airmusic

You can't make a bad choice with those two schools, in my opinion! I would maybe divide your pros and cons into categories: advisors, specific programs, universities/resources, city life, money stuff, etc. It's also fun to check out http://academicjobs.wikia.com/wiki/Musicology/Ethnomusicology_2013-14 (essentially like gradcafe for applying for jobs rather than grad school). If I'm not mistaken, both programs have had good placements within the past few years, so again... no wrong choice Both will give you great opportunities on the academic job market.

You still might be more prepared than you think! Perfect english skills are not always required when students enter PhD programs; I have a number of colleagues who came to the United States for the first time when they entered PhD programs here, and their writing/speaking skills improved over the course of our program. Also, a lot of campuses have graduate writing centers, specifically designed to help graduate students with academic writing. However, you know your language skills best, as well as your advisor(s) now, so I defer to you/them! I just wanted to say that not everyone who enters a PhD program has really fantastic writing/oral skills (even those who have English as their first language... I know my writing could use a bit of work!) Another consideration is that many performance programs do not encourage or focus on writing skills, so you may actually find that yours will not improve unless you put extra/spare time into writing outside of your studies (though I don't know a lot about the schools you're looking at; they may be more academically oriented in their performance departments).

I would agree with musicbox. I only got offers from terminal masters programs my first go around (Fall 2012), and this time, I have an offer at a PhD program, and had I applied to slightly less prestigious options, I would have probably had a few more options (I mostly wanted to stay at the institution I did my masters at, though, which is probably what I'm going to do!) However, I do understand the desire to get back into performance. If you want to do some more performance stuff, I might look into PhD programs where you might have some elective space to make that possible. But if it's just about preparedness, you might be surprised at how much you've learned doing a masters in your field (I know I look back at my writing sample from my first time around and have a good chuckle sometimes!)

Waitlists are done in entirely different ways from school to school, program to program. I know for at least one program (a very small one, with typically 3-4 acceptances each year), they simply waitlist everyone with acceptable applications, and reject only those whom they definitely do not want attending the school. Other programs, and I think this is true particularly of "top" programs, play the numbers game... but also tend to send out later rejections, in my experience. Because of this, I think the statistics could vary greatly, depending on how the program deals with their waitlist. Also, as far as I know, it's acceptable to ask where you are on the waitlist; I've known several people who have asked, although they haven't always gotten a straight answer. I had a friend who found out that he was the first person on his top choice school's waitlist- he ended up getting an offer, but he had to wait until the very last second.

Congrats to the (unofficial) Columbia acceptee in ethno!

I did not go to Pitt, but I went to undergrad in the area. I loved living in Pittsburgh: lots of amenities, and ridiculously inexpensive rent, considering. If you have any specific questions, or would like some more detail, feel free to message me and I'll answer all that I can!

Congratulations! And hey, you never know: you might have a few schools battling it out for your attendance! But I've heard really good things about Chicago's program; a friend of a friend goes there and really has enjoyed it. They also seem to have a good number of placements on the wikijobs page, which is always promising! And PheonixKing: Thanks for the heads up about the waiting list. I'm not holding my breath (I figure a lot of people would consider Cal their top choice), but it's nice to have a little glimmer of hope.

Congrats! I suppose I was just a bit too quick on the posting. I haven't heard anything from them, so at this point I'm just expecting a rejection letter. Ah well, it probably was the weakest fit for me in a number of ways... I had just met some of the faculty there at the SEM conference and they were really wonderful to talk to about the field and whatnot. If you choose to go, I'm sure you will have an awesome experience. Again, congrats to you and all who were accepted! (Oh, and also congrats to the UCSB acceptee; I saw that posted a few days ago).

I assume no one from any music major has heard back from UC Berkeley yet? You know, it's sort of interesting- it looks like UCB sends out acceptances for MOST departments in late January, and then the rejections later (by which I mean if you check out the results right now for "UC Berkeley," it pretty much looks like they have only sent out acceptances, with the exception of a few departments). Well... hopefully the music school is just taking a little longer than most, yeah? Congrats to all of those who have gotten interviews and acceptances so far!

Yes! My letter came Saturday; I got in with funding. Still waiting on Indiana and Michigan, but I'm not holding my breath over either of them.

Hi all! I'm glad to know that I'm not alone in the impatient waiting-by-mailbox-and-email-inbox game. Has anyone heard back from Maryland about ethnomusicology by chance? I had a phone interview about a month ago and haven't had any word since then.