Hegel's Bagels

I just wanted to pipe in with the fact that I'm commiserating - quietly. Part of the reason for my silence is admittedly a bit of paranoia - you never know who's out there listening, right? Another contributing factor is pure superstition - I don't want to jinx myself, after all.

Well, there's the neurotic bits taken care of, then!

That said, I'd really love to find a place at Duke, Temple, or Rutgers. I see I am not the only one who would love to not have to deal with issues of long-distance, so Duke is not only attractive in terms of who I'd like to work with, but also in terms of proximity to my significant other (in NC), my children (I've a middle-schooler who's decided - at least for the time being - to remain in GA; the other two are adults but still live in the same area, and because we are quite close, I want to remain as near as possible), and the rest of my family (including my mother, who just completed a battle with cancer, with thankfully excellent outcome, and who also resides in the South). Of course, I will be thrilled with ANY acceptance. The necessity of travel - possibly for some distance - in order to persue graduate education has been a topic of discussion with all the people in my life for some years now, but since I finished undergrad last year, it feels much more real and I suspect any acceptances have a greater degree of bitter to temper the sweet than they do for many others, given my family situation.

One rule in my applications process was that I would not apply to any schools outside of my family's time zone. Another litmus test was ease of travel between key cities via plane, and general cost of airfare between cities. Fortunately, that still leaves an embarrassment of riches, but all other things being equal, I would still prefer to be closer than farther from those I love.

I am running into a situation that seems to be a bit opposite from many of you - I fear I may be a little overly relaxed about this whole process. Naturally, I wonder about how my packet is faring under the various adcoms, but I can't say it's a moment-to-moment (or even daily) curiosity. I spent the last couple years of undergrad worrying myself into a froth over that much more than I have since the apps have gone out. Maybe it's just because I feel like everything I *could* have done to better my application were things that I did/didn't do over the past few years; no sense in worrying over it now. In fact, because of my lack of obssessiveness, I fear more that in my low-key approach, I may have overlooked something (and my reluctance to hound the poor grad secretaries over whether they received such-and-such from so-and-so) than I do worrying over whether the adcom feels I am a suitably shiny candidate for their program. Case in point: I recently had a program contact me about not receiving my GRE scores when I thought they'd already been sent to the school - so perhaps I would do well to be a little bit more OCD about the process itself!

I just keep reminding myself: ANY yes is a good yes. And I'm not here to collect prizes: I only need that ONE.

If I may chime in w/a former child-of-a-PhD student's perspective. I think it's been already stated but I don't think the move is going to be that bad on the kid. Like all moves, it sucks losing friends but I remember when we moved, were living on campus and there were a lot of other kids around whose parents were doing similar things, so we formed our community of sorts. There were moments I could tell sucked for my mom because she had the stress of trying to be a parent and being a student at the same time, i.e., making it to silly school plays, taking me to piano recitals, sports and the like, when I'm sure she really could've used a night in. As far as the money situation, I never knew we were poor (at the time) till she told me years later. Somehow food magically appeared and I maigcally got cloths, granted it was never the 'cool' kids cloths I always wanted. Not to say that all kids' experince will be the same but I promise you, your kid will be fine if he can find one or two other kids to bond with. Kids are weird that way

Tried that but the yoga instructor at my gym is waaaayyyy too positive. She kept telling us to let go of all of our negative energy and I was like 'But that's what sustains me and keeps me from falling into a heap on the ground sobbing hysterically!!!" So I dropped yoga and took up wine making. Now as I obsessively check my emails, spam box, and phone every 3 seconds I am becoming pleasantly intoxicated by the alcoholic fumes wafting off the fermenting buckets in my bedroom....

I jumped a foot when I got an email from the University of Notre Dame. Then I realized it was announcing a sale from ND Press. Then I remembered that I didn't apply to Notre Dame...

Yea those emails are really strange. At first I almost died from a heart attack because I thought it meant they already made a decision...and we all know what those emails mean :-\ On a positive note though, I found out I'm on the short list for one of my top choices! *crosses fingers*

laudanum

I've read most of the stuff people are listing.

But my big gap is female writers. No Austen, no Brontes, no George Eliot, No Woolf, No Chopin, etc, etc, etc.

Started many of them, but they're all just so awful.

I messed up an entire sentence in my final paragraph. Are we, by any chance, the same person? Wishing us both luck with JH...

Art History isn't meant to start until February, but when someone posted last week that a school had merely contacted them we were all aflutter. Clearly we are not the beacons of patience we thought we were!

I kind of wish grad apps had a "live" status bar like the Domino's Pizza website. So it would say Prof. So-and-so reviewing! Prof. Such-and-such second review! etc.

Except for some reason, no matter what Domino's I order from, it's always some guy named Zack making my pizza.

I prefer to think of it as an "open relationship" consisting of me, my boyfriend, and my grad apps.

It seldom helps to contact a professor in advance, and quite often hurts. Most prospective students don't know how to pull off this type of message without seeming weirdly vague, obsequious, and demanding all at the same time. Professors do *not* want to be contacted for selling purposes. It's nothing but annoying; we'll get the application and decide on that basis. Some are willing to be contacted if you have a serious, well-informed question. You might try getting advice from a department assistant or current grad student first about whether it makes sense to be in touch.

