ranpi

Aaanmona, tomar post ta dekhe kharap laglo tai reply korchhi. onno deshe onek shomaye eka eka lage, tar jonno dukhho koro na, nischoi onno shohore gele notun bondhu bandhob hobe ar ekakitto thakbe na, mon chhoto koro na. Pittsuburgh university'r jonno congratulations Subhechha roilo.

@Babar - at least they told you they dont do deferrals, i have been requesting a deferral for a week now but haven't heard back from the director of graduate studies and dont even know if its allowed! altho to be honest the graduate office has been very helpful otherwise and the people there seem very polite. have to look into this fullbright thing, sounds kinda sketchy tho, but thanks for the tip and best of luck with your admissions, just stay patient it will happen @arcyoung - thank you for your sympathy! any chance you'd be sympathetic enough to send me a $80,000 check with that? ;-) yes you are right i wont get visa clearance without any proof of funding and the only funding i could get right now are loans which i am unwilling to take up (i'd be paying back a huge sum, nearly 2 million in my currency, over years if i did) so basically i am screwed right now. but its okay, i didnt apply anywhere else this year and applying to NSSR was easy because they didnt ask for a GRE score or TOEFL so that saved me some cash, I am planning to apply again if this doesnt work out, so... In the meantime i guess i will have to maintain my position as a student by deferring my admission, so that i can apply for schols, which need me to have been admitted to a school already, but in case i dont get any schol the money i will pay to maintain my spot will obviously be money lost down the drain! @anthroDork - hahaha, might be. i repeatedly asked both the graduate student assistants and the international student advisors to put me in touch with international students who are present graduates so that they can give me some pointers but was told that thei office was unauthorised to provide me with contact email addresses of the students, something regarding some amendment in the constitution. Its funny cause the student directory online provides many email addresses, i cant use them though because they dont tell me who is an international student and who isn't, it'd be weird to mail everyone in the department telling them to help me out!

Hey AnthroDork, thanks for the tip, actually that is exactly how i am looking around right now. the thing is, and this is what is confusing me, i am not sure how i shud zero in on a program, i mean some of them have courses i am likely to enjoy and benefit from, some appear to be provide the sort of interdisciplinary academic atmosphere i am keen on, but mostly no one in the departments i have looked at yet are people i see myself working with, as in their research interests don't exactly match mine, some of them work on aspects i am interested in but not on (crucial) others. I know i cannot expect an exact match but what do i look for in a potential supervisor? this isn't important for programs which dont ask me to contact people and have at least two people in mind i can work with in the dept. but most do! More importantly later during my applications I will have to convince the selection committee and possibly scholarship sponsors why whatever school i choose for myself is right for me. If i choose a school based on its general course outlines alone and not specific people how will i be able to justify why i wanted to do my PhD there in the first place?

Haha @ Babar Suleman, i know EXACTLY what you mean! My parents are going mad cause they can sense my desperation and want me to take an educational loan (which believe you me will be SO large that they AND i will spend the rest of my waking years paying it back). I have finally decided to base my decision to take up the offer if and only if i manage to crack one of these scholarships from my country, which, given the number of people who apply for them, is next to impossible. Most of the good stuff are saved for the science guys anyway. What is the deal with Fullbright? I thought it was only for exchanges. Silly me.

Hey, I am an international student from India planning to apply for a PhD in Anthropology (Socio-Cultural).I know this is early cause most of you are waiting for results but I didn't manage funding for the one school I applied to this session (NSSR), and am therefore back to looking for programs. I would preferably like to attend a program that has a strong south asian bent, since my area of work concerns India. I am also interested in the production of urban space and the role played by various (visual) media technologies in such a production. My background is a little all over the place, I did my graduation in English Literature and shifted to an interdisciplinary degree (Arts and Aesthetics, which was a combination of Cinema, Visual and Performance studies) during my Master's, so I am a little worried about what measures I might need to 'fix' this glitch. Any ideas?

yes well, i know that seems like the most obvious answer, and perhaps finally that is what i will have to do. however i was wondering if there was a way around it. is finding funding for international students at the New School usually this difficult?

Hey, So i just got through to the New School of Social Research, MA in Anthropology, but was offered no financial assistance of any kind. Being an international student from India I obviously (or maybe not so obviously) cannot fund myself for the next two years of graduate studies especially while living in New York so I am wondering what my options are. I have been in constant correspondence with the graduate school admission office (who have been very helpful) regarding possible alternative funding options, have contacted the chairperson of my department etc. already the finance department however has not been relenting such that i still do not know the exact amount I will possibly have to cough up. My chairperson tells me that scholarships are provided to some second year onwards but that's obviously a very vague possibility, similarly assistantships are difficult to come by (apparently about 16 to a student body of 200) also I am constantly told that on campus jobs are almost not available. I haven't however spoken to anyone from New School yet an i am 'not allowed to communicate with any of the present international students' in any manner, which i think is stupid since they are possibly likely to provide me with better ground realities. I really don't want to let go off the opportunity since I really like the department and the school! So I guess what I am trying to ask is, what should i do??