felicidad

As a TFA alumna, I concur. My friends who have pursued graduate study after TFA or a career in the field of education have found their TFA experience helpful in terms of opening doors. Many universities like TFA alums. Whether that is because of the program itself or because of the two (or more) years of teaching experience, I can't say. However, I have not observed TFA providing a powerful network for career opportunities outside of education. Some of that may be region dependent. I wonder if, for example, New York alums might have had a different experience. In any case, I would not choose TFA as a springboard for a non-education career path. I cannot speak about how Oxford will help propel you in your career. It is a great university and I consulted a friend of mine who is a Cambridge graduate (albeit in math) who said that their public policy program is very good. In some careers, though, one might benefit more from going to a domestic university because of networking. I do not know if that is the case with public policy. That is a question best put to a veteran of the field. If it is the case that you could be better served by a similarly powerful program in the US, and you do get the fellowship in DC, I would lean towards the internship and applying to a greater variety of programs in a year. If Oxford is equal to your best academic option, I do not think you can go wrong with either school or the internship, and you should do whichever one sounds like the most pleasant way to spend the next year or two.

Has she tried e-mailing the DGS, even considering that it is Friday? I would not wait to initiate an inquiry about this? However, make sure to be polite and respectful, not accusatory. It will not be productive to ask them if they are "allowed" to do this, although I can certainly sympathize with your wondering that.

Can you explain your choice to apply to both graduate school and jobs? That might help us give you advice. Are you quite sure about what you want to study, or even that you do want to study? What kind of program have you been accepted to?

Go where you feel that you belong. Do not make a decision about the next five or more years (and possibly your career as a whole) based upon offending someone. I am sure that this happens a lot.

Before you make a decision about taking out this type of loans, I recommend that you go to the Chronicle of Higher Education forums and read the many threads there about the job search in humanities and paying off loan debt. The posters there are professors, some of whom avoided crippling debt while still pursuing their academic dreams, and some of whom are still digging themselves out from under mountains of loans. I think reading the threads there will give you a better perspective than the opinions on this forum. After all, the majority of us, myself included, are either prospective grads or new grads and do not have the hindsight of people who have already completed this process. My personal opinion is that I would not consider taking out those sorts of loans. Debt is extremely stressful and there are many funding opportunities out there. I wouldn't consider taking out loans until I had absolutely exhausted all avenues for external funding, and then I would reevaluate my plans and programs based upon my financial situation. This might be a situation where you would be greatly benefitted by patience.

I think that it may be more than one person, and they may be doing it because it annoys you. If you don't enjoy the forum anymore, it doesn't make sense to stay. However, I hope this one potentially fleeting incident doesn't drive you away permanently, all by itself. If you change your display name, you may find that some of it stops.

Another advantage of applying later is that you have time to apply to and scoop up some fellowships to make your application more competitive and to give you more resources for graduate study. I reread your post and noticed that you eventually hope to enter a PhD program. It seems that you are only applying to masters programs because you missed the deadline for PhD programs. That is a hell of a lot of money to spend just so you don't have to wait another year, especially if you take into account your potential earnings and savings after a year of work. One year can seem like a long time when you are antsy, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not very long. It takes the average person much longer than a year, by the way, to pay off expenses incurred by paying full tuition and living expenses, usually through loans, for graduate programs. I would especially warn you that at this late date, any funding you may have gotten will almost surely have been distributed by now. In one year, you can solidify your interest in a subdiscipline. You can get work experience or do an internship. You can raise your application stats like GPA. I don't know what relationship you have to your recommenders but they will almost certainly be pleased if you tell them that you felt your application could be stronger on the next cycle if you do X, Y, and Z, and that you would like to wait a year and shoot higher. Also, check your e-mail. Now. Don't think, just do.

Is this school the best academic choice for you? If not, the poor communication seems like it would be a deal breaker for me. Regardless, you shouldn't respond to rudeness with rudeness, e.g. an unannounced visit. Unless you are totally invested in the outcome for this school in particular, I would make my decision assuming a rejection.

How long exactly has it been since you declined their offer? I have never heard of any school refusing to reimburse a candidate who visited the school. For one, that would reflect poorly on the department in academic circles. The academic community is very small, and even smaller by discipline. The terse reply you perceived from the graduate secretary may reflect one or more of a few things: 1) S/he has a very concise writing style which you might have misinterpreted 2) S/he is busy 3) You have asked too many times 4) S/he has nothing new to tell you and prefers to respond when s/he has new information I did an admittedly cursory gradcafe search and only found one thread concerning this issue: You may find the replies there helpful. The OP did receive his reimbursement, much later than expected.

Forumgoers, How would you feel if you received an e-mail from one of your potential cohort-mates asking if anyone had committed to attend your university of choice? I got one of these e-mails from a university that I decided not to attend, and was CCed on several confirmative responses from people who had decided to join that department. I thought it was a nice gesture, and a nice way to feel like a part of the department. I thought I might send a similar e-mail to the prospective students who attended the visiting day of the university I plan to attend. If you were the recipient of an e-mail like that, how would you view it?

