fuzzylogician

Thanks!

I was wondering about that! Assuming that by "getting your MA at school Z then reapplying to school X" you mean that you were accepted to an MA program at school Z, which you'll finish, and then you'll go on to apply to the PhD program at school X, then I don't think there's anything wrong with that. There's no betrayal involved in choosing a different program for your PhD than where you obtained your masters. In fact, I think it's a common and understood practice. But if you meant dropping from school Z midway through a PhD program after officially getting your MA, then that might be frowned upon.

I agree with that. Getting the same advice from several people is different than just getting it once. But I do agree that those "I agree with the poster above" posts are annoying. At least tell us what it is that made you agree, even if you don't have new reasons that weren't stated previously. That will help the OP a lot more than just saying "me too".

That clinches it for me. You'll get to work with an influential person in your field and you'll be very likely to get a job after you graduate. I can understand not relating to an adviser. In fact, I had a meeting with a potential adviser once that made me realize that I could never work with them, which eventually turned me off a school that had previously been a top choice. But if that wasn't the case for you and you can see yourself working with this adviser, then it's a great opportunity. Take Stephen33's advice and follow up with an email to see if you can't connect better with this professor. Personally, I've attended open house days at some schools and visited on my own at others, and generally found that people had more time for me when it wasn't during an open house. During those there's always a tight schedule and profs have to meet many students one after the other, which can be stressful at times. Those who only met me on a given day (and not ten prospectives in a meeting-marathon) could give me more time and attention. Maybe that's what happened to you at school A.

Since you want to continue on to a PhD program after your Masters, what's most important is the kind of advantages you'll gain from attending each school. It sounds like school X will allow you to gain more research experience than school Y, and it'll give you the opportunity to obtain strong letters of recommendation from influential people in your field. You'll also get better funding, which is very important. Another factor to consider is the success rate of recent graduates of both schools - how many of them have gone on to do their PhDs at reputable universities you'd like to attend? Assuming that school X does well in this category, it gets my vote. It seems to be the all around better offer. Concerning the long and expensive flight, it's certainly not as convenient as living 3 hours away from home, but since you're not likely to be traveling back and forth to visit all that often, I don't think it should be a consideration. Don't forget that 1-2 flights back home a year will definitely be less expensive than funding yourself for a year in the UK, even if the flights from there are less expensive.

I think it depends on the university. In my case, emails were enough to decline and I had to fax/mail a form in order to formally accept (I also sent an email to notify the DGS at my program that I had decided to accept because the form was addressed to the Graduate School). Additionally I sent emails to prospective advisers at all of the programs that offered me admissions to let them know of my decision. The best bet is to contact the school that you want to attend and ask how you should accept. Usually an email is all you need in order to meet the April 15 deadline and you might be asked to follow up with a signed form in the mail later. For schools you decline, I think their offer is no longer binding if they don't hear back from you by Apr 15 anyway, but some might want you to fill out a form as well. Start with an email and they'll let you know if there's another formality involved.

I've decided to go to MIT. It was a tough choice between MIT and UMass, both are a great research match and are hard to choose between, but in the end I felt like I'll be happier living in Boston/Cambridge than in Northampton so location became the deciding factor for me. I've notified the department of my decision about 10 days ago and also notified everyone else I'm declining their offers (for those of you on waitlists). I feel so good about my decision and about finally being done with the application process, I can't even begin to tell you!

On the F1 visa, you're allowed to work up to 20 hours a week during the year and up to 40 hours a week in the summer. There are restrictions on where you can work, I think you're usually only allowed to work on campus. It could be a problem if the internship is someplace off campus, but there might be other ways to arrange for it to be possible (I think the OPT could be utilized for that somehow--I'm not really an expert but I've heard of people who were in a similar situation and found ways to work it out).

My thoughts are: place actual advantages over perceived disadvantages. Of course an earthquake could hit California during your stay there, but I'm sure that NYC is not catastrophe-free either. I imagine that some sort of accident could happen to you at both places (knock on wood). You can't choose based on the unknown. If better job placement is a key factor in your decision, then go to the place that offers you that--my vote goes to Stanford.

