hip2btriangle

yep.

i visited/met some people. BC is beautiful, albeit a really conservative student body. i picked up the paper while i was waiting to meet people and there were op-eds from gay undergrads that were talking about peer verbal/physical violence. yikes. that said, the faculty do seem very cool, and BC is a well funded institution.

i agree that we all could stand to show a little more sensitivity to those who aren't faring as well so far, but i do thing there should be a place here to talk about tough decisions. if you have six schools to choose from, you have a lot to think about. and i would strongly recommend NOT turning down offers unless you are absolutely POSITIVE you know you're not interested in that school. and i think this can only really happen unless you didn't get funded somewhere, or you've already visited. visit first, turn down (soon, if possible) after. people on the waitlist can get calls through april.

ps, mulan is my favorite disney movie. (re: laur de oro's profile pic -- something cheery needs to grace this thread!)

this is an amazing thread title, btw. this is my 2nd year applying, and the rejections aren't any easier. 1 official rej, 2 i can sense are coming, and still waiting to hear on others. i really just want to skip to may so i can concentrate on other parts of life.

I do think it's very important to consider fit with department's decisions, but now that you have been admitted...you need to be a little more careful about your thoughts on the process and try to distinguish what faculty tell you from what their exact process may have been like for adcom decisions. Consider that the department has now made its decisions and notified the people they really want to attend their department -- if the student decides not to come they lose an opportunity from the university to fund a grad student. Most departments are given, say, 15 students to fund and those that don't decide to come they don't necessarily get to reapply that funding to someone else. They will now do everything they can to make you feel special, to make you feel like they know a lot about your application and your interests, and to make you feel welcome. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad at ALL, but that when people go to visit the schools they have to realize that they are now being recruited, they are now in demand. I've heard of experiences where the DGS will bend the truth a little about the department to get the students to commit. Go in to this next stage of the process excited as ever, but try to hold on to reason, ask your questions and make your decisions carefully! Congrats, again!

i guess my question is kind of in the vein of this topic, but: last fall i had reached out to a couple profs at a few schools that got back to me and hooked me up with students they advise to talk more about their experience in the program. all of the conversations were great, and helped my decision to apply. is it at all appropriate to reach out to these contacts and ask if they know anything about when decisions will be made?

grats, edpol! something tells me you have some tough choices ahead!

and 5% is high for some departments. just remember, all of you, that if you're lucky enough to even get one admission you are among the most competitive (fortunate, and lucky) applicants in the field.

just hope they don't forget to blind copy one of their waves of rejections this year.

i speak for myself and all my close friends waiting for grad school results and can affirmatively say that this is a horrible, exhausting experience that i never hope to ever experience again. it's an experience that often unfairly makes us question whether or not we are capable as students and researchers in this field, and it really sucks. i have to say, though, that i really feel for those few sociology applicants and the many other kinds of students (i only know of my friends applying to clin. psych and b-schools) that require interviews. that would just add a whole new layer to this dramorama.

Yeah, this is an entirely appropriate question for the DGS/dept. asst.

this is my second year. much quieter. terrifyingly so. it makes me think that fewer people applying are using the forums and reporting on the results page, but i just don't believe that there are fewer applicants this year. not only does the bad economy mean higher applicants, but there are fewer funds to allot to students. this year is going to be biting, particularly for those of us (*sigh*) with less than stellar scores. making the first cut is going to be a big deal this year, i think.

i'd say that's quite good

sigh. if i want to be a prof., i'm going to have to marry rich, aren't i?

