cyborges

Here's a fun question: is the UM Credit Union a good place to bank? What are the major banks in Ann Arbor? I ask this because I'm interested in being a part of a credit union or other localized banking system in Ann Arbor, not because I don't know what Bank of America is (I have that now). I'm mostly concerned with ATM surcharges, as probably nobody in the world could have worse interest rates/random fees for their customers than BoA (also please note: I am not an econ/finance major, this could be patently untrue).

during my visits to two top 10 programs this year, i met several people who came from significantly lower ranked and no-name schools (and their master's programs). that is to say, top programs aren't just admitting master's students from the most highly regarded schools.

Thanks for your post. Today I also began the process of signing a lease, but I did so without visiting. I found that when I searched for "Ann Arbor 1 Bedroom September" I found several realty companies that had places, with pictures, that had a suitable move in date for my needs. I'm glad I didn't bother with craigslist as a result, mostly for time reasons related to contacting people and negotiating something like this from afar. Anyway, I pass along this info for anyone else interested. You might pay a tad bit more than you would on craigslist, but I found an affordable 1 bedroom in a house, closer than 1.5 miles from school, and in a nice neighborhood.

it's annoying and unprofessional for the school to do this. GET ON IT -- am i right?

not to be a downer, but this is also the life of an academic to some extent -- research grants and/or institutions, figuring out what needs to go into a particular fellowship application, emailing your support network and coordinating them to speak on your behalf, and THEN writing the actual grant proposal or fellowship application. add in waiting to hear from those institutions and being rejected more often then not. in short, you have to have a thick skin. consider this a dry run and get used to it!

also this thread is two years old -- which meant that you searched thegradcafe "archives" to respond to it. where's freud when you need him?

Congrats on your success and it's useful to know that people can have poor scores and still achieve great placement. but I'd have to agree with misterpat -- as a general indicator of success, a 300 on the QUANT GRE is absolutely ridiculous and should be read as a red flag. if learning disabilities are a factor, these should be indicated elsewhere in the application, or personally conveyed to POIs.

if you start early, you can apply to as many as 15 and not feel crazy. obviously you should write one SOP if possible, just substitute the end matter for each program. I say apply to as many as possible since we all know it's a crap shoot to be admitted even to your best fit (in most cases, props to all those who got like 10 admissions). i applied to 15 and was accepted to three programs in the generally agreed-upon top 10. the only thing that is really prohibitive is cost.

i did email them and the administrator was surprised that the grad school hadn't notified, but said she wasn't on the list of admitted students. if you really want to find out, you should perhaps do the same?

excuse me, I'll be having the last word here. can we stop littering the forum with some pointless clarifications?

It's pretty ridiculous to think your GPA would hold you back if your writing sample and SOP are spot on. I would actually encourage NOT over-explaining your academic history beyond mere rudimentary, professional ways (2 sentences or so). They want to know why you left, but overdoing the story can make a red flag where there isn't one. If you're interested in 20th century american intellectual history, you should add Harvard, University of Michigan, Stanford, and Berkeley. IMHO, you have too many state schools on the list that might get crap funding when they do admit you, but I'm not claiming to be an expert. I have no idea about going to the UK to do a master's, but since you mentioned finances before it seems prohibitively expensive unless they give you funding. Do they, typically? If not, it DOES make sense to study US history in the US in a master's program that might give you a tuition waver to boot---just saying. Anyway, good luck. And WANT it, but don't want it too bad. Apply far and wide, forget about your GPA worries (which are so off-base it's incredible), and don't bomb the GRE.

