RosemaryJuniper

I just turned down Fordham (...awkward with my adviser, let me tell you).

I heard directly from Nicol Gotsis, who works in the GSAS office. And in today's email: "Attached is a PDF of your acceptance letter and financial aid offer. You will also find a URL in the acceptance letter that will lead you to your Acceptance Packet Materials. The official copy of your Admittance Letter is being sent to you via regular mail. To reserve your place in the program, and receive registration materials, we need to have your Response Form submitted via your VIP page and tuition deposit by April 15, 2011." Which is to say, both emails and letters have been sent out, but the emails (of course) are arriving faster.

Actually just got more info--out of 12 admits, only two of us are medievalists. 'Course, that doesn't say much of anything for what anyone else is--will let you guys know what admissions weekend looks like, once that happens.

I still don't have my official letter, but according to the GSAS office, they've all been sent out. Good luck to all!

I suspect based on other people's acceptances that I've been rejected at Harvard and Columbia, which were my top choices, which means I'll probably be accepting ND over Fordham. I'll give the others a chance to get back to me, but unless something unexpected happens, I'll be taking ND.

Sorry, I really don't know... it's such a strange situation, what with the medieval studies PhD overlapping so closely, that I can't even guess how they allocate slots.

Cynically speaking, TheOtherJake, it's probably because they figure they can make money off you. They may have chosen all of their *funded* admits, but that doesn't mean that they won't let in more people unfunded--and if you're desperate enough to send in an extra application this late in the game, they might be gambling that you'll be desperate enough to pay full price for the degree.

Posted my response in the other Fordham topic.

Hey, Lapelosa. Breathe. It will work out. I'm the internal candidate who was just admitted. To clarify: my advisor said that--and I quote--"all of our decisions for funded PhDs have been made, and we will be sending out our official letters at the end of the month." There may be other informal communication going on, but I don't know. Fordham is probably (if I interpret correctly) going to have a fairly sizable waitlist, as it usually loses a number of admits to higher- ranked universities. Word is also to expect a relatively small cohort of medievalists, to make up for last year's unusually large group.

If you're following along at home, I think all of the initial admits are out--the dept secretary already sent a mass email inviting us to the admissions weekend. Sorry... :/

The admit is mine! They called yesterday--apparently there will be an accepted students event March 6-8. (I'm an external candidate, currently enrolled in the Medieval Studies MA at Fordham. Area is, unsurprisingly, medieval lit.)

I wouldn't worry too much about the 70-80 hour estimates--numbers are a lot fuzzier than you might think! Some examples from my schedule: I spend, on average, some 10-12 hours per week in an unofficial Latin reading group. I'm a medievalist, so I could count those toward my 'work' total (if I did, I'd definitely break 70hrs/wk!), but because I'm crazy, I tend to think of it as relaxation time instead. Likewise, what about the times I decide to 'study' at the coffeeshop where a lot of people in my program hang out? Chances are my productivity will be halved--and my work-time doubled--but for sanity's sake, I do it anyway. Probably, if I did all my work in the library at full speed, no distractions, I could cut my overall time working by a third or more, but as a quality-of-life issue, I won't. Basically, you make your own schedule, and whatever you choose to do will be right at the limit of what you *can* do.

Whoops, goes to show how often I'm on the fora... I definitely considered Florida State for the reasons you mention, but when I was narrowing my choices (mainly for reasons of finance!) I pretty much randomly decided not to apply. Silly and arbitrary, really, but I honestly just want the application process to be over.

Columbia Cornell Harvard Yale Notre Dame Fordham Medieval lit/manuscript studies