psycholinguist

I'm also going to say school A. The advisor is the only unknown there, and that can be either good or bad, but it sounds like the experience you'll have with the famous advisor at school B could also make your life unpleasant for the 5 years of grad school. Yes, having a big-name advisor probably won't hurt, but it's not the only factor to consider. Unhappiness with the other advisor's mentoring style, more TA work (I assume you say that as a minus?) and a lower quality of life with more debt I think weigh more than having an unknown advisor.

A young advisor can have pluses and minuses. They'll be inexperienced, so they might (likely) make rookie mistakes. That can perhaps be addressed by having a second advisor who knows their way around the procedures. You'll have a much better chance of molding the advisor-advisee relationship with this professor to your own liking; and they are going to be much more enthusiastic and involved in your research. You're going to be one of their first students, and your success will bear on their success. They will also be working towards tenure, so this should be one of the most productive times in their career. Again, it's hard to know what kind of advisor they will turn out to be, but the opportunity is out there to make it a good experience all around.


ETA: since you didn't say - have you talked with any of the young advisor's current students (are there any? even students who only took a course and written a term paper for this professor)? They could tell you a lot about the professor's style which can help you decide if they're right for you.

Absolutely go with #1. Reread what you wrote, it seems so obvious! Especially with your comment about going into your field is like rolling a dice. If you already know you don't like the 2nd professor's work, and it most likely won't get you any farther, there's no reason to put up with it.

I would caution anyone in this position against defaulting to feeling as if the safety-school is the only option for next year. Last year I had only two acceptances and I couldn't afford one of the schools, so I went with the other, figuring, well, how bad could it be? Answer: pretty bad. Because I hadn't visited the department, I hadn't realised that it was going to be a very poor match for my interests: no one was doing psycholinguistics, or music-cognition, or mental-imagery, leaving me to be assigned to research that I was dreading having to work on. Furthermore, I discovered right away that psychology was the wrong field for me in the first place, and that I really needed to be in linguistics. Overall, I ended up so disillusioned that I felt sick at the prospect of having to go back for a second semester, so I left the program. I am happier with the menial IT-job I've had since January than I was at last year's safety-school. I'm not saying that everyone should necessarily turn down safety-programs, but if you aren't excited about it, it may well be worthwhile to decline, take some time to strengthen your application, and apply again next year. If you're not sure? Visit whenever possible! Go and meet relevant people and ask questions. Then, if it sounds good, go for it! If not, don't assume that just because you were accepted it'll work out.

Also, yeah, it's true that Ryerson doesn't have a great reputation. They're hoping to change this, of course, but it's a vicious cycle: low reputation means that most of the students they get aren't exactly academic superstars, and because most of the students aren't exactly academic superstars, the perception of the institution remains negative-ish. I personally don't want to go anywhere near Ryerson; of the four or five people I've ever met who went there as undergrads, I got along with only one. The others...well, let's just say that I had a hard time respecting them.

However, it's a school, and it has a Ph.D. program, and you got in, and that's nothing to laugh at.

I wouldn't assume rejection until you get it in writing. You'll just drive yourself crazy. That said, unfortunately, an excellent fit, good LOR and professional SOP doesn't always guarantee admission. Be cautiously optimistic.

Ah, so, if you're looking for a "great certainty of a payoff," graduate school as such is probably not for you, unless it is a professionally-oriented masters (about which I know nothing). It sounds more like you'd be interested in professional schools (law, business, etc.)--though as many can attest, the guaranteed payoff from even these programs nowadays seems to be something of a myth. Anyway, despite the common misconception that it is a useless degree, you really can do a lot with an English major. You'd have some difficulty getting into the sciences (for one example, medicine) and would have to do a post-bac or something unless you're hiding a secret pre-med background. But, I know MANY English majors who have thrived in law school as well as business school.

I'll warn you that most people on these fora are oriented toward graduate rather than professional school (though I realize this might sound confusing given that all post-tertiary education often gets dumped under the banner of "grad" school in the common parlance). There are a few around here, I know, who have dabbled in professional schools before heading back to academics. Maybe they can come out to direct you to more helpful people than I.

Johndiligent does have a point. You should definitely ask yourself those questions before applying to Grad School- applying is an expensive process (more so than I initially realized- GRE fees, application fees, courier fees...it all adds up really quickly), so unless you're certain it could be a waste of money. Also, admissions committees don't want uncertain people in their cohorts- if there's a chance you'll drop out, there's a chance they'll lose their investment. Anyhow, with that caveat aside I can give you some suggestions for 'programs to apply to', to a point.