There's nothing much you can do except email and call the department (or show up in person, if you live nearby). Until you hear more, I think you can safely assume you've been accepted to the designated field in the program you wanted. Do not assume you got the GA position you applied to (don't assume you'll receive any funding unless you have it written down somewhere). Keep calling and emailing; don't accept the offer unless you're prepared to pay for everything yourself, because there's a real possibility of that happening. Congrats on the acceptance!

Nice. Also: "You're a doctor? How many diseases do you have?" "You're a librarian? How many books have you read?" "You're a cop? How many guns can you shoot?"

Stephen33 is right. The school's vagueness is a bad sign - it doesn't know if it can offer you funding yet and in this economy it's a distinct possibility that you'll end up not being funded at all. Don't accept the offer without a guarantee of funding unless you're willing and able to pay for school yourself. Contact the school and ask again about funding, but if you don't get a definitive answer by April 15, accept the funded offer.

Congrats on the decision, anyli_t! Berkley is a great school

It's a real dilemma you've got here. One thing you could maybe do to save costs is live with roommates instead of alone in a 1BR--you could probably save some money that way. The idea of your wife taking courses on her own and obtaining an F1 visa seems like the best solution. Do you know if it might be enough to enroll in part-time study to receive an F1 visa? If so, it might be even easier and take less time to obtain the visa than applying to grad school (which I assume will mean that at least during the first year she will be on an F2.) Does NU not allow you to work at all in the summers? I thought internationals were allowed to work up to 40 hours a week during vacations and 20 hours a week during the year. That's a little strange.

It means you've (almost certainly) been accepted to the program. I've never heard of anyone being rejected by the graduate school after being admitted by the program. I assume that if the notification doesn't say otherwise, then you've been accepted to the program you applied to, but you could write back and ask. Congratulations on the acceptance !

The application process usually requires a SOP, writing sample and recommendations besides the obvious GRE and GPA scores. You could work on improving any of those. Get more research experience that's relevant to your intended field, try to get published or present at a conference; build on your relationship with professors to secure even stronger LORs than you had this year. Work on your writing sample. Take graduate level courses in psychology, get good grades to improve on your 3.0 GPA.

That would be my advice as well. Better to have a guaranteed place than to be left with nothing. I also think you should consider contacting the professor at school A and letting him know that his offer is your top choice, that you'll wait until the last minute but if there's no guarantee of funding, you might be forced to let go of his offer. It might prompt him to look for more funding options (or he might not be able to do anything about it, but you've got nothing to lose by trying).

I hope so. It'd be a very cruel joke :evil:

Harvard. Hands down. For some people it makes a huge difference where they live so location weighs on their decision more than other factors. It might not be as important to everyone but it sounds like is to you, and it's a very legitimate concern. If you don't think you can be happy living in Ithaca, don't go there. If you'll be miserable, you'll end up making less of the "perfect fit" faculty you'll have at your disposal and the work you'll produce won't be as good as it could have been. Go to a place you feel good living in, and you'll be likelier to do better work and finish your degree. Plus, as others have pointed out, you have many more opportunities to grow at Harvard than you do at Cornell.

Read this thread: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=15906 (ignore liszt85 and rising_star).

Sounds like you really want to go to UVA. It offers you good funding, an adviser you like who has funding and will likely stay the duration, better working conditions, less time to completion of degree, a field that has more potential to grow, higher ranking...the only thing Columbia seems to have going for itself is that it's not UVA . I've also heard the common wisdom that you shouldn't go to the same institution for undergrad and grad, but if it's ranked high and allows you to do the kind of research you want to, it seems to me unwise to let that go and switch to a school that doesn't offer you that just so you can say you changed schools.

Even better: do all of that and use your superpowers to save the world in your spare time 8).

Thirded. Use the gap year to make yourself a more appealing applicant--by doing research, publishing, building relationships with profs that will guarantee you stellar recs, retaking tests, or whatever else will make your application stronger. Present the experience you gained from this year in a favorable light in your SOP. If you do that, there's no reason why your year off should look bad to anyone.

Do. Undo. Redo. Make-do. Coffee. Submit.

Yes. I'm actually still in school, which makes it even worse. Beside writing my SOP I haven't written anything worthwhile this year and I'm starting to think that I'm going to need to refresh my reading/writing skills before I'm able to do it again. Planned for the next three months: 1 MA thesis, 1 large seminar paper, 2 relatively smaller seminar papers. Ugh.