psychomachia

I got one too! Congratulations, everyone!

It's not at all my field, but Dalhousie is apparently excellent for CS. Several friends went there and loved it.

The U of T history department apparently was meeting last week and perhaps part of this week as well, and the Centre for Medieval Studies meets this friday for decisions. Good luck!

Toronto is apparently meeting next week to make their decisions.

If anyone is interested, Toronto's history department is apparently sitting next week to make their admission decisions.

I'm so sorry to hear. What a bummer of a year. How many more schools are you waiting to hear from? I've got at least another week or more until I find out whether I've been accepted to U of T or not. Argh!

Looks like it's done -- there's a bunch of rejections posted today, including mine

If you liked this book, another one you might enjoy is Bryan Ward-Perkins' The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (another recent book.) It makes a similar argument to Heather's book, that the end of the Roman empire was in fact a brutal period characterized by violence and a decline in living standards; it's a point of view which he argues has tended to be ignored or denied in more recent scholarship (I can neither confirm nor deny this as I'm not a student of the period.) It was a wonderful read, and he uses a lot of archaeological evidence to support his argument, which I found particularly interesting. His prose is lovely, a bit in-your-face but not obnoxious. It was one of the assigned texts for a Late Antiquity course I took -- hated the course, but this book was a little glimmer of joy.

Seriously, that's what I was thinking too. Maybe this is a round of decisions made last week, and they'll send this week's decisions next week? I'm a bit bummed, but not quite giving up hope yet.

Congratulations! Eep, now I've got a bad feeling!

Thanks! I know I'll hear eventually either way, but hoo boy, the wait is killing me! I guess there's no reason to keep compulsively checking this week. Better get back to work on the thesis!

Argh, STILL waiting, and fighting the urge to call or email. It's frustrating, knowing that someone heard from Northwestern last week, but I still haven't heard anything from them myself, nor have I seen anything else up on the results board Anyone else having trouble getting their work done this week? I'm so distracted!

Happily, my SO is not an academic (at least, not anymore) and his career is such that he could move if we needed to. He'd prefer to stay here, but he supports me and knows how important this is. As a bit of a compromise, I've applied to schools that are relatively close to where we currently live, including a school in my city (U of T). If I get accepted at an American school, well then we'll have to figure out how to get him there on my student visa. He's likely going to stay here for the first year of my program while we both save up money, and then haul our two cats and furniture to wherever it is that I am. I'm lucky to have such a supportive partner, but it's taken a long while of discussion on both our ends -- he's known since day one of our relationship that a PhD was in my future, and we've discussed it at every stage of our relationship.

For my #1 program, it's been almost three months since I sent in my application and I've been so anxious about it that I've convinced myself the whole thing is terrible. I finally allowed myself to re-read it the other day and I was surprised to find that it really wasn't as bad as I had convinced myself! I guess all I remembered of it was the long hours of tinkering with all the tiny details that didn't quite work. I spent so much time working on the "bad" that I completely forgot about the "good"! BUT! On my writing sample I realized one of my footnotes was missing the page number (what the hell?) I emailed the department right after submission and they allowed me to email a new copy. Phew!

I'm surprised you haven't applied at Toronto, which has one of the best Medieval Latin programs in North America! (seriously, other Medieval Studies departments apparently use our PhD exams!)

Congratulations! Are you coming in directly from undergraduate, or as an MA? I'm still waiting to hear back on my application to the same department.

Anyone hear from Northwestern yet? The wait is killing me!

I'm dying to know as well. I also applied to the History department and have been anxiously watching results from other history departments, but none from Northwestern. I wonder if it's worth it for myself to call or email -- I was in touch with Kieckhefer last year with regards to my application, but haven't really spoken with him since. Either way, best of luck!