What are you interested in? If you've got interdisciplinary interests, they could play a part in your applications. For instance, if you're interested in the Medieval period, maybe a course in Medieval Studies would be your cup of tea. Or if you study literature in a variety of languages, periods or cultures, maybe Comparative Literature is for you. Finally, there's Law School. An analytical mind and good language skills (both hallmarks of good English graduates) wouldn't go astray there.

Of course, the main graduate program that's looking for English majors is...English. A seemingly infinite array of historical periods and topics of interest mean that there's bound to be something that interests you.

But once again, think very hard before trying for grad school in order to make sure it's really what you want. This was my first application season and I was shocked at how competitive it is to get in (my track record is one acceptance out of seven, which is good enough for me). Even if you get an acceptance, you'll be writing off several years of your life to work hard for little pay, only to end up with a qualification that often leads to a career of working hard with little pay. If you love it, it's worth it. If you don't...well, you get the picture. Good luck with deciding what courses to apply to, and with the application process in general. It's really not for the faint-hearted!

If you don't know what you want to study in graduate school, you shouldn't go to graduate school.

Why do you want to go? What do you want to accomplish?

Well I didn't mean to offend anyone, I was simply offering a different point of view. I meant it to be positive in that I think people should try to go to the best place possible if they get in. "You're only at the Master's level" sounds pretty mean and condescending. You seem to think you're better than me because you're at the PhD level (or so I can assume). So even if you do get over it I'm really not interested in what someone with that attitude has to say, so save it.

I guess I got my answer as to if Master's programs or unfunded acceptances were looked down upon. How sad.

I'm with ozugo here. Last year I had only two offers, and one of them I couldn't afford. So I panicked, thinking that I had no other options at all, and hey, if they wanted me and it looked okay, how bad could it be?

Well. By the end of a single semester I was disillusioned and burned-out and feeling sick about having decided to go with it. Although I liked the people in the program, academically it was a very poor match for my interests - something that I only could have known ahead of time if I'd visited the department, which I hadn't because I hadn't had the time and I assumed it would be okay. But now here I was, dreading the thought of ever having to go back there after the holidays. So I talked to some advisors, signed a few forms, handed in my keys, found a job elsewhere for after New Year's, and left the program. It probably would have been better if I'd taken the entire year off, and then I wouldn't have taken the place of someone who had really wanted to be there. (Minor issue, but it did leave me with a little bit of guilt.)

So yes, do visit the program, and ask lots of questions! If you feel encouraged, go for it. If you don't, then put it aside and apply again next year, and in the meantime find a way to strengthen your application and/or refine your interests and SOP. The mistake I made was thinking that I had to be in grad-school or I wouldn't be happy. On the contrary: that program was such a bad fit for me that I've been happier with the fairly menial IT desk-job I've had since January than with the one semester I did at last year's safety-school.

Best of luck!

Over the years since finishing undergrad, I have heard many people say if you get a job and work you will never end up going back to school. But I don't really see the major concern with this; if you like your job so much that you'd rather do it than go back to school, well then isn't it good that you found something you like better (and is probably an easier life path)?

Personally, as someone who took a few years off to work, I have wanted to go back to school more and more every day I have worked. In the meantime I have saved up money to help if I have any monetary issues when I'm back in school, and more importantly I have figured out what I want to go to school for and that I really do want to go back to school. Honestly, working is so much easier and if anyone thinks they could be happier in industry than in academia, I don't know why they would ever choose academia. I'm going back because it is the only thing I can see myself doing.

I also think that while the specific experience of working in industry may not have helped me get into school, that the seriousness shown by leaving a good job for school may have helped professors to know that I was going to work hard and finish. Additionally, the time for reflection certainly strengthened my SOP.

I guess what I'm saying is, I don't know the best way to improve your chances, but don't just dismiss working for a few years that quickly, I think many many undergrads would benefit from a few years with a job before grad school.

APH1224...I understand your viewpoint, because I held it ten years ago.

I didn't know anything about academia. Non of my grandparents ever attended college, and my great-grandparents on my mom's side didn't even finish high school - Iowa farm families. My dad was a career soldier who had a BA earned part time via the GI Bill; eventually when I was in high school he earned an MBA also. Mom was a stay-at-home mom who went back and got a real estate license when we were ten or so. My parents thought it was a really big deal that we had a full encyclopedia set in the house. There was no talk of higher education beyond the bachelor's degree. Everyone was delighted when I got into college at all.

