Eternal Optimist

Received acceptance from Michigan State couple of weeks ago. Another acceptance from UMass Amherst today. Funding info forthcoming for both. 

Boise State University. I go there and it's amazing! 

People moving from east coast to west coast and vice versa, consider yourselves lucky, being an international student, I will only be seeing my family after 9 or 10 months

I completely understand how hard it must be for you guys to move to an entirely new state leaving behind your family and friends. I did my undergrad degree away from home (like 2 days in train away). I got to visit home every 3 to 4 months. Even then I was homesick and depressed during my final year. I missed two weeks worth of classes and got back home early before a break. So I know what y'all must be feeling. But you will be in the same country So rejoice!

And I am not complaining at all. I recognize that its an amazing opportunity to move across the world, experience a new culture and learn in a completely new academic setting. I feel lucky that I will get to do this. It still hurts to think that I will not be able to spend time with my family for 9 whole months! That's too long!

Hey guys!

My visa is approved! I will be heading to Boise this July! So excited, wanted to share the news with y'all.

I'm going to keep posting this to encourage people: Don't worry about grades, as they are one of the last things that will keep you out of grad school. If you had a rough start to college, there isn't a program in the world that will rule you out for that. The people reading your applications are human too, and understand this stuff.
 
Coming out of a small state school, with a 2.4 GPA at the time I applied, I got mostly or fully funded offers at 4/5 programs I applied to. I explained my grades in my SoP, had great letters, and had all that "other" stuff they look for. If you are worried about your grades, make yourself a better candidate. Attend a conference. Submit a proposal to a magazine. Volunteer as an assistant on a scholarly mag. Just go out and "do" the stuff you are looking to study.

You may be correct about this. I did explain to them how they were a better fit for me but it didn't seem right to turn down the offer at this point. I also mentioned that hopefully I am lucky enough to get a second chance when I apply for their PhD.

The program advisor was very kind and said he wished he was able to extend an offer to me earlier to beat the competion. He added, 'I hope you consider us when it is time for your PhD.'

So I am glad that I have left things on good terms with them.


And I feel a LOT better after talking to you guys about it. So thank you

Hooray! Always happy to read updates with good news

Hey guys!

My visa is approved! I will be heading to Boise this July! So excited, wanted to share the news with y'all.

Hey guys!

My visa is approved! I will be heading to Boise this July! So excited, wanted to share the news with y'all.

I have to weigh in here.

A. Probably doesn’t need to be said but here it is – take all advice with a grain of salt.  Shotgun advice misses and hits.

B. The year off advice is regurgitated a lot. Good intentions there (exploring the world of possibilities / getting experience) but don’t fool yourself. I’m from a city with a deflated economy; my peers, as awesome as they are, struggle to get local jobs with their humanities degree. Not everyone can afford the social and economic risks associated with relocating.

A year off is a luxury. If you can, do it – enjoy yourself. Read. Work. Swim, whatever. But don’t fool yourself thinking that a year off is something you ought to struggle through.  And don’t fool yourself that you should consider it “time for yourself”.

As a matter of fact, I think we should all be developing coping strategies for the stress and work load that we will eventually face.

So that’s my advice. Figure out how much you can take. Figure out how to take more. Don’t burn out.

 

I'm 22, a baby just coming out of undergrad, and I'm starting to get INCREDIBLY nervous about jumping straight into a Ph.D. program! I keep wondering whether I should have done a M.A. first or, even more, whether I should have done a gap-year like the advice in the above forum posts very smartly suggested, but I've made my decision and I have to deal with it, so now I'll try to justify it to myself and to you 2015ers who bravely want to do the same thing I'm embarking on! My professors all advised me with some words of wisdom and comfort about going straight on, so, 2015ers, I'll tell you why they (and hopefully me, eventually, once I get some confidence) think that moving straight on might not be such a bad idea for some people:
 
1. You're still in "school mode," so you might have more motivation to continue in that mindset, and you won't need to reset yourself once you're back in an academic setting.
 
2. The job market is bad in ANY and EVERY field, (I know, no shit, sherlock), so it might be more trouble than it's worth to find a temporary year-long job, and it might not even be financially the best thing in the grand scheme of your life. Especially if you have student loans, the chance to defer makes grad school the better potential option financially.
 
3. (1+2 were my professors, but this one's mine!) If you're dead serious about this, if you KNOW you want a Ph.D/M.A, why put off the inevitable? I know being an English professor is the only thing I'll ever wake up every day wanting to do, so, for me, doing a year of something else just wastes time and delays the life I want. Every minute I'm not reading or writing feels . . . like I'm not being ME.
 
