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There was another thread about a blog which had a very negative view of grad school, and I'll say exactly the same thing here: this is one person's experience, in a particular time and situation. I'm not sure that the writer can generalize his experience to be a typical portrait of grad school. I'm not in humanities (though he includes social science in his comments) but I didn't have this kind of experience in grad school at all. Granted, I was doing an MA and it was in Canada; both of those facts would make my experiences different than the one he describes. But I don't find his comments about interaction with faculty and grad school as 'socialization' and not education to correspond to my experiences at all. I also think it's silly to say that a PhD doesn't allow for 'carefree experimentation' but medical or law school does. Is that a joke? The latter two have explicitly narrow purposes, viz. to train doctors and lawyers. It couldn't be any more constraining. Not that lawyers, in particular, might not have greater range of job opportunities after their studies, but that has little bearing on the constraints during studies. It's true that academia will force you to narrow your focus, especially in terms of your dissertation. Just look up a few dissertation titles: many, if not most, deal with incredibly specific and sometimes arcane niches in a field. That's pretty universal, and only to be expected. You're not going to a write a great magnum opus encompassing all and everything and expounding a grand theory of everything.

I've never done this, but I think it's probably important to also emphasize that you are confident in your abilities and intellect. I don't think you want to signal that you're unsure or worried that you're not up to the task.

Yeah, you can certainly let you know the department, POI, etc., that you're fully intending to accept, but nothing's official until you accept officially (I know, redundant). Universities are bureaucracies: you have to make an official statement of acceptance, not just an informal response to the department. Sometimes it's an online process, as newms suggests, sometimes you actually have to write a letter, sign it, and send it to the school.

The whole problem with the apparent lackadaisical attitude towards rejects is that it is actually counterproductive, is it not? What exactly is involved in the whole 'wooing' process of admitted applicants? If this forum is any indication, many applicants are not going to make final decisions until they receive all, or most, of their notifications. The very fact of not sending rejections impedes the ability of admitted students to make decisions.

I don't know about the stigma part, since that's really up to you and your perception of yourself, but I completely agree that, in the short-term, manual labour can sometimes be more immediately satisfying than academic work. However, I think the big difference is that, for many workers doing manual labour, that's all they'll ever do. There's little hope for advancement or something substantially new or creative. There's not a lot of opportunity for a long-term sense of accomplishment. Academic work can offer those kinds of rewards.

Well, I'm going to repeat what I've said here before: there's absolutely no need to feel bad about rejecting a school. You're rejecting an institutional offer, not a person or people. Of course there's no 'hard feelings', unless you think a professional department within a large bureaucracy is actually an oversensitive, emo teenager or something. You had two acceptances, you would have had to reject one. It's not Sophie's Choice, for crying out loud.

Thanks! I may be looking into doing something with formal modeling, so I appreciate those suggestions.

I'm not saying that advice isn't right, because I have no idea, but everyone's grad school experience is different, and her experience may not necessarily be indicative of the 'typical'. Also, job prospects and the related points she makes depends on field and location; I'm not saying up here in Canada the prospects are better, but I don't think we're experiencing those kinds of problems (budget cuts; 'attacks' on unions, etc.) to nearly that extent.

If nobody, to your knowledge, has received responses, you should wait. If it seems like they've already started the notification process, I see no harm in asking politely about your status. I doubt very much they're going to change their decisions, if made, based on your e-mailing them. That would be quite petty and unreasonable, I should think.

While I completely agree with the unreliable nature of student evaluations, I think peer and professor evaluations have their own problems. Obviously, the biggest problem is that, presumably, neither of these have actually experienced the conference/tutorial/section, or perhaps only a few sessions. The professor of the course will or should be familiar with how the TA prepares for the course and whatever feedback comes from students and the TA, but won't be personally familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the TA actually doing the job. Peer evaluations suffer from that same problem, as well as the simple fact that fellow grad colleagues will likely be much more positive than perhaps is merited: they're more likely to be friendly or collegial with each other and have a sense of community and shared perspectives that will colour their judgement. I know when I was a TA a lot of the discussion amongst us had to do with the failings and misadventures of our undergrads, and almost an attitude of 'Us', the grad TAs, and 'them', those silly undergrads, develops. I would be very reluctant to have to evaluate the job performance of fellow TAs in any kind of objective measure.