I received little counseling and support as an undergraduate - my parents thought that since I transferred from Longwood and was graduated at William and Mary I was set, and none of us knew about academic advising, etc or knew to ask (this was pre-internet). I worked my way through, took out student loans and course overloads, and graduated with 138 credits and about $8,000 in debt. My first job in teaching high school right out of college netted me $24,500 a year - which equated to about 926.00 after taxes. A MONTH. With rent at $735, my salary barely made ends meet, and trying to pay off student loans was an impossibility, even married with two salaries. Credit card debt ensued, and deferred loans racked up interest.

I decided to go back to get my Master's. Teachers with MAs get a little more money. I had no idea that you could or should be paid to do upper level graduate work. I did one year of an unfunded master's degree at American University - which was the only program that would take me with my lower undergraduate GPA.

Ten years later, I am still carrying a substantial amount of the credit card debt I racked up trying to live off of a beginning teacher's salary the first two years and part-time teaching during my year and a half in DC. I am also forty thousand in the hole for student loans, thanks to deferrals and a steep tuition price at AU that, in hindsight, I never should have paid.

I want my PhD, and I am passionate, enthusiastic and dedicated to my work. I teach 6 courses a term, 5 terms a year, at a year-round boarding school. I have written the curriculum myself and crafted each of these classes from scratch. I have publications, conference presentations, am a member of several professional organizations, and conduct myself as an academic professional. I therefore fully expect to be paid for what I bring to the table as such. My work and publication record is certainly comparable to that of many entering assistant professors in my field. As a PhD student, not only will I be working on my own research projects and writing, but I will also be expected to work on the projects of professors in my field as a research assistant and also to teach undergrad courses. And I WANT TO!!! I'm DYING to!!! But, for an academic, this is professional work, and nobody should work as a professional in an unpaid capacity - certainly, the professors are being paid for it!

In my case, with two small children, a mortgage, and a mountain of debt from my earlier attempts, I cannot do it unpaid. And had I known then what I know now, I would not have this debt, or at least not this much. So - I was accepted, but without funding, to a school of my dreams. I don't have a choice here - I cannot pay my own way through 5 years of a doctoral program, and I cannot uproot my family to take a chance that after a year there might be funding. If I don't get some assistance financially, then I simply cannot go, at least not right now. When I applied, I checked a little box on the applications: "Do you wish to be considered for funding?" And when I checked that, I very clearly told the schools in question what my expectations were on my end - then it was up to them to determine whether or not I would meet their needs. Apparently, this year I didn't. Maybe, next year, I will. (I hope).

I do think, in many cases, funding your own MA is OK - and even necessary, these days. But if you are going into the humanities or the sciences, unless you are independently wealthy, funding your own degree is out of the question; furthermore, being asked to fund your own PhD is essentially the department's way of saying "You know, we really like you, but we're not 100% sure about you". They didn't reject you outright, but it's essentially up to you to prove to them they didn't make a mistake; whereas being funded is their way of throwing their support behind you. Or, at least, this is my understanding of it.

Getting rejected from one's top choice after having been interviewed (in a humanities field ) is pretty brutal as well.

Tough choice.

I also am having trouble making a decision for a variety of factors. I recently spoke with a very wise friend of mine who shared with me how she chose both her undergrad and her med school. Take one full day, and all day long pretend that you have already accepted to UPenn. Think of all the things you'd be excited about, all the things you'd be unhappy about, fears, hopes, etc. The next day pretend that you have already accepted at Yale, and do the same thing all over again.

I don't know that I have definitely decided yet, but this exercise above has yielded some very interesting thoughts and feelings!

Good luck!

OK, I understand this but I don't agree that if a school doesn't fund you it means they don't really want you. If they didn't want you, they'd offer the spot to someone else, that just doesn't make sense. Also, why do you automatically assume that everyone getting a PhD wants to go into academia? Is there some unwritten rule that that is the only option or the only career in which someone would pursue a PhD? Last time I checked, there are plenty of other well-paying fields that people need a PhD to pursue. I was just saying I think you should try to follow your dreams, sometimes you only get these chances once.

That's awesome news, congrats.. Something tells me that you're in the top half of that waitlist. Lets see, fingers crossed.

Wow, that's great news! Good luck!