re: jacib: i agree, i think that we really have to recognize that our complaining about the way things are in the U.S. is quite a privilege. we don't have to look far to realize that things are much worse off and/or more complicated elsewhere. but i do think there are some warning signs, here. any argument about how "men just can't do laundry" or that one gender just does something better i really think is a confused muddle of justifying existing gender arrangements. i think it's a result of essentializing the male gender to just assume that they naturally don't know how to do laundry, and enjoying the roleplay of creating and reproducing such a category. it may be sad that some women laugh off their husband's inability to do housework, but if men suddenly changed and did all the housework and female-typical tasks...would they still be attractive, authentic men? the explosion of articles on the mancession and all this craziness is a result of how these shifts affect our understandings and conceptualizations of gender. i mean, it feels like sometimes that the mere THOUGHT that a woman is the breadwinner would imply that she is TAKING OVER! (re: alpha female), and seems to imply that there may be a crisis brewing. i agree that a lot of this is complicated and enmeshed in regional history, politics, existing gender arrangements, and the real challenges of maintaining a home and a family, but i just hope that the end result is by and large a restructuring of gender within families and a new understanding of what it can mean to be "male" and "female" (or rather, that it really shouldn't matter).

also, a "discussion" page with professors/practitioners on this issue and the "mancession" (this term really riles me up, by the way) and "alpha wives": http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/alpha-wives-the-trend-and-the-truth/ the responses by a lot of these professors are really quite good. really enjoyed kathleen gerson's response in particular: "Whether or not the decline of the traditional couple is “new” news, is it bad news or good? Many worry that the rise of women workers undermines men’s sense of self and pushes them to leave women in the lurch. While this sometimes happens, such a scenario underestimates the resilience and flexibility of women and men alike." i think this reflects a real confidence in newer (gendered) arrangements of couples. i do think the news does play a pretty cruel part in all of this though -- the title is kind of obnoxious. just because you're the breadwinner, does it mean you're the alpha in the house? why does making the money imply that you're the sole/primary leader of the family arrangement?

i'm just hoping that the only invites that went out were for the most prestigious fellowships (chancellors), though with an admit weekend so close it makes me wonder if they've invited all they intend to. stress, whee!

i haven't heard about this, per se. my experience at the ASA was really productive -- and i was just going to meet new people. met some fellow students that were kind of fake and annoying, but you gotta go into these things expecting a mix of good and bad from the lot.

i just really hate that every time my iphone buzzes with a new email or i get a call from an unknown number my heart skips a beat.

now while we're all fretting about adcom decisions, THIS is a productive way to waste our time. doing what we do best -- yammer on about sociology as it happens! i find this quote particularly interesting: "Kristen W. Springer, a sociologist at Rutgers, has found that among men in their 50s, having a wife who earns more money is associated with poorer health. Among the highest earning couples in her study, a husband who earns less than his wife is 60 percent less likely to be in good health compared with men who earn more than their wives." the way the story is written, it's almost suggesting that if women make more the result will be that their husbands' health will deteriorate. in my own family, when my mom started becoming the breadwinner and my dad's business started to fail -- sure, he went through some tough times emotionally, got depressed, his health deteriorated. these are things that happen when your career feels like it's going down the tube. but perhaps it's more that career success for men is hinged closely with their (healthier) sense of self?

yeah, i think it's a little much to get caught up in something along the lines of "who got funded better/worse/at all in your cohort"...i know that there's perhaps a little jealousy sometimes if someone gets major grants (NSF, Ford, etc.), but people should quickly divorce their sense of worth based on these indicators otherwise the long road to success is going to feel even longer and will be miserable.

i've contemplated going for the first year to a program unfunded; i know some schools (UWisc, for example) typically don't fund people for the first year. it's still a lot of stress, though, and i'm not sure it's a good decision for me.

funding IS a big deal because unless you are independently wealthy, you will be accruing debt for 6-8 years and then start with a job (in soc, at least) at $35-40k. It's pretty tough to pay back tens of thousands (or a hundred thou) with an income like that.

i don't know, i mean, the best you can do is read the prof.'s research beforehand, and ask them about their work at first and then appropriately weave in your own interests. each prof. is different obviously, and i think the goal is to come across as capable, sane, and eager to be in the program.