Halcyon22

Bummer you can't make it to Vegas.. but hopefully your field location is somewhere even more fun! I agree Vegas will be a catastrophe.. but in so many good ways! I'm also still waiting on 2 programs as well (not a peep from either of them).

Yes! And I got totally bummed out for a few days, convinced I had been rejected. I got my acceptance 3 days later!

Thought I'd shake things up around here and bring up a more fun topic: Who is going to Vegas??? yeahh!!!!

I did my undergrad and masters at the same school, and in the same dept. It worked out great for me. I knew the setting, the professors, all the resources available on campus to me already, etc. So while my incoming peers were working out all those details, I was already charging forward with my thesis. Since a masters is only 2 years, it was nice to be able to move forward quickly! I am having a relatively stress-free final semester as a result. Of course, I would just say that is a benefit of staying, definitely not a major factor. I'm moving on for my PhD- but I LOVED my undergrad university/town so I'm really glad I extended it two more years! The advice I've been given by faculty has been to move on elsewhere if there is a better fit. But if your current dept is really the best fit/offer you have then it's not a bad idea to stay there. I would be more concerned about doing all 3 degrees at the same university or having the MS/PHD done at the same place (but plenty of people out there have done that and been very successful) than I would about a BS/MS at the same place!

I think all theories are good until proven otherwise! I've got 'great' (and by great I just mean funding at places that I would be very happy to attend) at UGA, Iowa and MSU. Speaking of amazing funding packages though.. to whoever posted their stipend at Indiana yesterday- good work! that is quite an impressive sum for geography!

I have no support for you other than I am also waiting on U of A and didn't hear anything today either. I'm sitting on a bunch of great offers but I really want to hear from there before I do any serious thinking. Of course.. my name is at the start of the alphabet! I guess I can't start a theory of "maybe they are just working backwards...." good luck!

..deleted this post since it wasn't relevant to the discussion

Hey! I was the other UGA post.. I'm still waiting for word on $ too. I applied to a few of the other schools you mentioned too and haven't heard anything from anyone else. I've been in contact with U of A and it sounds like it will still be a few more weeks before anything comes from there. Good luck!

I just came back from a prospective visit (I haven't been accepted yet but was invited by the dept to come check it out). I went with khakis and a button down shirt or sweater while i was there and certainly didn't feel over or under dressed. I also wore a pair of brown walking shoes which ended up being a lifesaver because I quickly went from meeting faculty, to campus tours, to town tours, to hiking. It was nice to be able to be flexible and take them up on all of their offers to show me around without hesitation, rather than having to ask to be driven back to change shoes or being absolutely miserable while walking around. I also made a good effort to wear my hair down every day, but after about an hour it always ended up pulled back into a pony tail- so you should be fine Good luck and have fun!

I have no advice, other than I too freaked out today realizing I totally forgot I took a random class at a community college many summers ago. My master's program didn't require that transcript so it didn't even cross my mind this time around. My top schools were all due last week, so I put in requests tonight for the transcript to be sent and I'm hoping for the best - but I wish I would have thought about this a few weeks ago! I have to think that there are a lot of people out there that forget to send in a transcript from a community college course taken way back when. maybe not, maybe we are just forgetful. but either way, you're not alone

You will have to call each department and ask. I was in the same situation last week (luckily a little more pushing and I got them all in). Anyways, I called my departments and it varied for each one, and I had 3 due on Jan 1. One school told me it would just need to make it by mid-Feb (!), Another told me if it got there by Jan 9 it would be OK, and the other said it wouldn't really matter, but my app wouldn't get reviewed until it arrived, so it needed to be there by the time they made the last round of acceptances, whenever that happens to be. They were all understanding and said they deal with it a lot, but I would definitely recommend calling so they are aware, and so you can relax a little because they will most likely tell you there is a grace period for it as long as the rest of your app is in. I also included a cover letter in all of my apps listing what was included in the packet, and made sure to note that a third letter had been requested and would be arriving (or uploaded) separately.

I actually stressed over the same thing in my SOPs! Anyways, what I was told: You only capitalize a discipline if it is a language (like you said). So generically saying you want a PhD in sociology, you wouldn't capitalize that. However, you would capitalize if you were talking about the 'Department of Sociology at X University', since it is a proper name. You wouldn't capitalize if you were saying the 'sociology department at X University'. Same goes for subfields since they are also names of disciplines. This advice was pretty much spot on when I looked at departmental web-pages and saw how they handled capitalizing the names of the discipline in various contexts. If still in doubt, I would just recommend checking departmental pages in your area to see what is most common. As for the job part, I'm not sure. I wrote that I was a "Graduate Teaching Assistant", although I don't think that was necessarily correct. But to echo the others, I don't really think it really is going to hurt you either way. But if you want to be technically correct, that is what I was told by my advisor who is a big perfectionist when it comes to grammar. (fyi.. I'm in the sciences, English majors: feel free to correct me on this!) Hope that helps some.. good luck!