In answer to the original question: Writing sample, SoP, grades. The SoP doesn't count as much overall as the writing sample but it is the gateway to the writing sample—if the SoP is terrible the sample may not get read. GREs and letters matter to help answer specific questions (what does a 3.65 really mean at X small college we've never heard of? how motivated is this student really? why the dip in grades in fall of junior year? etc.).

Agreed with everyone that said you should do both. Why? Because for the rest of your career as an academic, you will be doing both. I either cancel class or get a colleague to cover for me when I'm at a conference. That's just the way it rolls and everyone (from full professor on down the line) does it. You just offer to teach for them next time, buy coffee/lunch/dinner, etc. My fellow graduate students are always happy to help out and we've all covered for one another.

So yea, I got accepted.

misspelled BERKELEY as BERKLEY... champ

If you want to work in an art museum, some form of background in art history is absolutely required. An application with an undergraduate degree in education and a masters degree in museum studies would be on the dismissed pile faster than you can snap. An undergraduate degree in art history, and a masters in either museum studies or art history is very acceptable (as long as you have plenty of experience working in the education department in museums).

I actually know educators who have two masters degrees: one in art history, the other in museum education.

Museum education is a VERY popular field - actually, any job in the arts sector is very competitive and many candidates are very (or even over-) qualified for open positions. Being the strongest applicant you can be (and, in museums, that usually involves WORKING in a museum A LOT) is your best bet.

People who want to work in art museums? Or people who want to get a museums education (not particular to which kind of museum they work in, or interested in a particular museum but not necessarily art history). There are people from all over who go into museum studies, but that doesn't mean that they are well-suited for an ART museum education position.

When I told my thesis advisor that (upon reading Judith Butler) I didn't find the theory of gender performativity to be the most revolutionary thing, or a particular surprise to me, his reasoning was that (and he is gay and we have a rapport) possibly because I am bisexual, I am already constituted with the ideas of gender fluidity by sheer practice. In other words, I've been participating in subversive bodily acts for most of my adult life.

I just feel like humanities students are the most pathetic forms of people. Humanities are easy and pointless and that's why the field is so flooded. Sciences (such as physics) are what really impacts the world and changes things and helps people. What do humanities really do?

The students are pathetic too. They are miserable because they tried to do what they loved but society hated it. Society hates them because they are just writers and 99.9% of writers are pathetic too. Even the Simpsons hates grad students. Those poor grad students, they can't even watch the simpsons to escape their woe!

Idk, I loved humanities and thought they were great but now I realized that I was wrong to enjoy them and that writing, and humanities are bad, their practitioners are pathetic and that sciences are the only way, even if you don't enjoy them, because they are the only way to actually do things.

Maybe I'm just cynical.

I'm not planning to do this, but it's fun to think about: since the AW score is a bit pointless for many disciplines, has anyone ever thought to just skip it, accept the 0, and save an hour's/45 minutes worth of thinking over nothing?

Even better - has anyone ever done this? If so, how did it work out for you?

Edit: Sorry for the typo!

I'm also fond of humming Monty Python's "Always look on the bright side of life" just another option

I have that problem too; we will do working drafts and read them in class and get feedback, and other students say my ideas are complex and the professors provides positive feed back and gives the gold star. someone else will turn in a craptacular draft that is obviously not graduate level work, but b/c it's good work for THAT student, I get a B and they get an A. Talk about wanting to slit some tires. Final papers don't get feed back from our profs, which is total BS, b/c none of us ever know why we earned the grade we did. In a way grading each student is fair, but for the good students who are graded harshly, it is counter intuitive. Our program is full of students who think doing the work earns them an A, because for the most part, our professors have no back bone and don't want to hurt/offend them. The few really great students made Bs and keep it a secret b/c we are being treated unfairly and know it, but can't do anything about it. I don't tell anyone my grade, they assume I made As b/c of how good my work is that we are forced to share. But my profs grade me harder than anyone else, so they always mange to give Bs. Sounds like all of your graduate peers are being graded fairly though, but I still wouldn't give out my grades.

Is it confrontation to ask someone not to be unnecessarily rude to another member? This forum should be a safe space for discussion (and in this case, venting) without personal attacks. There are other ways to disagree with what HaruNoKaze has expressed in his/her post.

Doc--

Then why are you trying to provoke a confrontation with a highly respected member of this BB?

StrangeLight: there's no need for rudeness. And it seems a little strange for a criticism of another's writing to be so badly plagued by poor punctuation.

As regards jealousy and the unpleasantries it spawns, my experiences have taught me to ignore it completely. Throughout graduate school I had a nemesis colleague in my department who took every available opportunity to criticize my ideas and talk poorly of me to my peers and professors. One of my friend's attended a workshop on turning a seminar paper into a publishable essay. During the meeting, my friend mentioned that I had been published in a specific journal, at which point my nemesis felt the need to suggest that I had stolen the ideas for the paper from someone else. Amazingly, she had been a student in the seminar when I wrote the first version of the paper and had heard me give a presentation about it! The fact of the matter is that some people feel a deep sense of insecurity and choose to lash out as others as a means of dissipating that feeling. Whether it's childish, sociopathic, or just plain silly is beside the point. You will never win an argument with another person's irrationality. The best option for you is to preserve your reputation as a collegial scholar, and that usually means avoiding confrontation with provocateurs.