purpledinosaur

Yay for vegans!! I don't live in Chicago, but I'm considering accepting at U of C as well and I emailed one of my profs to ask about the neighbourhood. A quote from his email: "As regards crime, it in fact has a bit *less* crime than most neighborhoods in the city, including some of the posh ones on the North Side. In any big city, of course, one has to be savvy and aware, but I really don't feel that Hyde Park is any less safe than other places we've lived. I also say this as a highly protective father of two little kids -- if I had any worries about their safety, we would move out of the neighborhood in a heartbeat." When I visited in November I absolutely loved it and felt perfectly safe in Hyde Park; about as safe as I feel in Montreal. I'm sure the rest of the city is different, but I really liked Hyde Park. It was also warmer than Montreal at the time.

Congrats on the Michigan admits, whoever they are!!

Congrats on the Columbia interview, snes!! Oh man though, now I have that bad feeling in my stomach... I applied for music theory there too and I haven't heard anything!

LOL Compoe, you internet stalker! You probably have a porcupine named Zazoom who helped you figure it out. Personally, I'm living for donuts and venison... and that's true. And specialty gopher meat.

Congrats, bshelley1!! That's awesome news.

creative commons

sore loser

That's great, fall2012musiccomp! I'm currently debating as to whether I should physically go down to CUNY to interview or do it via skype. They can't offer me any funding for travel, which means that I would have to travel by train, which is all I can afford. It's 11 eleven hours, which basically means that I'll be spending 2 full days traveling and 1 day interviewing, not getting much work done on my Master's thesis all the while. Also, I don't really travel well (it makes me really anxious), so it's not like I'm going to be enjoying the sights of New York much in my one day there... Obviously it is preferable to go down and see the school and meet everyone, including current grad students. Do you think that's worth shelling out the money and the considerable amount of time and anxiety, though, when I can do the interview via skype? I'm really torn on this.

I suggest Lily Allen's "Fuck You" for days when you are angry but still want to dance around.

If anyone is still freaking about incomplete applications, I offer this totally embarrassing anecdote from my life to make you laugh: I checked my Columbia status the weekend before last (their deadline was Dec. 15). Under additional materials, there were the words "One received, two required" next to the line WRITING SAMPLES. That's right, folks; I forgot to send one of my writing samples. Yeah, I'm an idiot. But even though I forgot a MAJOR part of my application and only realized over a month after it was due, they still let me send it in and circulated it to everyone, and nobody said a word about it affecting my application. So, don't worry! It will work out.

You're very welcome. Also, I don't know what your department's administrative staff is like, but at my current school they are very friendly and helpful in the music department administration. Oh hey, I just noticed you're at CUNY! I just got invited to interview there on February 18... I'm an international student too, so I guess I will keep that in mind about their crappy international student's office!!

I would try talking to a professor you trust, someone in administration from your department, other international students if you know any, or any career counselors your school offers!

They will definitely need your official GRE scores sent to them; I'm pretty sure that's mandatory, so you'll need to shell out those 23 bucks. In terms of GPA, it depends on the school. For some schools, it was fine for me to send in a pdf of my transcripts. For other schools, an official transcript in a sealed envelope issued by my school was required. I would recommend that you consult the admissions pages of the individual programs to which you are applying. Good luck and hope this helps!

Got an interview at CUNY on February 18! I'm thinking that the Michigan results will be rolling in pretty soon too, considering all the decisions from other departments... eep!

Good to know! I will probably walk to get groceries like I do here, since there seem to be several good grocery choices in the area.

Thanks!! I would love to hear what the composition interviews are like. The theory interviews are February 18.

Hey all! I just got invited for an interview at the CUNY Graduate Center! Now I am terrified. Does anyone know what it's like?? From the email: "You don't need to bring or prepare anything—we just want a chance to get to know you better (and to give you a chance to get to know us better also)." Do you think that's true? Or will they do a sneak-attack musicianship exam or something (which is my WORST NIGHTMARE)? The nail-biting commences....

I found that starting a document with the title THESIS in big scary letters helped, and making a table of contents for it. Obviously that will change, but messing around with the order of the chapters forced me to make my larger organizational scheme really concrete. Then I brought it to my adviser today to look over, along with one of my analyses. I second radioalfredio's suggestion to set yourself deadlines. I'm terrible at these big projects with long timeframes as well, so I have to set deadlines for myself. I don't always stick to them precisely, but they work.

Mine said: "Admission to Chicago!" I think it was the exclamation mark that tipped me off...

Intense! It's weird that they say "If you do not respond in some way..." Sounds like it could be interpreted that you could respond "maybe" or something. Do you have to pay a deposit? If no, then I would say wait until the end of the 3 weeks and if you haven't heard back from anyone else yet, accept. You can back out after... I don't think they make you sign in blood or something.

I've been struggling with this dilemma too, because many of my close friends are in the same program as me, same year, applying to some overlapping schools. I got accepted last week to U of Chicago, and while I didn't bust out the status update, I did shriek excitedly to my friends. Ever since, I've been feeling guilty, since two of them applied to the same program, and nobody else has gotten decisions from any schools yet as far as I know. I'm torn between just shutting up about it in deference to them, and being proud of my accomplishment (U of C has been my dream school for a long time). I was thinking maybe I could post a status only when I get my official acceptance letter? I like the idea of taking a picture and posting it...

Ohhhh gotcha, snes! And yeah, I am still reeling from Chicago's acceptance as well! Never thought it would really happen. I don't know about when Columbia will REALLY get back to us, but that was the unofficial message I got... might only be for music theory?

Oh god, laughing so hard! This is amazing. And perfect because right now, for the first time, I'm teaching a class where all I want to do is scream "FOR GOD'S SAKE SAY SOMETHING! ANYTHING!!"

Just got accepted to Music History/Theory, visiting in April!

I should note that I'm in the humanities, and that in my experience many non-private schools have different funding for each student.