Agree with the above. You should only start 'worrying' if you see results from others and don't receive anything. Also, you should be prepared for anything. From what you say, it definitely seems like you have a great shot, but I'd recommend a cautious optimism. All sorts of things can happen.

I don't see anything in that resolution that says that schools can rescind an acceptance offer (assuming there's financial support). It says: 1) no obligation to respond before April 15th; earlier deadlines violate the resolution. 2) students can withdraw an acceptance made before April 15th by writing a 'resignation of the appointment'. 3) After April 15th, a student must obtain a written release from the school to which they previously committed, if they wish to accept another offer. Conversely, that 'other' offer made after April 15th is conditional on the presentation of that written release from the previous acceptance. It doesn't say anything about schools being able to rescind acceptances unilaterally, once made. For the OP, why can't you find an advisor? If this is one of your top choices, perhaps you could just find anyone for the time being, and change advisors later, if necessary. EDIT: stupid automatic emoticons.

All right, I've accepted and going to Western Ontario! Thanks everyone for the camaraderie and commiseration. Will keep on the forum.

Was that me? I can't remember if I posted in this thread. Anyway, it's PhD for me, and I received it quite a while ago, perhaps three weeks or so. Have you checked your student centre?

The Rutgers placement is here: http://english.rutgers.edu/graduate/placement1.html Good luck with your decision!

I understand that, and I may have been a little harsh in my previous post. Still, as I said, you're not rejecting your advisor as a person, you're making a career choice among institutions. You're not saying, "Hey, prof, I know we've been like family but screw you, you're not good enough for me and I'm going where the money is". As the OP noted, if they are really that close to you, they would be happy that you'd received a great offer. I certainly recognize that, on an emotional level, it may be hard. I was only saying that, in general, one shouldn't feel like in rejecting an offer one is somehow personally insulting or hurting someone. It simply isn't.

Your question: I don't think that's the case at all; I'd venture to say that most student funding is from TA or RAships. In the department I was in doing my MA, many, if not most, of the PhD students were TAs and/or RAs, especially those not ABD.

Is anyone still waiting on Colorado-Boulder? I e-mailed earlier today since I hadn't received any notification of anything, and the reply (which was surprisingly quick) was that I hadn't made the 'first round' of accepts but that I might have a chance at the second round in April. What do you guys think this means? Unofficial waitlist? Has anyone received an actual rejection from Colorado? If it's waitlist, that puts me in a pickle because I have a deadline of March 18 for my current offer.

It's entirely appropriate to ask for more time. If they're part of the April 15th resolution, they're not allowed to require a decision before then, though they can certainly ask. I'm not sure what you mean by the second question: why would you be reapplying if you already accepted that 'unusual offer'?

I've said this before here, but sometimes I think I'm just much less emotional than some of you, or else I'm a cynical realist. You're not rejecting a person, you're rejecting an offer made by a department in an institution. Your profs aren't family or friends; they're professionals doing a job. And, to be blunt, nobody here is special; there were students before you and there will be students after you. You're just passing through, a transaction and a student number. If you've gotten to know some of your profs, then I understand you may feel a little bad, but you don't owe anything in particular to a department or a school.

We had this discussion a week or two ago, though it turned into an argument about Ayn Rand...

I'm sorry to hear that. I can't recall offhand the schools you applied to, but perhaps a greater range of schools would increase your chances. And you still have that waitlist, so don't count yourself out yet.

Nobody?

Oh, don't get me wrong: the offer is very generous and I'm feeling quite good about the fit and atmosphere there. I'd be very happy to go to Western. Like everything else, though, it's always nice to be accepted rather than rejected, and I would have been encouraged by a Toronto admit, as with all the other schools I applied to.

I see. Thanks for the information. Well, the funding that people posted on the results page made me think that I'd probably accept my current offer anyway, but it would have been nice to get an accept from Toronto.