theresatwist

This might seem like a bit of a silly question, but as a non-US student, I'm not sure what the norm is for PhD student offices. I was studying at Edinburgh University before, and most research students (MA/MSc and PhD) get shared offices usually within their department or within their school/college. I was on an MA Research program and had a pretty basic office which I shared with three other people from the college. It was great because it meant we had a safe place on campus to keep books and computers and stuff, and personally I think working away from home is better. I think this is pretty normal in the UK, and am curious to know if there's something similar in most US universities? I guess this probably depends on departments, maybe?

so this morning (i'm on GMT here) there's a submission for columbia GSAS in the east asian studies PhD. anyone else have news? damn, this is intense!

yes! it's a bit of a mess with fulbright, though of course there are perks, so all in all they outweigh the negative bits as for the apartments, i looked at http://www.elmcampus.com/properties.htm. they're pricey, but seem really nice! if we do end up going (i'd be travelling with my partner, who must get a vote on which city we're moving to!), then march 30th actually sounds like a pretty good date. ha, and thanks for your offer re. friend's father. i'm sure we'll take up you on the architecture tour actually! my father is an architect as well, so i'm pretty used to (and always enjoy) the enthusiastic architecture tour i'll keep you posted and let you know once we decide what we're doing.

aha! here i was thinking i was alone in feeling stoopid! i totally think the adcoms mixed up the papers, or at least maybe they neglected to read my writing sample? but yes, i've started re-reading basic texts in my field of study too, hoping not to make a complete fool of myself come september!

well, fulbright tries to limit contact between prospective students and departments while the application process is underway. i think it's more for their own ability to control what's going on - what happens for us foreign fulbrighters is that fulbright/IIE does the applications for us so they are the ones who get contacted once a decision is made. fulbright works essentially as an exchange program, so they are actually 'placing' foreign students at american universities, and want to control the process. the problem with this is that it's done through their NYC offices, which probably deal with thousands of applications each session, which means sometimes they also take a bit of time in forwarding the info on to the students. but because fulbright (at least in europe) also offers a stipend of 25k in the first year and 12k in the second year, they are also interested in negotiating financial packages and insurance, etc. directly with universities. this means that not only am i not really allowed to contact the departments directly until more results come in and i make a final decision, but i don't even have the usernames and passwords to access my own applications! ugh. as for housing, yeah, i was looking at the grad apartments too - they looked okay actually. i did my undergrad and MA studies in the UK and am used to much lower standards of student housing! did you check out the yale properties? they looked gorgeous but far too pricey for me. when will you be visiting? if i end up going it'll probably be late march and i'll try and couchsurf to keep costs low and meet folks. oh, and on your previous comment: yes! getting into yale has felt pretty unreal. i honestly never thought i could do it (i've been developing plan B the past few weeks) and still read my acceptance letter daily to make sure i'm not crazy. but now, impostor syndrome is settling in, and i'm a little obsessed about reading as much as possible before september so i don't feel like a complete freak.

Leahlearns: Yeah, I only applied to PhD programs. I didn't know much about the UW Seattle program though, just read up on it after reading older posts on this thread - sounds pretty good indeed. Regarding Stanford, I keep checking the online app thing but it seems from previous submissions that most people find out through email/post. But still, it's hard not to login a few times a day - well, just in case..! tyler1: thanks for the tip. I need to contact the schools and find out if they could offer anything. Would be neat if people visiting campuses and Asian Studis depts could post back info and stuff, what do you say? :wink:

same here, very psyched about having been accepted at Yale and about 99% sure i'll attend! i was wondering what everyone's experiences were re. visiting new haven. i'm not in the US at the moment and have heard from a few friends that places like yale usually offer students a bit of money to travel and visit the campus. i suppose it would probably depend on the department though? any ideas? so far the department has mentioned nothing, but because i'm on a foreign fulbright grant and am not allowed to directly contact the department (!!), i haven't asked. should i ask later on (once i'm allowed)? is there some kind of norm to this? thanks!

Leahlearns, what other programs did you apply to? It's weird and unnerving that they take so long to get back to people. According to the entries on the submissions page, it seems like folks already got results back from Harvard and Stanford sometime last week, so uh - maybe this coming week? :shock:

Glad i finally found this thread! Any news from Harvard or Stanford? There aren't too many submissions on the admissions results page... So far I've been accepted at UT Austin (CompLit) and Yale (EALL) and will most probably end up turning down the UT offer (even though they wrote the nicest offer letter) and taking the Yale offer (I still login and check the notification everyday to make sure I'm not crazy). I'm not in the US and kind of wanted to visit campuses if I got accepted at some other Northeastern school. Who's visited/planning on visiting the schools they applied to? Any thoughts?