New England Nat

It's not that common but it does happen and I just wanted to keep people from freaking out.

At least for the last two years there were notices posted from schools that were later known for a fact to have not sent out decisions. The internet breeds sociopathic behavior.

Guys, i hate to tell you this, but in previous years there were false notices on the result board. Don't get your heart set on outliers or start freaking out because of them. They may be private notices from PoIs, or they might not be real.

hanbran that is how it was done at OSU in several previous cycles. I would not be surprised if they are still admitting in March.

Heads up from PoI is possible, but lots of places are pretty disciplined. The other thing that happens is that schools accept in batches based on their funding decisions. So at least one school that has already admitted some people wont finish admitting people until midmarch.

Finding the typo after submission is something that happens all the time not just in this process. I sent off a paper to an editor last week with a typo i saw exactly 5 minutes after hitting send.

As a good tar heel i careful didn't comment on the quality of the Tobacco Vanity Project

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-humanities-schools/history-rankings Here is the overall department rankings list from US News and World Report. It's not an unproblematic rating list but it will give you a general impression. The important thing to remember is that a department's reputation is field specific and your own adviser is even more important, and there are no ranks of individual advisers. Also there are trade offs with having "super famous but absentee" or "very supportive" or "up and coming but young" or "legendary but about to retire". All these things have trade offs.

It depends on the school and is not standard

TMP and I can agree to disagree. I'm totally open about being mercenary about taking funding over close fit. But than again I didn't have a close fit anywhere.

Oh no... that wasn't the intention...

Congrats to people starting to see admissions. Be careful of what is called the Foothold Effect. Some schools try very hard to be among the first school to admit so that you start imagining yourself there. That way when other admissions come in you are comparing the new offer against the one you already have subconciously. I know that it's early and a lot of you don't have admissions yet, but you need to start to think about things differently. Once the school has admitted you, they want you very badly. The professors have invested a lot of time in your applications, they've fought battles to get who they want, and at most places made bitter decisions about who they could and couldn't fund. You need very quickly to get past the "they like me, they really like me!" feeling and be prepared to think about this very rationally. You are talking about 5-9 years of the rest of your life. For those of you waiting on Princeton specifically I will tell you that the essential decisions have already been made, but you must remember that the raft of candidates has to go to the graduate school and packages have to be put togeather. They're all the same package yes, but they actually have to assemble all the stuff. I would not expect a decision from Princeton on a friday, but that's not hard and fast, it's just a matter of the way the department functions. Spring classes start on the 4th here, so although I would put money on decisions coming out on the 7th of Feb, it could be earlier if the bureaucracy wants to get it done before classes start.

It means it's currently under consideration. Until the school sends out decision everyone is currently under consideration. Even the files they threw out at the first cut. It sounds like you had a positive interview, but you are reading tea leaves. That way is madness.

There is a job ad currently hanging in the hall of my department where some Ohio State alum has clearly written "the" in front of the title.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's not like leaving off the "The" in The Ohio State University. I understand that's fatal

If you think the "tell me about yourself" isn't about your academic qualifications you have missed the point. No one wants your personal life narrative. They want the history of your work.

Also, remember that you'll be answering the tell me about your work question a lot, for years. And that grad students become incapable of not telling you about their work.

Oh and than there is the grad college, ancient building, hot in the summer and freezing in the winter. And who wants to eat in a dining hall in grad school

I've known people to live in Brooklyn mostly, but it depends. Those people are just very careful about their commute. It's the north east, people who want to live in New York will do a lot for that.

That might be the case, but there is a technical residency requirement that involves living within the state. It's just ignored unless it's an issue. The residency requirement is actually a seperate thing from being "in residence" which has to do with being around campus either taking course work or writing. The rule is in place because occasionally the department will have to go to a student and say "your living in Yonkers (or somewhere else) is making it so that you are not getting to classes reasonably.

I just want to comment that my apartment looks like a disaster area at the end of a semester (mine is just ending). urgh... I think i'm staying home tomorrow to clean.

In theory you are supposed to be "in residence" in New Jersey during course work, but it is VERY common practice to live in either Philly or NYC. No one would say anything unless you were having trouble getting to campus for class.

I'm so sorry Lafayette, I wish I could. On the other hand.... it's an expensive area to live in and there is really nothng better to do in the town. Would it help if I told you the graduate housing is seriously post world war II temporary housing? And last year they had to take down a graduate apartment building because it weirdly had both asbestus and fire code violations?

I believe the one you are talking about is the Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, which is similar to Burrow Direct but Burrow Direct is much faster.

I can answer most of those right off. 1) The ILL system is spectacular. All of the Ivys plus MIT are in a single library consortium where you can get any book from any library in the entire group. On the off chance none libaries in the Ivy league owns what you need you can get it through standard ILL. I know of no one who has failed to get something they want and nothing I've needed hasn't been available in 48 hours from burrow direct. The electronic resources are the best you could ask for. 2) The university bureaucracy is the smoothest functioning I've ever seen. Even the parking enforcement ladies are pleasent to deal with and I've never heard of any weird registration/financial problems that you sometimes run into even at other top universities. Essentially, Princeton is exactly what it says on the tin. It's a beautiful, amazing, unreal ivory tower. No graduate student here would dare complain about it, we know we have it good.