Appeal was successful! Professor came through and re-sent the letter, and now I'm on the waitlist!

I am thrilled.

I'd recommend rejecting both and re-applying next year to a little-known but exciting school but with tremendous potential in your field: the University of Phoenix.

Joking aside, I'd say Stanford. I think even by describing it in your thread name as an "elite, jaw-dropping" school your decision is already made.

It's a good one, so enjoy it!

Yeah, it happened to me too.

After about a year of craziness - studying and taking the GRE and TOEFL, chasing LOR writers, continually revising my SOP and writing sample ... then the awful waiting period during which I used to refresh my email every other minute (never mind that it was the middle of the night in the US and there was no reason to expect any contact), followed by interviews, email exchanges with professors and campus visits --- came the very anticlimactic moment of accepting an offer and declining the rest. It's like.. OK, so now what? It turns out that there's nothing to do after acceptance, except to wait for the time to pass. I had virtually no contact with my department between April and August, practically until orientation started.. It's a big change from constantly waiting for news, and no less frustrating than waiting for a new email to reach my inbox ::sighs::.

I think it's very reasonable to choose based on factors that are not purely academic. Funding is a big issue, as is location (for some people, at least -- including me). If you can get a good education without going into debt, I think that's a good choice, even at the cost of going to a less prestigious school. And yes, I think it's entirely OK to ask the department what are your chances of getting funding and when you will know. Good luck!

I actually experienced something similar to your eating issue with migraine medicine fairly recently. As previous posters stated, I suspect it will improve for you, just as it did for your sister. To help with the eating and weight-loss issue, you could try protein shakes or fruit smoothies with protein powder. They are usually pretty packed with nutrition and fairly easy on the stomach. Best of luck and congrats on your acceptances and enjoy your break!

Craigslist is totally legitimate in Ithaca. Local papers hardly have any housing ads anymore (except for in the campus paper, geared toward undergrads) because Craigslist is so much better. Homeowners, small complexes, luxury, college ghetto, it's all there. If a rent amount looks very PRECISE, it's almost guaranteed to be a complex. Don't know why, that's just how they roll.

Do a Google search for "apartment ithaca, ny". All the major landlords will come up in the first couple pages. But you usually find the real gems by emailing people who only own one or two properties through Craigslist.

Given the job market in the humanities I would be very reluctant to turn down admission to a top-ranked school with full funding in favor of a school that barely cracks the top 100. Rankings aren't everything but that large a drop will make a difference. And personally, I don't think the commute sounds bad at all, but like Slarti I live in an area notorious for bad traffic, so my perspective may be skewed somewhat.

I would say turn it down, but only if you have the opportunity to make yourself a stronger candidate for next season. I know you're applying for the PhD, but I've been in your shoes applying to Masters programs. Last year I got rejected from all my top choices and only got an offer from my safety school. I anguished about it until the absolute last minute, but decided not to go and to take a year to make myself a more appealing candidate, and took an AmeriCorps position related to my field. It paid off, I just got my first acceptance from a MUCH better program and university yesterday morning. I agree that the school you choose follows you around forever...

I disagree with most of the people here. Not accepting an offer you aren't happy with is one of the wisest things you can do. I have had conversations with a couple of grad students during my interview weekends who said that they turned down all their offers one or two years in a row until they found a program they were truly excited about, and they were all glad they did.





You have to live with your choice not only for the next 5-7 years, but where you go and who you work with is going to follow you around for the rest of your career. If you aren't happy with it, wait until you are. Grad school is a meat grinder; it's hard enough without the added stress of feeling like you should have done better.




Also, I've heard from a number of adcoms that this was a brutal year to be applying to grad school. Applications are way, way up (as much as double at the top biology schools) and funding is down at most places. I don't think any of us could have picked a worse year to apply, and waiting it out should improve your changes significantly. In my case, this has lead to the weird situation of being rejected by my safety schools and being invited to interview to my reach programs, because they're the only ones with enough funding to have a sizable class.

I wouldn't recommend trying to "game" the admissions cycle in the hopes that another year might be less competitive. It really just comes down to whether you are happy with your admit or not. If you're unhappy with the program and can't see yourself there for the next however many years, then do yourself and the school a favor and turn them down. Spend the next year improving your application and try again when you feel ready.

I also really wouldn't recommend attending in the hopes of transferring after a year. A PhD isn't like undergrad; transfers are uncommon and quite tricky.