CageFree

You know nothing about my background (or anybody else's) to be making such an assumption.

Talented people who are willing to take adjunct positions make the market harder for everyone else by cheapening our labor. Just a thought.

I definitely recommend contacting POIs, if nothing else to make sure that you're a potentially good fit, or that they are still taking students. There were 3-4 programs that I was initially interested in... then I found out that the POIs were all retiring and no longer taking students; in addition, at one particular program, the other person I'd been interested in working with instead told me s/he was planning to be gone for research for a couple of years and wasn't really interested in working on a project like mine. I didn't apply to any of those programs and saved myself $350.

I have a Kindle Paperwhite and I use it primarily for PDFs. It also reads Word documents. The only downside is that if the PDFs are book scans (like two book pages per PDF page), the screen size may be a bit small for reading them. Other than that, I absolutely love it.

I figured that too, living West Davis. When it rains, it really sucks. And if you have night classes, it can be pretty brutal. There is cheaper housing north of Russell between Anderson and F/G Streets. I have friends that have found 1-bd places for under 800.

This. I ended up changing minor fields because I realized that the prof. I was interested in working with for the minor was not a good fit for me, but is the only person in that subfield. I'm not sure I would have picked a different school given the options I had, but it's something to consider. Also, funding for summer can be subfield dependent. In my program, relatively generous summer funding is almost a given for my particular subfield, but it's not so in others. If you have any wiggle room (i.e. can try to improve an offer), I would strongly push for some kind of summer funding guarantee, even if it's for one summer.

Yeah, mine won't either. In fact, international students have to take those exams as well (even though they have college degrees from those countries).

My program requires a department-administered test and will not accept grades as "proof," but like NEN said, policies vary by department.

Move out. NOW.

I just took my language exam (Spanish). I had two hours to translate a page from a scholarly piece, and then answer a number of comprehension questions (in English). I was allowed to use a dictionary if I needed it.

Just to echo what has been said, please don't worry about this just yet. Admissions are kind of tricky because it's not just about how good of an applicant you are, but also how well you fit with your POI's current research interests, and even whether they plan to offer the classes you would need in the next couple of years due to planned sabbaticals. Also, for example, if the previous cohort had a large number of people in subfield X, they may chose to admit no one in subfield X this year, and viceversa. In the end, what matters is that you get a funded offer in a place that is a good fit for you.

Not all the UCs are in the same situation, FYI. Some programs are in bad shape, others are in very good shape. A lot of departments (including mine) have cut the size of the cohorts, but that's in large part due to the job market.

If the OP is sure he or she does not want a PhD, it seems to me that it'd be dishonest to apply to a program only to drop out after being done with coursework.

I read that last quarter for a class. What do you think of it?

I used the ETS book - granted, there weren't a lot of books out at the time because the test was brand new. I had a Princeton Review from the old version that I used for the math review. For the essays, I read the strategy and then just practiced writing a couple to get used to outlining and the time constraints, and that was it. I also did a lot of vocab. I had a huge box of flash cards lying around from who knows when, and I downloaded a free Kaplan vocab app on my phone. That was probably the most helpful thing in terms of my verbal score.

4. History. My adviser has been on leave and there have been less classes available than I thought there would be available. I'm not used to living in a small town yet. However, I love my cohort, the profs have been very supportive, and my experience overall has been really great.

I have a Dakine backpack... it's water resistant, has a cooler insulator pocket for lunch, a padded area for my electronics, and it's not too bulky. I bought a 11.6 in. laptop (it's not a netbook... it's an actual laptop but it's netbook sized)... it's not super powerful but that's actually a good thing, I can't do much more than use the internet and write. My husband got me a Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas and now I don't even take the laptop with me everyday... I just take the kindle unless I plan to write on campus.

Several people in my cohort have had their advisers on sabbatical or leave (myself included), and we just started. All of us have been able and encouraged to email them, and they've all made the effort to meet with us as needed. Unless your adviser is out of the state, chances are she will be able to meet with you, or you may be able to schedule a Skype chat if the prof. is farther away (like on a research trip). In general terms, the expectation is that you will make that effort. Just send a quick e-mail saying you want to touch base to discuss your thesis, and would like to meet/speak at her convenience.

I consider it being able to pass a language exam for grad school. I took German for a year and Latin for two but it was a long time ago and I'm out of practice, so I can't read either. However, I am fully bilingual in Spanish, and the Latin helped me with French and Portuguese, so I can read both of those languages well enough to read academic texts (with a dictionary for unknown vocab).

What happened is Winter Break If there's something I love about the quarter system is that I don't have to study over Christmas.

I'm reading Lord of the Rings. I just read The Hobbit (just in time for the movie) and figured, why not?

In my program we are allowed to take pretty much any class that's offered, as long as we can handle the workload and we don't exceed the max unit count per quarter. People who take language courses do it for credit, and take them on a pass/no pass grading basis so they don't have to stress over the amount of work.

I wrote an abstract of the thesis and explained where the chapters fit within it. I also included a brief table of contents of the entire thesis.

I'm at UC Davis. Feel free to PM me for specifics

You said non-Ivy but I'd consider UPenn. I would also look at the University of Michigan (though that's not really East Coast).