TL;DR: If you feel burnt out, if you need more time to work on your applications, if you need to feel more sure that a graduate degree is what you want, take a year off! Heck, even if you think it would make you happy to travel or something before more school for no other reason than you feel like it, DO IT!!! But, if you're feeling like anything besides graduate school would be a waste of time, don't feel like you HAVE to take a year off simply because that's the best path for someone else. Now, for all I know I could be full of crap and an idiot for starting a program so young and admittedly from such a sheltered little life, but only time will tell if you should listen to my advice, dear 2015ers

Oh, it is so tempting to get in on this, but I am determined to spend the summer before starting up PhD work dedicated to pleasure reading Cloud Atlas and Red Rising. Could I blog about that? 

I'm going conference-crazy this summer. Crashing one at Maryland at the end of May, then CW, then a pair in DC in June. Registration fees are for people who need nametags, academic conferences are easy to crash.

My next step is working out my parental leave for next year!

It'll depend on who you ask, as these things are necessarily subjective. I don't think there's any one definition of "top tier" or "mid tier," and I find these words are frequently redefined depending on the conversation. That said, the metric that I've heard thrown around the most is that "top tier" correlates to the top 20 (according to the USNWR). I feel like there's little-to-no consensus on what constitutes the boundary between mid / low tier, though I can't imagine defining a school in the 40-50s (when there are 150+ English PhD programs in the country!) as "low tier."
 
Just my $.02, though.

You may be correct about this. I did explain to them how they were a better fit for me but it didn't seem right to turn down the offer at this point. I also mentioned that hopefully I am lucky enough to get a second chance when I apply for their PhD.

The program advisor was very kind and said he wished he was able to extend an offer to me earlier to beat the competion. He added, 'I hope you consider us when it is time for your PhD.'

So I am glad that I have left things on good terms with them.


And I feel a LOT better after talking to you guys about it. So thank you

Well... here we go again. The past year, I only applied for a couple spots, and I made many mistakes. Trying to build up steam for this round, and I am joining this group EARLY so that I work hard over the summer. Let's do this.

Yeah that would work if I am not mistaken. Since property is a commodity which can be translated in liquid money it should work but not 100% sure, still I would advise you to have a word with concerned people I recommended in earlier post.  

FWIW I applied for an F-1 visa and from what I remember my funding information was only about the first year. I wasn't asked about that at all. I do think it might depend on individual cases and whether or not your case raises suspicion that you might not be funded beyond your first year. However, the 'funding conditional upon good standing' clause is pretty standard in funding letters so I think you don't need to worry about that. That said, I totally understand why you do worry. Maybe your school's international students office can give you more information. 

I recommend asking in the Physics section

You may be correct about this. I did explain to them how they were a better fit for me but it didn't seem right to turn down the offer at this point. I also mentioned that hopefully I am lucky enough to get a second chance when I apply for their PhD.

The program advisor was very kind and said he wished he was able to extend an offer to me earlier to beat the competion. He added, 'I hope you consider us when it is time for your PhD.'

So I am glad that I have left things on good terms with them.


And I feel a LOT better after talking to you guys about it. So thank you

You may be correct about this. I did explain to them how they were a better fit for me but it didn't seem right to turn down the offer at this point. I also mentioned that hopefully I am lucky enough to get a second chance when I apply for their PhD.

The program advisor was very kind and said he wished he was able to extend an offer to me earlier to beat the competion. He added, 'I hope you consider us when it is time for your PhD.'

So I am glad that I have left things on good terms with them.


And I feel a LOT better after talking to you guys about it. So thank you

The flight to LA from NYC is the same length as a flight to London from NYC. Just saying. It's the same country, but it's still a big move. And an expensive one at that.
 
Although I'm actually kind of excited to start over someplace new! I'm in my mid twenties, and it's time to do something just for me and my career. It's quite possibly the bravest thing I've ever done (which says a lot about how minimal my capacity for bravery is...)
 
For me, the waiting is the hard part. I'm starting to make plans, but it's not time to act on them yet. Course options for the Fall aren't up. And I know this is the time to rest and relax before 5-8 years of insanity, but resting and relaxing aren't my strong suits. Hence the choice to get a PhD in the first place.

I totally understand this feeling. I'm an east coaster currently living in Asia, and I've only been able to see my family twice in the last two years. While it's good to be going back home to the U.S., I'll be relocating to the west coast....which strangely feels like another continent away from my home in Virginia! 

You may be correct about this. I did explain to them how they were a better fit for me but it didn't seem right to turn down the offer at this point. I also mentioned that hopefully I am lucky enough to get a second chance when I apply for their PhD.

The program advisor was very kind and said he wished he was able to extend an offer to me earlier to beat the competion. He added, 'I hope you consider us when it is time for your PhD.'

So I am glad that I have left things on good terms with them.


And I feel a LOT better after talking to you guys about it. So thank you