitchatting that goes on in departmental functions, and I occasionally volunteer for random things that need to get done, because I think it's important to make connections while I'm in school.

Assuming that you can do good work, that is (at least somewhat) related to your interests, go to the place where will get you the best recommendation letters and make the best connections. The biggest consideration against such a school would be if you would have to work an extra job or go into serious debt in order to attend, in which case I might pass if there was another option that was significantly cheaper and could still get you good letters.

These are the top questions you really want to be able to answer: - Tell us about yourself / your work (have at least a 1-minute, 5-minute and 10-minute answer to this question, you will be asked this many times). - What are your interests? - Why do you want to study here? - Any information on your app - you need to remember the details of any projects, courses/teachers, papers, conferences, etc. that you mentioned in your CV or SOP, or that a LOR is likely to mention. - Is there anything you want to ask us? (be ready to ask smart questions about the program)

At this stage of the game there is nothing you can do but hope for the best. If you end up being unsuccessful, you would need to take a step back and evaluate what went wrong. Your stats are good enough that they can't be what is keeping you out. Maybe it's a bad choice of schools? Maybe your SOP need more work? Maybe one of your recommendation letters is harming you? These are all things you might want to question, as well as reexamine your drive to apply to grad school yet another time. Right now is not the time to be worrying about all this, though. Keep your hopes up, and try not to worry until you know something really did go wrong. Good luck!

To expand on this, you don't need to be friends with everyone in your department, though it's good to have some friends even if you have an active social life outside your department. I personally find it impossible to be friends with too many people, however it is important to be friendly with everyone. It's wise not to make enemies among the other students. Just in a very practical way, you are likely to need someone's help at some point in your career as a student, and you want to be able to get it. I do think it's important to occasionally help out with things you don't really care about, and chitchat with people you don't particularly care for at department functions and parties. But there's no need to impress anybody or be their friend.

I have a small pocket notebook I carry around with me everywhere, where I jot down every research-related crazy thought that pops into my head. I took it with me to interviews and other informational events and had it open to a page with some questions I wanted to ask. No one seemed to mind at all. I wrote down the answers to my questions immediately after the interview, not during the interview, so as not to disturb the flow of the conversation.

I think it's OK to mention location as a reason for being interested in attending a certain school. It shouldn't be the first reason you give, or the one you sound most excited about; but if you make a strong case for (1) why the department is a good academic fit for you (mention specific professors and how their interests mesh with yours) and (2) how you could benefit from other resources the department makes available to its students, I don't think it's inappropriate to then add that your family lives nearby and could offer you support. Make it sound like an added bonus, not the reason you applied.

MIT has sent out notifications to all admitted and wait-listed applicants. We will have an Open House event on March 8-9. If you haven't heard yet, I'm afraid the news isn't good. Good luck with the rest of your decisions!