Loimographia

Like Punkybugsy, my roommate and I are looking for a third roommate. I also have a dog (toy poodle, she doesn't shed and loves all people), and we'd welcome another dog but she doesn't get along well with cats or birds. My roommate and I are both laid back and quiet -- my last roommates were a little party-crazy and I'm looking to avoid that this time around (please, just don't have wild 30+ people around the week final papers are due,is that so hard?). Rent is crazy-cheap ($267 + utilities, which are around $80) and within walking distance of campus plus a block away from the grocery store. The room is furnished with a queen bed and desk, and the house has air conditioning and cable internet. If anyone's interested, let me know!

can anyone recommend a good vet in the area by any chance? my dog has a history of health problems (bladder stones that have resulted in multiple surgeries) so I want to make sure I get a good vet relatively quickly, but I have no idea how to go about figuring that out...

That's kind of the point of the article, no? That the author held this naive concept of what not just grad school, but also what grad school applicants think of grad school: he thought grad applicants were just running away from their worries, and discovered, through this site, that that's not the case at all. Grad students aren't just "ivory tower aspirants" but people enmeshed in stresses equal to the "real world." I think it's also thus making the point that many people believe that academia is an escape from the "real world" but that this view is just as naive as thinking that applying to grad school is easier than finding a job. The neuroses here have revealed that applying to academia is just as intense as finding a job (and I think many here may argue that it's even more difficult), and that academia is a "real job" too. So, as mandarin.orange says, it's a win! For those saying that the article doesn't mention all the support people have gotten from gradcafe, that's because the article isn't actually a review of the website. It's exclusively about how many posts expose the certain reality that many are ignorant to: that applying to grad school is hard. So the posts of support are irrelevant to the real thesis of the article =/ Last I looked at the comments section of the article, I think most of the other readers kind of missed the point of the article as well. Half of the comments are actually pretty much: Don't go into debt for it! (Though most don't seem to understand that PhD students actually get paid...) Don't go if you can't get a job afterwards! Don't go if it's not your passion, you'll hate yourself in 10 years! I think it's a little funny, really, that they're somewhat criticizing those who use this site... when it's the exact same things we're all yelling at one another here, too.

Many, if not most, posts on these forums are from people looking for advice -- and people look for advice when they're miserable, not when everything's going right. Everyone has low points from time to time, and that's probably when they're most active (look at the explosion of neuroses during the height of application season, myself included). So I would take the forums with a grain of salt when asking whether they reflect the average grad student.

Looks like I'm headed to ND as well! I'm just gonna put this out there, that if anyone else on the board is looking for a roommate, PM me! I'd go for the grad student housing, but I'm hoping to bring my (small, very adorable) dog with me, and the campus housing doesn't allow pets

If memory serves (insert obligatory disclaimer about my memory here) Constantine legalized Christianity where it had been outlawed before. He *did* exempt Christians from certain taxes and duties, making it advantageous for the upper class to convert. This could in turn be misconstrued as making Christianity the "official" religion of the state. It most certainly was not, but given his (deathbed) conversion and reputation as "the first christian emperor" makes it easy to get that impression. It was actually fairly common practice among leaders, in general in late antiquity/early middle ages, to claim adherence to multiple religions; it was pretty much just hedging their bets ("one of these gods is bound to exist, I'll just pray to all of em!"). Christianity didn't become the state religion of Byzantium until 380, under the rule of Theodosius the First (had to look that one up curses for not remembering as much of my Byzantine class as I ought! If any of this is wrong, please step in)

I'm another medievalist for Toronto ^^ But I applied only to the MA... I'm going to pray that's why I haven't heard anything Hopefully they decide MAs after PhDs. In all honesty, Toronto would be my dream school if only they funded their MAs. As it is, even if I get in I'm unlikely to be able to afford to go I'm pretty sure there are a couple other hidden medievalists on the board who have applied as well. What's your focus?

The image of someone literally pooping on another person's weekend will probably keep me laughing through the weekend, thanks ^-^

I hate to be a critic, but I think the list might be better suited if it went by "school: those who were accepted." It'll be a little shorter, I think, and since the purpose of the thread is to help people on the waitlist get in touch with those accepted to the schools they want to attend, they can just scroll down to the school and PM those they want to, instead of having to go through the whole list. Maybe add a "*" to people's names if they've stated they absolutely intend to accept the offer so as to save time? Of course, this might be far too much trouble, in which case I don't think anyone will criticize if it just gets left as-is

http://www.bestplaces.net/col/ I found this on another GC thread and while obviously it doesn't take into account that some neighborhoods in a city may be cheaper than others, but it does give a decent overall view of how the stipend of one school might compare to another for how far each dollar stretches.

Oooh, who are the medievalists for Berkeley? Congrats to you both!