I'm an incoming phd student. Here's a re-cast question that's probably been asked about 100 times in this thread (I don't mention homelessness herein, so no worries): I want a single bedroom apartment in AA that is not in the area where the undergrads live. I know that West and North are directions I should head, but Craigslist pictures and location strategizing should probably be supplemented with data from people in the know. What is up with the "clubhouses" or apartments with such facilities that I see on CL? Are those real? They seem really tacky. Is it common from grad students to live in these places? Are high-rise style apartments generally better than ground-level, faux-house units (10+ unit kind)? Or is it the other way around? Aesthetically, the idea of living the faux-house is less appealing, but I'm curious what both have to offer. In the past, I've lived in apartments that have been a part of normal houses (3 stories or so). I'm sure Ann Arbor has these, but are they more difficult to come by? Is the market saturated with condos or corporate living? I prefer to live in a house-type apartment, but a one bedroom or studio seems rarer. Am I a right, or am I crazy and just not looking hard enough? Last real question: I'm looking for september starting dates at a time when literally everyone else is too -- any advice on assuaging the terrible, stressful efforts of the housing search? Is Ypsi the answer to all my problems? Alright, feel free to interpret my post in whatever way you see fit. Oh, I almost forgot. I insist on bringing my Ford Mustang Mach1 (w/ spoiler). I recently removed the muffler and hope to wake you all up at 7am when I zoom off to my finance job. Will my car get keyed for being totally foolish-looking? Are homeless people typically keying fake-nice cars because they're all criminals?

I pm'd you

I live in cambridge now. the intellectual community is great and the graduate students are interesting and friendly, but Harvard will always have a vibe. that's part of its power, and you will probably feel really good about yourself if you attend that institution and it fits your interests in any way. You can't beat the libraries and the opportunity to interact with world-renowned scholars on a (literal) daily basis, if you choose. BOSTON, however, is boring--and that goes for all of cambridge/somerville/boston. Harvard square is like a mall, there is no good coffee anywhere, and everywhere else takes you into neighborhoods without real charm or living, interesting businesses. Central/Kendall is even worse, though I live at Inman and find it bearable. But then, there's no subway there. i didn't live in berkeley but will simply say that the Bay Area is one of the most beautiful places in the country. the landscape is sublime (to Boston's quaint) and the cities are all incredible. San Francisco is easily among the most interesting city in the country. AND, they'll tell you things are expensive, but Boston overall is MORE expensive. The reasons are not rent-based, but the way businesses are set up. Boston is corporate. the competition between businesses isn't holistic or community-minded, and therefore things are expensive because they can be overall-- no one has sought to prove you can sell at $7.00 sandwich in cambridge and have it still be good. again, you will never find a decent coffeeshop in the area of your school (union sq has some) and will be forced to drink pete's swill and have awkward, over-wrought interiors where nobody can possibly study. anyway, i'd go to berkeley. However, the vagueness of your post makes it difficult for anyone to offer you any REAL advice because we can't comment on professors and field and speculate about something real--like tell you professor X or Y has two job offers for endowed chairs, or that A B C faculty don't work well together. those are much more likely to affect your experience at any institution. instead, things like "feeling" and "location" are the nature of the advice you'll get. both are good schools, both will get you appropriate, similar jobs if you do a good job for yourself.

yes, still. emailed them today but no reply. what is the deal?

I ABSOLUTELY cannot believe that nobody here as mentioned the importance of the writing sample to drive home that you are qualified to begin graduate work. With the Statement of Purpose and letters of recommendation, these are things that will be read and understood by all faculty on the admissions committee -- it doesn't matter what field you're in, everyone knows a terrible writing sample when they see one. Your needs to be, to quote Harvard's website, "A writing sample of exceptional quality" and, as a UChicago person advised me, show that you know how to work with primary sources, if not be based on primary sources entirely. This means you don't need to make an original contribution, but your writing sample should show that A: you know how to use and access an archive, or closely read primary sources at the very least B: you can construct a thesis, and ask historical questions that are both applicable to the paper internally and to the field that you propose to enter. If you don't know what questions 19th century American intellectual history is asking in the first place, you'll never get into a respectable program with a SOP detailing your interest in that. C: you can write elegantly, intelligently, while demonstrating that your prose isn't over-wrought D: that you have a good academic track record that can goes beyond what grades and recommendations can say. They can judge who you think you are as an historian through the writing sample better than anything else. In sum, while contacting professors can potentially reveal mentors (who will help you beyond just their own program and whom you might as well be connected to anyway if you propose to be a historian of x or y field), the writing sample and the statement of purpose are the two factors you can control that admissions committees look at in detail. The other important thing are letters, obviously, but can only guess at what they'll say. In sum: Don't get lazy with your writing sample. It's more important and time consuming than contacting people, researching programs, reading professor's books (probably unnecessary for applying, and definitely gauche to mention in a SOP). Spend all your time on the SOP of the sample, and you will convey your ability to think deeply about a potential project (SOP) and a past one (Writing Sample).

