petrichordant

I'm right there with you. I'm attending a prospective student weekend, and the department is holding a mini conference on one of the afternoons. The director of graduate studies emailed me and invited me to present a short paper while I'm there. The email was very nice and said no pressure if I didn't want to, but yikes! What a great opportunity to make a fool of myself in front of all the faculty and other students before I even start there. In these situations, I just try to remind myself that all these people have been in the same situation and that they're generally all kind and supportive people.

Congrats on UCLA, @ubernerd! That's exciting news. @mariahjewelalanis I applied to UC Davis and haven't heard anything from them either.

Got my Berkeley rejection too, @mariahjewelalanis. *High five!*

It's so nice to hear from other people with the same concerns. I'm 33, finishing up my Masters, and will be starting a PhD in the fall. I definitely started grad school later than I had originally anticipated, but I agree that the additional life experience has been helpful. At the same time, transitioning to grad school after years of working has been something of a challenge. My main concern is that I'm currently single and would like to find a partner and have children before I'm 40. Dating during my Masters has been challenging, as so much of my time, energy, and focus is on school. The thought of dating, hopefully finding that "right" person, and having children all during a PhD is scary. The thought of not finding that right person and not having children is even scarier. I know navigating grad school while married with kids is hard, but I'm actually envious of those who at least have that part of their life settled.

Thanks @ubernerd . I didn't have high hopes for Northwestern anyway. Congrats on the interviews! I interviewed with UCSB as a video chat with a bunch of faculty. It was a brief interview; we mostly talked about my research interests and how they would fit with the department, as well as what I was interested in doing after the PhD. Good luck!

Hi all, I'm glad to have found this thread. I've applied to both theatre and performance studies PhD programs. For those who got Northwestern rejections - did any of you apply to the interdisciplinary theatre program, or were those all performance studies? I'm waiting on UC Berkeley as well, but I'm assuming it's a rejection, since they've already done interviews/acceptances.

I plan to give my LOR writers a thank you card and small gift once I've decided where I'm going. When I was accepted to my MA program, I gave my letter writers a nice pen from the school I had chosen, and that went over well - everyone can always use an extra pen! I'll be visiting my top choice for a prospective students weekend, so I'm going to keep an eye out for some little food gifts or trinkets specifically from that school/city.