Everyone WAS being supportive initially: the advice was "hey, we totally understand how tempting it is to contact profs in the midst of all this, we feel your pain, we really do; BUT IT CAN TOTALLY BACKFIRE, SO DON'T DO IT, DON'T DO IT!" You basically really *really* lucked out that the professors didn't react poorly, because (imo) they would be pretty justified to be annoyed. They know nothing, and e-mailing them during decisions time is *just* short of nagging them, simply because you tacked on the questions about your thesis (good litmus test: would you have contacted them about reading suggestions right now if you didn't want to get an up on the admissions? If not, you're being dishonest to them). And I think a lot of profs *would* react poorly to this. I can think of at least one of my former profs who probably would have been openly irritated with you. You either lucked out and got in touch with the nicer ones, or it's perfectly possible they were merely being courteous, and now when they're reading your app, instead of thinking "oh he's got some interesting ideas" they're now thinking "oh he's the one who couldn't just leave it alone." Because our entire point in warning you was that nothing good could come of contacting them: they're not going to look at it and say "oh he's the one who was so motivated that he just had to contact me during admissions" and odds are they don't have information on your application, because that's information the main department and the adcomm itself possess, generally (hence why we said, if you have to contact someone, make it the main department secretary, because he/she/it might be annoyed about it, but that won't effect your chances). Furthermore, if every applicant did the same thing as you, and contacted these profs during decisions, it would suck up their time when they need it most (this is a really busy time of year for many profs). It makes you look, frankly, somewhat entitled, that you feel your application is worth more of a professor's time than anyone else's. I suspect this is what finally broke the straw on TMP's back. I'm sorry for sounding short with you, but I think to ask us for advice, then when it doesn't suit your purposes, to go against everything we advised, and then the moment no one says "oh that's fantastic!" for ignoring everything we say, to criticize/insult the entire board, is unfair to the rest of us, and I think a little impatience is called for. I hope, however, this post doesn't go overboard, I don't want to insult you, just point out the logic behind the initial posts, and in the reaction. I'm posting in something of rush so if this does come off as mean, I apologize.

It gave my name, so I think not bcc, but was otherwise fairly generic, with no noticeable personalization. It was from the DGS, and the title was simply "Notre Dame" no anything like "Interview!" or "We choose you!" It seemed mostly a copy-paste sort of thing.

What kind of details do you want to know? I feel like I should know the answer to that question, but I'm not sure if you want my application info (for what it's worth, I'm a medievalist, so we're not in direct competition), or details about the interview e-mail.

I'll claim the interview. Just got the e-mail not 5 minutes ago (it says something a little sad that my second impulse was to immediately post it on the results board. The first was, of course, to flail my arms wildly as I ran across the room squealing). I think there's still ample time for you to receive an e-mail though, so deep breaths! Now I feel bad that I've made you sad though I'm sorry.

awww, we love you too. I'm currently sending out warm, fuzzy feelings into the universe to convince it to work in favor of everyone on this message board (except my rivals in my field, no warm-fuzzies for you!) Also, that pic makes me think of a very sad version of UCSD's Giesel Library. So very sad

Nope, gap-yearing it out while working on languages ^^

While I agree that it may (indeed, probably) be simply the case of "there just wasn't enough room for all the awesome people," I don't think it's a wasted effort to contact and ask, because if it IS true that you've made an error somewhere, you can resolve it for next time. The truth is, if someone's GPA or GRE isn't competitive, they probably already know that. But I *have* read stories where people were told their proposed research was too narrow, or their writing sample's sources too out-of-date, or their work experience too insufficient. These are things that may have never occurred to an applicant, but they can learn are things that adcomms see as reflections of an applicant's potential. So yes, I think that it's not feasible to give every single person a "why you were rejected" answer, but it still doesn't hurt to ask, in case there actually is a reason.

If you're applying to PhD programs, don't worry about price range: you shouldn't really have to pay for a PhD; schools give both funding & tuition remission to their grad students. If you only wish to apply to master's (1-2 year) programs, funding may become more difficult, but look to the thread on funded MAs (down the list on this board) and then look up the professors there and see if there's any you'd like to work with. Other ways to get a terminal MA include UK and Canadian degrees, though these usually don't come with funding, though they do offer the occasional scholarship. Check the deadlines for these, for Oxbridge they're around October/November, unlike the December deadlines for US schools. Also remember that Oxbridge are not the only two schools in the UK: look at Glasgow and Edinburgh, and others (quick someone throw me a rope, I can't remember other good UK schools). In the US, smaller schools sometimes leave medieval studies alone and instead just place medievalists into history/english/french departments, but UK smaller schools still tend to have decent medieval studies departments. The University of Toronto is also very well known for its medieval studies department, and lists its recommended GPA for a prospective MA student as ~B to B+ range. Keep in mind that medievalists in general are rather few and far between, so unlike Americanists, who may have 3 or even 4 professors they'd like to study with at a University, medievalists may have to settle for only 1 or 2 professors with relevant interests. You may want to study only the social impact of uncloistered women on monastaries in 12th-century Northern France, but you may have to settle on being taught by a professor who focuses on literacy in the 13th century. Odds are, she'll still probably have some relevant information to your interests (I've learned this lesson myself a little too late). I also, to my knowledge, cannot think of a single school that explicitly focuses on *french* medieval studies, only European, and I assure you you will get *oodles* of use out of your French minor by going into a European program and then studying with their French historians, etc. Even people not studying French literature use French simply because much of the secondary literature over the years has been in French (I study Italy -- still gonna need to know French). You may have to end up taking courses outside your specific area of interest, but always remember that this in turn will make you more marketable as an academic later when job-searching, because universities want their professors to be able to teach undergraduates (and graduates, too, as I've noted) on a much broader variety of topics than they themselves research. Hope some of this helps, and other medievalists should feel free to step in and tell me if I've made a horrendous mistake on some facts or something.

