Kathiza

Oh my god there is already a waitlist for apartments?!? I can't even start looking because I haven't heard back from any of my schools (and it's going to take another while, I think - so I don't even know where I'll be going of if I'll be going anywhere)... Will it be too late to start looking for an apartment in May?

Congratulations sputnik! I PMed you.

There were several rejections on the result board. Is there anybody here who actually got accepted to the Mizzou J-School PhD program? If you're wondering: I still haven't heard anything. Not even a rejection. N.o.t.h.i.n.g.

To be honest... I don't think the information I posted here will haunt me one day. I'm sure they can exactly figure out who I am by looking at my postings, but I have to say: I stand by everything I posted here. And if a school thinks that posting "going craaaaaaaaazy" here is making me unworthy of being accepted... well... it's sad. But I'll have to accept it. I don't want to spend the next couple of years in an environment where I feel like someone is constantly looking over my shoulder and judging every single bit I post on the internet. I'm careful. I only post things I won't be embarrassed to tell to people's faces. But I'm sure if somebody WANTS to find something to hold against you, he will. And I will have to accept it.

Nothing nothing nothing.... Although I KNOW that some schools already sent out their decision. Going craaaaaaazy!

Wow, we weren't allowed to do tailored SOPs for each university. We just had to write one and we were not allowed to mention specific names of professors etc. So I think it's really hard - especially for PhD applicants. Because the university ultimately does not know with whom you want to work with...

Haha, my profile is not in English, so they'll at least have a hard time to decipher the childish stuff I post on my wall

And it would be great if someone could tell us more about post doc positions. I know that my university (in my home country) offers these positions. They are generally for two or three years. But I don't know what post-docs are supposed to do. Are they allowed to teach? Or is it just research? One's own project or helping with another project?

I'm not sure if the differentiation is different in the US. But we learnt that the english word "science" just meant natural sciences. Then in my country social sciences also mean communications, political science, economics. And there are "medical sciences" - like medicine and all related fields. The humanities are split up in historic-cultural philologies, social-cultural philologies. (bad translation, I know, but I couldn't come up with a better term) Religious fields also are a separate categorie in my country. And not to forget law and all related fields.

Some state schools award funding to ALL incoming students, no matter if they're American or international. So it depends on your specific school and on your program. I know for example that most of my schools also fund international students. So you'll have to find that out on your own. Best of luck to all of you.

I don't think that Facebook is necessarily and in any case a problem. People can choose what they put on there. They can hide their profile to non-friends. There are many options to prevent that adcoms have to much knowledge about your private life. And even so: Everyone is entitled to a private life. So if adcoms are shocked by some photos seeing you dancing on a party, that's just hypocrisy. Also: Liking to party is not the same as drinking or doing drugs and liking to party does not make you a bad person. Adcoms should know that. Hopefully. But they can google me. They'll find some university-stuff, they'll find my facebook-profile (which is hidden), they'll find my current job, lots of articles I published for magazines and newspapers, and then many many results from people with the same name.

I'm very new here on GradCafe and I read many postings in this topic. I don't want to tell too much of my private life, but I understand many of you and I feel with you. Especially family issues make life really hard for me (them thinking that I'm thinking I'm better). Same starts to happen with my friends who didn't go to college or who don't intend to get a PhD. I consider myself very down to earth. I have to think before spending my money, I have to actually work for my money. It's great if somebody does not have to worry about these things. But I just feel like those people don't really get me. And so it's particularly hard fo me to be told that I don't fit in with people who have a similar background like me, just because I have an advanced degree. And another thing: I actually was asked if I'm gay (by a family member) because I'm not married and don't have a boyfriend or kids even though I'm in my mid-20s.

By the way: It's great that you share all the news you get form the departments. It's really helpful since I'm not allowed to contact the departments myself. Thank you!

Maybe the UNC-acceptance on the board was a fake? Or did the person leave a posting here?

Thanks for sharing this. Normally I would freak out. But as I know by now: Universities just like to torture Fulbrighters or - more likely - my notification got stuck somewhere between the thousand steps it has to go through (at Fulbright, after being sent out by the school) before it reaches me. If somebody is sick or has a lot of work or is out of office for a day - my decision will not be forwarded and can't be processed by the next person - hence can't reach me. So I think I'll hear from the schools a lot later than all of you. I'm trying to see it as a good sign that I haven't heard a word yet. In any case: I'll let you know as soon as I know anything and I'll post on the result board. I wish you all the best of luck as well. Maybe I'll meet some of you in person in six months

I have the Fulbright Grant for all disciplines and with me it worked exactly the same. So we had to be accepted by Fulbright before we even applied to the universities. But as we already discussed in this topic, Fulbright works differently in different countries. The proceeding may differ a lot. I think this is interesting, but I like the way it works here much better. I didn't have to pay any fees, I didn't have to submit the application (I just provided the material), I don't need to worry about discussing funding (this is all taken care of by the IIE).

