NOWAYNOHOW

OMG CONGRATS! A poster (and now friend) from last year ended up at WUSTL and he loves it. If I remember correctly, their interview day was done like speed dating. Good luck!!

With all the good news starting to come in, I want to encourage people who don't normally post in the forums but do contribute to the results board to join us here! Not only is it important to produce archives of admissions for each year (and we're anthropologists, so we know the board data doesn't tell the whole story) to encourage transparency for and among applicants, but it is also a way to meet other scholars who might just be your colleagues and collaborators in the future. I know plenty of people are seeing this, so speak up! We're all in this together.

I have worked in marketing/communications and am currently in academia with a media/comm MA. The MA is a research degree. Get the MBA -- many executive industry positions are arbitrarily closed (even if you are advancing within the company) to people w/o MBA degrees, and the MA will not help you over that hurdle.

I am pretty sure this is common practice and often encouraged by departments. The department where I work often admits former students of faculty that advocate for them during the admissions process. One of my LORs comes from the co-chair of a department I applied to. If anything, wouldn't it offend a professor you were close to if you didn't request an LOR when applying to their department?

Penn still has my application as 'incomplete' because of missing GRE scores, despite admissions saying they had them and matching was not working...that was on 12/19! I followed up this morning because the app manager now has a note that says "receipt of test scores should now be reflected in your application status." UGH ETA: Admin got back to say it was fine and still a technical issue, but departments are aware and status won't interfere with review.

Honestly, I think this is a huge issue for all applicants and people in academia more generally. Mental health is largely absent from conversations about scholarly competition and risk, and it is stigmatized in programs and when people are on the job market. We should all try to be conscious of these issues as we move forward! One of the most wonderful things I heard from a POI was that we ought to be kind to ourselves and to factor happiness into the decisions we make about graduate school. It would be nice to emphasize that kindness--self care, specifically--is more important than ever while we await admissions decisions.

Nah, they said they had my scores, but that the system is having trouble matching them (in general, not just me), so I should just keep monitoring my status page. NOT HELPFUL.

UGH, Penn having problems with matching GRE scores to applicants. This is the LAST thing on my end that isn't 'complete,' and I just want it done. Anyone else having this issue with Penn?

Thanks! Isn't HASTS amazing? I am thinking of throwing a last-minute application to Cornell STS (a friend of mine is on the faculty) but I'm not sure Ithaca is doable. What is your area of interest? You can PM if you're keeping a low profile!

Really good point - another reason why gifts should depend on your relationship. If I'm sending scotch, it's because I've heard the writer mention they like it, or we've drank together and I know they like it (ah, graduate school...) Anyway, if you don't know them that well, safe gifts are often boxes of nice tea, fancy notebooks or pens, fancy hardbound copies of classic books, etc.

I think a book is a thoughtful gift -- if you know them well, it won't be hard to pick something special (I gave one of my letter writers an illustrated book of medical maladies, for example). Or you could always send scotch!

Woah - I didn't know about Ford and Berkeley. I think if I had other applications that required different materials (for me, only CUNY and Columbia really diverged in a serious way) I may have been more likely to shorten certain things, but all my other schools asked for 1,000 word SOPs (or 2-3 pages single spaced) and WS at least 20ish pages long. So. I admire your willingness to write so many versions of things!

I actually sent a SOP to CUNY that was way over the limit. I also sent a writing sample that was too long to Columbia. I get that these schools are busy, but I think it's a real dick move to ask applicants for requirements that diverge significantly from the 'standard' parameters. Last year I played by the rules and everything was the right length, yadda yadda, and it got me nowhere. So this year, I sent in a solid statement and writing sample, but for a couple places (CUNY, Columbia) it wasn't what they requested. They can either throw it in the trash or just stop reading when they want. A 750 SOP wasn't going to be something I felt was my best work, so I just didn't do it. Same with the Columbia WS (they ask for 10-15 pages, and I sent 25). 15 pages of my writing sample was going to be stupid, so I sent the bigger document that I stand by as solid scholarship. Anyone else do this? I mean, it feels risky to not follow directions, but it felt just as risky to send in something potentially incomplete or sub par. ETA: This plays into a larger part of my issue with the applications process, which is also an issue with graduate students and adjuncts, which is the minimization and discrediting of our labor and skills. We might be applicants, but we also have a right to fair treatment and part of that, I think, is doing justice to our research. They can ask me for a clipped 750 word statement, but I'm an adult, I have years of research under my belt, and if they want a good proposal it's gonna be a bit longer.

Congrats! I think in most regards there is no real 'traditional' student, so it's always nice to hear news no matter the source! What a way to start the season

I see on the results page we have our very first anthropology decision! Anyone want to claim the SUNY Buffalo admit? Hurray!

