synthla

And pissed off they have to live in New Jersey. That will deaden the heart of even the kindest, most generous person after a few years. :wink:

Wow - if you didn't get in with your profile, I can't even imagine what they're looking for. Sorry about that, I know Princeton was toward the top of your list, but you've got great options (not that you don't know that already).

Having once lived there for 4 years, I would agree. Although the majority of residents have drunk the kool-aid. It also smells like human waste most of the time, except when it's recently snowed, but then you don't want to go outside.

It's not cheap - I was guess-timating being able to find a 2-bedroom for $1500-1600 a month. I talked to some grad students there, however, and apparently there is a subsidized grad student housing facility that is pretty new and not too shabby. One of them had a 2 bed/2 bath townhouse for just over $1000 per month. The catch is that technically it is "family" housing, but the definition of family is pretty loose. E.g., if you have a SO, you just have to be able to show them you were previously living together - don't have to be married or anything. Apparently there is a waiting list, but the wait is not as extreme as the UCSB website would have you believe, although it did take this person a semester to get in. You might check craigslist for better examples of "normal" housing. You just have to be sure to distinguish between Isla Vista/Goleta, where UCSB is located, and Santa Barbara proper, which is several miles further south on the 101. Apparently a lot of people live in "downtown" Santa Barbara (not sure what exactly that encompasses), including faculty, who are often no more able to afford to buy there than grad students.

Ideally, there would be an option for apolitical. I have my own views vis-a-vis different strains of political theory, but I think our (the American) political system is fairly much broken and thus find little to be gained from paying close attention to it, other than aggravation and disappointment.

Congrats again; when do you start turning people down? Nothing on the website for me yet, although it is highly unlikely I would go to UCLA even if I was accepted. After several years in the real world, I've basically accumulated way too much stuff to continue living in L.A. on a stipend in a place large enough to house it all. My current rent alone is twice as much per month as I would be likely to receive from a stipend.

I'm not even sure where most of my spam comes from anymore; I've got my undergrad, law school, and a third former email address, all funneled to my "main" email. It does a pretty good job of filtering the spam, but I've been examining it more closely lately, given the fear that school emails could wind up filtered by mistake.

As a soon-to-be refugee from the law, I'll just point out what is probably obvious - the values prevailing among law students and throughout law school in general are often quite different from what you would find in a history doctoral program. And the format of classes and level of intellectual rigour are different as well. It's much more vocational than intellectual - most law students dream of six figure salaries doing rote legal work, as opposed to being legal scholars. I was disappointed by the experience.

At the very least, Cat U would have to be a better place to spend 7+ years than Monkey U, which is the subject of another thread, I believe.

This is my first year applying, so I think if I were in that position, I would definitely try again next year; when I first found these forums and was reading about how people felt their application was much stronger the second time around, my initial thought was "what could I really do differently?" but I do feel I've learned a lot from other people's experiences and could definitely improve my applications. This would be complicated by the fact that I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that my current job holds out through summer and am not optimistic at all that it would last until next year, so I have no idea what I would do for a living if I had to wait another year. But that's more of a personal consideration.

Is this a question for everyone, or just riss?

Congrats to the Northwestern and Princeton admits today! It's about time we get some good news in this field after such a slow start to the week.

I can tell you that I still don't have a "decision available" on my status page, though I received an acceptance from the department and email from my potential advisor last week. UCSB is one of the schools where the Graduate School is the agency that formally accepts you, and when that happens the status website changes, from what I understand. Good luck!

Everytime I get a new kitten (which isn't that often), I'm reminded of all the frustrations that can come along with the little cat, but it's funny how it's all so readily forgotten as soon as they're out of that stage. Until the next one.

A silver lining to the horrible economic conditions through which this country is suffering is that people might step back and stop taking things for granted, and with that might go some of the sense of entitlement that permeated so much of our society and inevitably seeped down from parents to children. The first seven years of this century are already looking like another world... if you're bored, watch an old episode of The O.C.. I ran across one while flipping channels the other night and it already seems incredibly dated, given that it celebrated a world of excess that no longer exists for many people. Hard to believe how fast things can change. Let's hope it at least acts to reground people like the student in the article.

That exact situation (cat in lap) is actually what prompted the poll.

No. But I was one of those awful people who suggested in the other thread that maybe, just sometimes, people can be more important than career, and that I'd seen many examples (in my current career, for example) of people who had put career before everything else, and are miserable because that's all they have. However, as I got shouted down there, I'll refrain from saying more. And msphdhopeful: I think one person made the "disgusting" comment; the rest of us were just sharing our perspectives. Personally I just think that important people often fall through the cracks in a process where it's easy to become completely obsessed with "getting in."

I'll make sure and put you both on the list next time I get some...

I hear that the relative success of that research could directly impact a school's US News rankings. Choose wisely, everyone. Quite well actually (well, aside from not hearing from UC Davis yet... :wink: ). There've just been so many sort of down-beat, serious threads lately, I decided to do something a little different.

It definitely has, if the amount of Snuggie spam I receive each day is any indication. Am I the only one getting that? I didn't expect it to take off either; I assumed, mistakenly it seems, that our old friend the "robe" had the market cornered. However, it now appears clear that there is a market for blanket-type material with sleeves that closes in the back, which is distinct from the market for blanket-type material with sleeves that closes in the front.

From what I understand, admissions committees have started taking this into consideration more and more, although there's been some debate concerning (a) whether it is more important in the humanities/social sciences than in the hard sciences, and ( the relationship between this statistic and dog ownership levels. Regardless, knowing how we measure up to our peers should provide valuable insight for future graduate school applicants. I have 2.

No, but I do have a J.D.

:wink:

I'm also visiting in a couple weeks - the first weekend of March, to be exact. It is somewhat ironic that I grew up in Indiana, but still couldn't tell you much about Bloomington, although I did visit the campus around Christmas, and it is beautiful. I really had no idea. Anyway, I'd also love to hear any suggestions current or former residents might have as far as things to do/see.

Great perspective and your latest reading sounds quite interesting; I haven't explored Scottish history much, but some day (I would read the history of all the world, if there was but time enough). And I don't think beautiful writing is beside the point - there's no mandate that scholarly/learned writing must also be dreadfully boring and without decent turns of phrase, so we should give preference to it all other things being equal. Unfortunately, being a great scholar doesn't always mean being a great writer and those individuals still have a lot to add to the historical conversation, so we have to put up with it. You have me quite excited about Cantor now. I love books where the author's personality peeks through, especially when it's one evidencing a preference for dry wit.