If you are a top candidate, most schools who have access to additional funds will not let money be the reason you don't attend. When you contact them, make sure that they understand that the only thing standing between you and accepting their offer is funding. Good luck!

Yes, withdraw. Doing so well shorten the wait for someone on the waitlist.

Ooh, look, a doppleganger....

I wasn't on any waitlists, and I don't think I'm the only one in the thread who can say that. Furthermore, the 10 downvotes suggest that more people disagreed than replied. I don't know what the acceptance status is of the people who have not posted in the thread, but I don't think we can assume that they are all waitlisters who took the post personally. There is nothing personal about what I posted, other than that I found the OP distasteful. I'm not particularly swayed by the "valid point without tact" argument, either. Most people on waitlists have not asked other people to hurry up with their decisions, so the OP mostly succeeded in insulting a wide swathe of people, while not really calling anyone out. I don't take issue, by the way, with the assertion that people have the right to use the time they've been given as they see fit. I just have a problem with the specious assertion that people on the waitlist weren't good enough when there's abundant evidence that highly qualified candidates outnumber available spots. Also, someone may be crossing their fingers to get off the waitlist into one school while having gotten accepted to "better" ones.

I have accepted a place at a university, and I am very curious about who my colleagues might not be. Having gone to visit days, I am aware that many of the people I met were favoring other choices and thus might not make up my actual cohort. I'm hoping that my school is able to maximize the size of the cohort by accepting people off the wait list if not enough people accept their initial offer. I'm wondering if perhaps anyone on here has received a late acceptance or is still hoping for one in the next week. I'm reluctant to associate this forum account with my university choice forever, so I am not going to post that here. Instead, I thought I would start a general waitlisters thread, so that people who are on waitlists can share their status and any changes. Also, I think that people who are on waitlists to programs that they are interested in might like to have a positive space, no?

I accidentally upvoted this, and meant to downvote it.... Negative attitudes like yours are why collegiality is such a concern in many departments. Please consider how unnecessarily negative your perspective is, and also whether or not it is truly a valid position to take (specifically your view that waitlisters were not good enough).

That's awful. :/ I truly feel bad for you, because you clearly did exactly what you were supposed to do - you followed up to make sure your application was complete and were given bad information. It's good that this wasn't your last chance. You might be surprised at how well you fit somewhere else.

Nobody should really have applied to any programs that they are definitely not interested in. Most places have not even had their visit days yet, so realistically, I think anyone who is waiting should not expect a spot to open up before the end of the month.

I have to agree with splitends. If you buy the Dunning-Kruger Effect, the most highly qualified individuals often find it cognitively difficult to appreciate how their strengths compare to those of the rest of the population. They tend to assume that others are similarly qualified. While arrogant graduate applicants tend to get a lot of attention, I also think it's possible and even likely for some of the most competitive applicants to be surprised when they are admitted to top programs. Therefore, I am willing to give top schools the benefit of the doubt; perhaps rather than trying to "keep hope alive" for noncompetitive applicants, they are simply trying to keep highly qualified applicants from self-selecting out of the process because their credentials to measure up to their own overly high expectations.

I am also a bit disturbed that any sociologist would take for granted the cultural appropriation of the term "America." I'm certainly guilty of using it out of habit to refer to myself as someone from the United States, and i was (duly) admonished for it in Argentina. But that doesn't mean the usage isn't worth reflecting upon.

I just received the following message from Harvard's graduate assistant: "Thank you for your application to the PhD program in Sociology at Harvard University. The Sociology Admissions Committee has reviewed all of the 314 applications for admission to the Fall 2012 cohort.The Admissions committee has made its recommendations to the Deans of Harvard University's Graduate School of Arts & Sciences (GSAS), who have made offers of admission to 10 applicants (there are 2 applicants on the waitlist). All of the applicants who have been admitted or waitlisted to the PhD Program in Sociology have been contacted by the Sociology Department's Chair of Admissions." Harvard was probably my poorest fit out of all the departments I applied to, so I am not surprised or upset by this news. Congrats to those admitted, and condolensces to those for whom I'm the bearer of bad news. As they say on another of my favorite forums: e; f, b.

Would the Princeton acceptances step up to the plate? I didn't apply, as I did my UG there. I'm just curious to see what my alma mater's 2013 cohort will look like. What are you guys studying? Who do you want to work with?

I just e-mailed a travel agent for a school. The point was that if I go through the travel agency, it comes directly out of the school's account. But I said in the e-mail to please quote me before the ticket is purchased. I definitely don't have any intention of paying the overhead, since I already found a cheaper flight that I could pay for myself. I wonder what school you're talking about....

At the top of the page, there are two links. One says "Results Survey" and that's what people here use to follow acceptances and rejections. The other says "Submit Results." There you can submit the decision you received, how you received it, etc. So what are your research interests, splitends?

Splitends, did you post on the results board? I usually assume that once three or more acceptances go up on the results board that the first wave of admittances have gone out. Btw, when's the visit day?