While I would love this as a prospective student, I don't think it's all the feasible, and I think it's best to be as sympathetic to the adcomms as we wish they would be to us. Reasons why an absolute deadline might not work include: if it's an adcom that allows the professors to read the applications, there will ALWAYS be that one prof. who can never get anything done on time. Also, the reason for the varying notification times is often that the adcom will first offer a spot to their top-choice applicant, then if that person declines, offer it to the next on the list, and so on and so forth. By releasing all decisions at once, this would force the school to either deliberately limit themselves to only the number they can be *absolutely* certain to fund (and thus inevitably getting some declines, and more people get rejected from the program who might have gotten in later) OR the school would add on those extra people while assuming a certain number will decline, and then suddenly everyone accepts and they've enrolled a bunch of students they can't actually afford to fund and they overcompensate by underenrolling the next year (as we've seen). I've seen the whole "let's make all the announcements on the same day!" idea tossed around before, and while I think it's a lovely idea, I still think that if it were that easy, adcomms would have already done it. It's not like they're deliberately trying to make our lives wretched, it just feels that way on this side of the fence (although I DO kind of wonder about UToronto. I almost feel like you have to try pretty hard to make an app that sadistically designed.)

I was actually otherwise occupied! I just bought a new video game that has consumed my day. So I'm really not that terrible, i swear! I was not lurking (until just now >.> Now I just have no excuse.) Then again, playing a video game at 8 o'clock on a Saturday night isn't really that great either, huh

I didn't contact ahead of time either, and I'm really grateful for your reassurance. The forums keep posting "oh well if this professor contacts you and gushes about you, they'll really fight for your admittance, so you *have* to contact people ahead of time!" (I'm probably exaggerating here, that's just how it feels). Obviously I'm biased, but I feel it would be a little unfair if a part of the application that's not actually required in any sense should have serious bearing on admissions. Anything that's "optional" that would greatly increase your chance of admissions isn't really only optional, then, and to not out and out say "this is required" then disadvantages applicants who take the term literally. That's like saying "breathing is optional, but will greatly increase your chances of survival." That said, I still wish I had contacted my professors, to see whether they considered my interests in line with theirs (more than reading their work can tell me, at least) and, as you say, to see if they're taking on students. I found out just a little too late that my POI at UPenn isn't taking any students with my concentration for the foreseeable future due to tenure issues. Now I'm just waiting on the rejection letter

I think the presence of a serious pervasive stigma could be debated (I'll leave that to others), and I've certainly by and large seen respect for military folks in these forums, but I have seen it from one of my professors (anecdotal evidence disclaimer, obviously). My knowledge of the matter is limited, but I kind of wonder if it doesn't go back to how the Vietnam War allowed people to avoid the draft by enrolling in undergraduate or graduate studies. As a result, academics may have felt that those in the military at the time secretly (and, well, sometimes not so secretly) resented those who went into academia as cowards and/or unpatriotic. They, in turn, may have resented this resentment, and compensated by overjustifying themselves by building a subtle dislike of the military. It's easy to say "oh but that was then, this is now!" except many of the most eminent professors of today were in graduate school during the Vietnam War. So, if there really is a stigma, it's probably these older professors who give a bad rap to academia for this sort of thing

I panicked when I saw it too, but I know of several schools who separate the two departments. I think it's because History of Science/Medicine/Economics (all often set apart) are more the studies of economics/medicine/science in a historical context, rather than the study of history (and thus, really, humanity) viewed through the lens of economics/science. Different methodologies and focuses. If that makes any sense.

I've been growing worse and worse in worrying about my admissions, and finally found a solution that can distract for a few hours: beer + translating texts from Latin. Works on practicing my languages, and dulls my senses while requiring full concentration of what senses I have left. Writing it out precisely, rather than just doing rough mental translation requires even more concentration. Between the two, I can't manage to think about anything except the text in front of me, for at least an hour or two. So far, it's worked!