If it's about the institute we were talking about, I can only advise you to dress up. Generally, things tend to be more formal here than in the US. And if it's an interview, I ALWAYS dress up (pantsuit or skirt + blazer; you don't necessarily need to wear a blouse if you don't want to, but it should be a nice top at least***). It may happen that the person you are talking to is not dressed up, but believe me: It does not make a good impression if you're not. I'd rather be overdressed than look like I don't care. *** I just realized that I don't even know if you're a woman But your username looks female to me. If you're a man, I'd say wear a suit and pack a tie in your bag so you can put it on if you have the impression that everyone else there is wearing a tie.

Same here. What makes it worse: There are already several results from my schools, my departments... Even acceptances. And I still haven't heard a thing. I'm strangely calm now (I was freaking out on Monday, though).

I have no experience with the US system of education, but what is very important in my country and what they taught us in our very first year at the university was (and I hope not too much gets lost in translation): There is a huge difference between everyday/general knowledge or common sense (therese a very fitting word in German for those who understand: "Hausverstand" or "Alltagswissen) and scientific knowledge. Everyone of us does possess the first one. So no, you don't need a PhD to understand a little bit about basic psychology, to know how to act in a communicative way, to be able to read literature etc. When there are new studies presenting data related to social sciences, people always say "Well, I don't need a study for this, I knew this beforehand." - And that's not a valid claim. That's the difference between everyday knowledge and scientific knowledge. Everyday knowledge is not secured by empirical data, it's highly subjective, it's based on hearsay, on feelings, on personal experiences. And that's not a valid base for real, scientific knowledge, which is objective, based within a theoretical framework, and supported by empirical data. Everyone can say "I knew beforehand that this commercial is not going to work, I didn't wanna buy the product at all after having seen it on TV." But does that mean that this is the same for everybody else? Not it doesn't. Such a statement is subjective and has it's validity within your personal world. But not within a scientific context. You cannot (!) know how other people would react upon this commercial. And of course the commercial is only an example (I'm not even specializing in marketing, so it may even be a bad one *g*) - and can be substituted with almost any phenomenon within the social (and probably other) sciences.

OH MY GOD. I'll have to edit all my postings. They'll be able to identify me in a second. Not only did I use a derivate of my first name as a username, but I posted that I'm a Fulbrighter (more than once, sorry - not bragging, but this information is simply necessary when I explain things, because the application process is totally different for me). I didn't say anything I am ashamed of. But still... They might conclude that I'm a crazy person because of being so impatient.

Oh my god, there is already an acceptance for UNC-CH for PhD. I still haven't heard anything. Last week there were two results (rejections, though) from Mizzou - not a word to me. I'm going crazy, really! Why does everyone else seem to be notified but me?

"literary bomb squad" - I love it. But I have to admit: Communications research has been being used to get people to support the killing of other people. Every country that is or ever has been involved in a war knows how to do this. How else would they get the population to support their actions? It's propaganda (just nowadays we don't call it propaganda any more). So I have to say: UnlikelyGrad has made a good point. Not only "hard sciences" get people killed. "Soft sciences" may also get people killed in the long run. At least when it comes to propaganda, manipulation, PR or whatever you wanna call it. I know I might have seemed to denigrate natural sciences. That was not my intention at all. I am used to always have to defend myself when it comes to why I chose my field of study. Especially in front of students of natural sciences. So I sometimes choose to attack instead of defence. I've always been interested in Physics particularly and wanted to get another degree in this field of study (It's easier to get a second or even third degree where I come from). I have huge respect for all of you. I'm just used to always being seen as the "useless" one. And I hate it when people try to rank sciences according to "usefulness".

I'm not sure if they have such a list. But some departments do, so I just wanted to take a look.

Are you able to access the Mizzou J-School website? I wanted to look if they already have a list of admitted students on there, but the site does not seem to work...

You may be joking, but I think that's a valid point. Who were the people that developed the weapons of mass destruction? Not the English majors or historians. So many things in the world were just developed to harm each other. It's really sad.