lovenhaight

I'm waitlisted at NCSU, so definitely let them know if/when you hear about Washington.

No one pays attention to the writing score...you don't say "I got a 1324.5". You'll be fine.

If I remember correctly, your big state school is LSU, right? One of my profs here is an LSU grad, and she really enjoyed her time there. I also wouldn't worry about being stuck in your home state after graduation...it is very rare indeed that PhD graduates end up working in the same location as their alma mater. Congratulations!!!!

I'd like to encourage people to post their decisions on this thread...it could be incredibly helpful in keeping up with where people are going and who might be in each school's cohort so that we can start making connections.

I'm not too concerned about the travel reimbursement being a sign of any trouble in the department. Budgets are tight everywhere, and we're nearing the end of the fiscal year so departments are usually watching their pennies pretty closely - particularly state schools. Another part of my inability to get out there is that I teach and this was the week after Spring Break...and my students have an exam on Tuesday, so I couldn't really have someone cover lest the students melt down and blow up my email account. I'm hoping to get out there as soon as classes are over to look around, but it may happen that the first time I see Eugene is when we actually make the move. I'm fine with that though, since everyone I talk to that has any experience living there seems to adore it. I've also heard nothing but good things about the department.

I hope everyone is having a good time at the visit day! I wish I could be there. :/

Yes...that situation is a bit bizarre.

No not at all - I was referring specifically to the applications that are flat-out rejected. Wait-listing is an entirely different story.

In my experience, there are some programs that don't send rejects until their Graduate School decides to send an angry email telling them to get the damned things out. I know for a fact that UNC does this - it was a fairly common occurrence that was discussed in many a staff meeting (since the staff/graduate coordinators were the ones to send them out). I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case at other schools.

Officially decided on University of Oregon.

I've been told by several reliable sources that Stanford is another program that encourages the cutthroat mentality...

That makes more sense...usually when people mention more funding they're looking for a bigger take-home paycheck, so that was what my comment was based on.

I think that the high/low impact journals designation should probably be fleshed out a bit more. ASR is obviously high, but the regional journals seem to have their own hierarchy as well. I suspect that some might be lumped into the higher categories with others in the low. My personal take on the weight of a journal tends to relate to how easy it is to get something published. If they take anything or they take the initial submission right away, they probably aren't a heavy hitter. Again, that's just how I've come to think about it - others might have a different perspective.

Definitely submit to a professional journal! The worst they can say is no (and they often do, so don't take it personally if that happens), THEN move to an undergrad journal.

Maybe other grad students can back me up on this, but original research is somewhat expected in a grad program. Other than possibly getting some funding specifically for your research, I've never heard of a graduate student actually getting paid to do what they're supposed to do.