Duna

I'm not an expert at grad school admission interviews because I never did one. However, in my general life experience a) usually asking something doesn't hurt, they can always say no and as long as you do it in a friendly way saying you just want to be as well prepared as possible because you'd really love to go to this school then I can't see how that could possibly reflect badly on you. And b) if the POI does research in an unrelated area, I'm sure this interview will be more geared towards learning more about your general attitude towards academia, your working style, your overall passion for research etc. OR, there are still research methods etc. which are generally transferable independent of the object of research. Anyways, I hope it goes well (or went well). You got this.

the limbo IS the worst. My limbo lasted till 4/10 since I got into my school off the waitlist Just try to look beyond this time. It sucks.

This is the communication subsection? We also don't work for UIUC so maybe you should email them? Good luck, though. Looks like you might need it...

http://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/kowi/call_for_participation_2017-10-31.pdf

yeah, I'd agree that the more important question is: do you want a PhD, y / n ? Then, from there, I'd move into figuring out whether you want to go to Berlin or not. For my undergrad project in 2010, I worked with the Stiftung Charite as a client to redesigning their brand identity. Imo, everyone I worked with seemed friendly and smart. With more information on the kind of PhD, who you'd be working with etc., I am sure people might be able to give you better feedback / suggestions.

Hi there, sounds like interesting research that is for sure needed in these times. I do know people who transferred from English to Comm. Depending on the program you choose, you should be aware that we do have a social science side to comm (which is not unimportant to your research because understanding how information flows through cascades and networks could equip you with background knowledge directly related to researching memes). What that means is that depending on the program you will need to take some stats and mass comm classes which will likely be new to you. Imo, everyone can do the basic stats required for most comm programs (let's be real, I could teach someone who just knows how a basic line equation works pretty much everything they need to know about basic inferential stats) so I would not be worried about your ability but rather whether you'd want to do that. I also think that many rhetoric professors did not necessarily study comm so you might not even work with comm-comm people. As usual, the first step I'd suggest you to do is identify programs that have the research overlap. Email administrators and potential faculty and say: this is me. This is what I do, this is what I know. Is this something we could make work? What would I need to bring to the table if I'm missing something? Good luck!

I had rather low GRE scores (ok, my education is not American and I believe committees knew that I was not used to standardized testing but still...) and I don't think that it's necessarily the low ranking schools you should aim for. As others have said I'd suggest finding programs with really good research fit. If possible, polishing up some papers and getting them into conferences. Having great teaching experience can help, too. Get in touch with program coordinators and admins and with faculty you'd have good fit and talk to them about your situation. Let them know you're a good candidate and what your plans for the future are (they will likely change but ya know, can still pretend to know.). If you can afford it, retake the test. And, uhm, not that I actually know what cut-offs are etc but I think 'low GRE scores' can probably mean a lot of things here For some people, they'd maybe consider a 70th percentile low here, others an 85th and again others a sub-50. Standards differ. Thankfully. Good luck. And don't sell yourself as an "only 4:4 teaching blah" candidate. Sell yourself as a multi-faceted researcher, teacher, thinker. Don't sell yourself short!

Someone's salty! Good luck out there. I am sure your future program and colleagues will appreciate you just as much as the people in this forum. Oh, shucks, they are your future scientific community. Damn. Too bad.

Given that your current location is "no where important", I don't think your input seems to contribute much to the case. Ill-equipped compared to someone who only holds a Masters degree? That's just somewhat insulting. Following your own argument, you should probably withdraw your applications for PhD programs and just settle on an MA program. I'm glad I could help.

Hello friend, don't worry. Your acceptance comes with a full funding package. Congratulations. You're probably awesome.

I want to agree /w what letsberealhere responded to you already and disagree strongly with point 1) and I also don't believe that programs at less prestigious universities will require you to do less work (point 2)). That's even somewhat rude to imply imho. As letsberealhere already stated, the higher ranking schools usually fund much better because they have more grants and higher endowment. Kinda makes sense, huh? I attend one of the prestigious schools. I'm ABD and hopefully finishing up next summer. I don't want to go into academia so I could not care less about the academic job market these days. However, there is a paper or report or something the NCA did several years ago and it describes how productive programs were, where alumni ended up and where the current faculty got their PhDs and it was pretty obvious from that data that 80% of jobs go to graduates of the same approximately 15 programs. Why? Have you studied networks at all? Maybe worth looking into this... Communication is a very small field and preferential attachment is a thing. If you are from one of the 15-20 programs then you will most likely find an alumni of your program at any other of these departments. You usually get in touch with current faculty easily during conferences etc. Do I think connections matter more than publications? No. Do they matter more after you can present your one or two published papers and show sufficient teaching experience? Oh hell yeah. This speaks to your own point "you present yourself with a cover letter and references". Yep, REFERENCES. So which references might matter more? The actual question is whether you should choose fit over prestige or vice versa. Here, I think you need to find a balance. I still don't get point 2) after I read through it 3 times now. Why would you fail a prestigious program but won't fail a less prestigious one? Shouldn't the pressure be way higher if you don't have the prestige of your program and the funding (that you don't seem to know of) to get you places? Your logic seems flawed. I once compared myself to some people in my program and got very upset because we really do have impressive scholars in our ranks. A professor told me: "You don't have to compete with them. You're already in the top 5% because you are in this program. The other 95% need to worry." I don't necessarily believe this and I know people will go nuts on my butts for writing this here but I just like to cause some tension.

How is the program either loved or hated in the city? That's a pretty general statement about one of the largest metropolitan areas of the country loving or hating a single masters program at a school that has 4 masters programs alone. Are you really sure all of the inhabitants of LA have enough information to make this decision about love and hate? I think the check list varies for PhD and masters. In case of smw0805 I'd start to think about whether I want to have an MA or an MS. Seems to me like these two programs might be completely different given they terminate in different degree types. From then I'd probably think about reputation. No one actually honestly cares what you did in a masters. But if they know the school and the names, you're golden. Let's face it. In industry, no one ever cares anyways and in academia, a masters program is more like a leap year of traveling while not knowing what to do unless you actually go hardcore research and publish but it does not appear to be the goal here with smw0805, does it?

Pretty close call for getting something published. Pretty unlikely it will go through R&R and you get an ok by the editor within 3 months imho. Especially when you haven't even decided which part of the thesis, re-wrote it, and chose outlets yet. While this sounds horribly dismissive of the idea, I would always try to publish it anyways given that it will help your career no matter what. However, if you need to cut time working on other parts of the application for something that is unlikely to produce results in time, you need to make trade-off decisions. Of course, you can write in your apps that you have submitted part of your thesis for publication in the SoP and to which journal you sent it. It will show you are thinking about the process, chose a good journal for your work and will also give the committee a better idea about what kind of researcher you are. But you probably won't even hear back if you get considered and into the review process depending on how long the editor takes to respond / forward stuff etc.

Not post bomb a random thread in favor of your future apps. Oh, saying "please" might also go a long way... Good luck!

they will pay for you congrats, i will see you soon then