I handed in my last application Wednesday night and all my LORs are in as of yesterday. I am so excited to be done, though now the panic sets in...and lasts until this is all over. I taught my last class today and got really sad at the end, because if I don't get into a program, it may be the last class I ever teach. DEPRESSING. I'm a little concerned about a few schools that only require 2 LORs possibly printing/processing my applications without my 3rd letter (the most important letter was also the one that took the longest to get turned in) - should I be confirming that all three are included or am I just being paranoid? I just noticed it said "Complete" the day before before the 3rd letter was in. I don't want to bother any administrators?

Agh! A school reached out to me saying my unofficial UG transcripts don't have a degree conferral date on them. 1) I didn't know that was a thing? I thought having 120+ credits just implied graduation? 2) I can't find a form with that info anywhere on my UG student portal aside from my personal info in the account section (the university won't accept that screencap), so I emailed the registrar, which is an account surely checked only on the solstice holidays and probably manned by a near-sighted brontosaurus. It was 7 years ago! Crossing my fingers that I figure this out! How come no other schools ever say anything? UPDATE: Turns out, the (free) unofficial transcripts do not have degree conferral dates on them; however, the .pdf 'official' transcript you can BUY does have the degree conferral date. What a racket!

Really good Madonna joke. This whole process needs more jokes. We should put together a PhD application joke book. I got the Zizek joke book as a gift and it is A++. What do dolphins write for their PhD applications? A STATEMENT OF PORPOISE My favorite STS texts are probably Langdon Winner (Whale and the Reactor), Annemarie Mol (The Body Multiple), Emily Martin (Bipolar Expeditions) and Natasha Schull (Addiction by Design). But you should check out http://www.4sonline.org/resources/syllabi.

I think it's just the way some people take up certain scholars (say, Latour, Mol, Fleck, Kuhn) and sort of declare their work to fall into STS. I know I am especially conscious of this now, because I rely on Mol a lot. Obviously there is a lot more to STS - Helmreich, Popper, Merton, Pinch, Hacking, Clark, Wajcman etc etc. I think it is also the idea that STS in anthropology right now can sometimes neglect the hardware of technology (the material, conditions of production and development, values in design) in favor of digitality or media effects, etc. That's just how I interpreted the STS-lite criticism.

My favorite panel was on security. Lots of multifocal takes on security. Setha Low and Joe Masco were especially awesome, and respondent Katherine Verdery was also great. My interests are fairly specific, so looking over the program (or searching it by keyword) is likely to be more help for a lot of people, but STS seems to be a huge topic in cultural anthropology right now. STS methods and theory sort of flooding new research. A big STS panel was so crowded that they had spillover into the hallway. But then again, CASTAC and other more 'traditional' STS scholars were sort of joking about the STS-lite that gets thrown around nowadays. Not surprisingly, ontology is still hot (my paper was on ontology, so I'm guilty of following this trend) and environmental and multi-species or animal studies stuff is also pretty hip. Lots of work on microbes and the microbiome, etc.

I didn't connect with that many POIs, and not in a super useful way (or it doesn't feel useful, since everyone is so busy), so you didn't miss much. The biggest connection I made was with a POI I had already met with and who is leaving their university anyway, so not really even a POI? Liminal POI? Sitting duck POI? I will say that the difficult part was thinking about next year. A lot of AAA seems to be committing to things to plan or do for the next meeting. I am not going to apply a third time, so if I strike out this year, my time in the academy will be over. I did commit to planning a panel for a summer conference, but I keep thinking how dumb/risky/wasteful that task will be if I end up not getting in anywhere. Nope, had to leave before Latour to get back home. Not really sore about it though. Just as happy with @latourbot.

Guys, AAA is insane. I mean, it is awesome! I keep seeing POIs and not having real reasons to talk to them (though I have fabricated a few reasons in the name of introducing myself) and also there are just anthropologists everywhere. It is like your bookshelf came to life. It's Night at the Museum: That Weird Part of Your Library Where The Monographs Are. Of course, the presence of 'real' (with PhDs) anthropologists is just making my imposter syndrome worse! I feel like everyone knows I'm not REALLY an anthropologist (yet). BIZARRE The good news is that a very fancy POI and I are now planning a session for another conference so hay hay hay This post has been brought to you by the bar at the Marriott at AAA.

Call it insane, but no matter how many times I check I am convinced I'm going to miss a Dec 1 deadline. I have triple checked my list, but I'm still totally worried about misreading a deadline! This process is the wooooooorst.

This is amazing - I want to send these to my third letter writer. BUT! Most programs and faculty will tell you that recommendations just have to be in by January 1, and that referees aren't held to the same deadlines as the applicants. Committees don't convene this term, so it's not even like they are printing your stuff right now anyway. Relax, I guess. If they haven't submitted after Christmas, I think you can bug them then.

Thanks! This is so helpful to know. I suppose it is a "cross that bridge when you come to it" scenario, but I'd still rather know now.