morthia

Hey everyone, what do you think about asking a school for your application fee back if April 15th comes and goes and you still have not heard from them? It seems to me that you pay an application fee in order to get a DECISION from a school, and if they don't even bother to give you an answer that you should have the right to ask for your application fee back. What do other people think? Has anyone tried to do this before?

Congrats! It's such a relief to get into your first school! I've never been to Austin before, but I've heard it's amazing!

University of Kansas wants an answer by April 1st, not even April 15th! Is everyone elses deadlines April 15th or are some earlier?

Please let us know what you think of U of Arizona when you visit!

When do people think is an appropriate time to start contacting WGS programs to ask when you should plan to hear a decision from them? I was thinking around Monday, March 7th is a good time to start contacting POIs and/or department administrators. What do other people think?

A faculty member posted this in the Sociology forum and I thought it was some good advice to those of us still waiting. Also, I think those of us who still haven't heard from Rutgers are probably in what this person is calling the "unofficial waitlist pool": As a faculty member, and one who serves on a grad admissions committee, I have got to chime in. While I don't agree fully with Maximus either, as most of the review of application materials occurs online and the multiple two hour meetings are for deciding on admittances, short lists, fellowship possibilities, etc., they're certainly correct that there's a lot going on behind the scenes and that it's not just committees or even departments that are involved. For my own school, we have acceptances, a waitlist, an unofficial waitlist pool that we're not ready to reject yet, and those who got notifications that they'd been rejected outright. Whether or not we draw on the waitlist or the waitlist pool depends on any number of factors that we can't predict and we feel that it's best to just let sleeping dogs lie (we're not sitting around devising ways to get students to stress out even more; believe it or not, we've all been on your side of the process) and not tell someone that they're rejected just to turn around in two weeks - when all of our potential gender students have turned us down and our gender scholars are hounding us about who will work with them next year - and call someone up, with our tail between our legs, and say "never mind what we said before, we'd like to make you an offer." As is clear from this board, there are a TON of great applicants out there this year (and most years) that we'd be thrilled to have. However, there is only so much funding, faculty, etc. to support those students, so it's a time-consuming and arduous process from our end too to figure out how to fill the exact number of slots we have, with diversity in areas to please the faculty. However, we feel it's only fair to "officially" waitlist those who, in past years, would likely make it into the program after that sorting. Who knows if this year will be different, or if we'll have to go really deep when it comes to gender or race or social movements? We don't, and so the unofficial waitlist is an important cushion to have so as not to get people's hopes up, but to leave open the possibility that we can make them an offer. I know it's nerve-wracking now. Trust me, it's just a prelude to the hell that is applying for jobs once you're wrapping up grad school. But really what matters is what you have heard by April 15th. I mean, really, how would it change your actions now? Would you apply to different schools, scrap the idea of school all together? By all means, apply to other schools if you'd like, but I wouldn't close up shop or write off grad school until the deadline. There's lots of movement those last few weeks. In the meantime, hang in there.

I second this advice.

Thank you for your reply SusieQ! This is really helpful information. I really hope you get into TWU because I can tell that it is your top school! Did you see that one of the admin assistants for TWU sent out this e-mail questionnaire earlier today: Thank you for your application to the Ph.D. Program in Women’s Studies at Texas Woman’s University. We are writing to give you an update on the application process and to ask you a few questions. The Admissions Committee will be meeting very soon and hopes to contact people in the next month. In the meantime the committee would like to know the following information: 1. If accepted into the doctoral program, will you be attending full- or part-time? (Full-time enrollment is considered three courses and a colloquium [ten credit hours, total].) 2. If accepted into the doctoral program, do you hope to receive a Graduate Assistantship? (For information on assistantships, see: http://www.twu.edu/g...-assistants.asp). 3. If accepted into the doctoral program, do you intend to work elsewhere? If so, approximately how many hours per week do you anticipate working?

Yeah, I am sure a few lurkers have applied too, haven't you lurkers? I am really curious about University of Washington because they and Texas Woman's University are the only two schools left on my list that haven't released decisions yet (that we know of).

Am I serioulsy the only person on the forum who applied to University of Washington this year? Anyone else? Maybe since they said on their website that they only have the ability to fund students for 1 year that scared plenty of people off?

FionatheFeminist, I just sent you a PM.

Yeah, it seems to be academics asking for WGS 101 advice about how to advise undergraduate projects. More of a general teaching resource for intro WGS classes rather than a rigorous academic resource.

They really need to tell people to stop asking for advice about undergraduate projects on WMST-L. For it to be a useful resource, it would need to focus on CFPs, general conference announcements, events, funding opportunities, etc. I am on the academic Queer Studies Listserv (QSTUDY-L) which is 10x better than WMST-L when it comes to being useful. If anyone is interesting in signing up for QSTUDY-L go here: https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/qstudy-l

:::BUMP::: Has anyone visited Lawrence recently?

Hey SusieQ -- I first heard about the Ph.D. program at TWU on the academic Women's Studies Listserv (WMST-L). That was actually the best thing that came out of WMST-L, since the rest of the postings were so useless that I decided to unsubscribe from WMST-L a few months ago. I decided to apply to TWU because I was committed to going on to a Women's and Gender Studies Ph.D. after completing my M.A. degree and decided to apply to all the stand-alone WGS programs in existence in the United States. I think having options is never a bad thing, which is why I applied to so many places--including TWU. What did you think of Denton, TX when you visited? Have you heard anything about whether TWU funds their students?