wtncffts

All right, more acceptances! Anyone claiming the two UC Irvine admits?

Yes, this. It's dubious, to say the least, whether the GRE even measures those skills, and is just like any other standardized test: quite flawed. Moreover, some people who are otherwise quite intelligent just don't do well on such tests, and there are always contingent circumstances that may interfere with an optimal performance: illness, anxiety, etc.

This reminds me of my continual frustration with Obama and other policymakers who, when speaking of funding higher education, always and only talk about STEM fields, i.e., those fields which are seen as commercially/economically 'useful' to society. Whenever there are cutbacks, the first place they look is 'soft' fields like philosophy, languages, etc. I'm in a 'social science', so we're somewhat less denigrated, I guess, but it's still annoying.

The Peloponnesian War?

clown around

We should really turn our anxieties into something productive, like gambling. So, over/under on the record this year? 750? How about the number of posts in this thread by April 15th? 1000?

As I said in another thread, E.C.D. seems incredibly bitter. Best to ignore him.

Well, that's good to know!! Now I understand the heading of that other subforum. Seems odd to me, though. I thought it was more that April 15th is the start of a predetermined period, say one week, in which responses must be given.

Oh, wait, so you don't have to respond before April 15th but you're obliged to respond no later than April 15th?

Man, E.C.D., from this and all your other posts, you seem incredibly bitter about everything: your situation, department, fellow grad students, location. I wouldn't generalize about poli sci - where I did my MA there were a lot of fun and interesting people. Of course, being in grad school we're all 'nerds' to a certain degree, but there were plenty of outgoing, gregarious people. I don't really know what to say, but if your negativity and pessimism is this extreme, it would probably be better just to quit completely and take some time to think about what you want to do.

I understand this whole April 15th thing in terms of not obliging one to respond prior to that date, but is there a general deadline for when one must respond after that date, or is that school/program specific?

Wow, it's great that you're going to have a good number of choices for where you go. I'd be ecstatic if I had more than one acceptance! (One would do at this point).

Thanks for the encouragement. There are others I feel more confident in, but I also think I'm just numb right now. It may kick in later.

I posted my Northwestern rejection. First one. Hurts, but not overly despondent.

I don't know anything about your programs, so let me ask: are these two different subfields under the overall discipline of 'linguistics' or completely separate departments? If it's the former, I'm guessing it's possible to switch, since I believe grad programs often expect that students' interests will change during their studies, sometimes towards other 'subfields' from those they 'applied for'. If it's the latter, I doubt it's possible. You would probably have to apply to that department separately. All of this is probably also department/school-specific.

Well, I don't know your department or school, but it seems to me they need to get their act together in terms of providing explicit and available information and guidelines to TAs. Where I TAed, there was a faculty member who was an 'associate graduate director' in overall charge of the TA procedures. Perhaps there's someone there with that responsibility, or otherwise someone who would know all this stuff (the graduate program director, admin officer, etc.).

I don't know, something like "Questions about Social Interaction/Relationships in Grad School"? Personally, I don't have much of a problem with separate threads, but I can see how it might be off-putting to some.

Ha, I didn't even realize the incongruity. It's actually an acronym of a song title. I used it as a username for another site a long time ago (I can't even remember what it was), and it just stuck.

Perhaps you could just create one thread and post all your questions there, rather than creating separate ones for each.

Did vowels kill your cat? Why the hatred?

Maybe your letters of rec and SOP were brilliant? from people posting their 'stats' on the results page, it's becoming clearer to me that LORs and SOPs may count the most, and that GPA, GRE, etc. don't mean anything if you can't express your research interests in a compelling way, and are a good fit at the school. In any case, congrats!

I don't think it's good form to bump your post for no reason. What more do you want to know? I think you've received some pretty good answers.

Aussie rules

walking dead

I can certainly understand someone preferring to teach rather than research, but I have to say: if you "don't even like politics or political science anymore", why would you want to teach it? Your unenthusiasm for the subject won't put you in very good stead. Now, maybe this is just a result of your current situation, and you feel your passion for poli sci will be regained with time and distance. I don't know.