I don't get this. I haven't been notified by Columbia at this moment, and yet the results board and this thread seem to indicate people have been getting rejection letters. And I gathered that those rejection letters were emails, sending the applicant to a website. I've checked my email inbox, my spam box, and even my Columbia application (+ application status file), without any luck. Is anyone else experiencing this longer wait?

ok, now that i've come to my senses, i've managed to find the insane "begging" thread. unfortunately, it is so massive and catty that I couldn't actually glean any information from it. Is there anyone out there who wonders how you should go about getting a bit more funding? Someone in the other thread mentioned that leveraging a deal would come across as ungrateful and would change the perception of the candidate. I wonder if this is true -- shouldn't a school want the people who they accepted first to attend? Obviously, being tactful is essential. What do other people think?

interesting. do you mind expanding on this a bit? There is something to be said about getting into a top program that people should certainly be proud of, but of course candidates should be judged on the quality and originality of their work when they enter into the job market. It may be an "early modern" mentality, but do you think it's disappearing?

if you'd like to appeal for some financial aid reevaluation THROUGH your department(sweetening the deal, say), who do you talk to? The Director of Graduate Studies? Or through the person most likely to go to bat for you? It seems I don't have any one-on-one meetings during my visiting day, but I'm weighing two offers and could be convinced to decide if I had a bit more funding. apologies if this has been answered elsewhere. if so, could someone post a link?

History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art. Thank you for your input. I am curious about program rankings though -- i wish it was easier to understand how people on the outside feel about ranks/prestige. I know that going to an ivy but mediocre program will hurt you (unlike undergrad), but I still would like to know the general sense. A professor I talked to said Santa Cruz is much more highly regarded than their US News ranking states, but I have no info to back that up.

i live in san francisco. but i don't have a car or really access to one.

I'll apply this to my scenario too, even with the difference in fields. I've heard this from lots of grad students. Any arguments against?

I'm not sure how to search for this question specifically, so I apologize if there are a million threads about this other places. I'm having trouble deciding between two programs: Art/Architectural History -- MIT *** Masters Program (called SMArchS) Half Funded Literature -- UC Santa Cruz *** PhD Program Funding for at least three years. Both focus on contemporary theory and are excellent matches for different reasons. Obviously, everyone I tell who isn't wrapped up in this process hears MITs name and immediately thinks that's where I should go. But the program isn't funded, and it isn't a full PhD -- the only real justification I could have for going there over Santa Cruz is "deciding" I wanted to be an Art History / Architectural Theory person instead of an English, American Studies, or Comp Lit person... right? What does everyone think? I'm curious because I am torn between wanting to go to MIT for both program and name, and wanting to go to Santa Cruz for an excellent (but not popularly known) literature/critical theory program and funding to boot. I'm going to visit both programs next week, so I will have a chance to meet with faculty from both. What would you do?

I would write an email to the program coordinator and ask something like "Thank you for informing me of your decision and I respect it entirely. Could you please inform me what specifically was lacking from my application so that I can present myself as a better candidate in the future? Or direct me to the person that could tell me that information? I appreciate the work that goes into both sides and recognize that perhaps I wasn't a perfect fit this time -- I'm simply wondering what you were looking for. Sincerely, Yourself" I think you're allowed to ask, especially if you were wholly rejected. There are plenty of intelligent and interesting people who just have trouble selling themselves and I think programs understand it -- part of what they're looking for in candidates is this ability and it's certainly something people can work on, it being a skill that will aide us for the rest of our professional careers.