IntaTea

Brooklyn (Williamsburg,etc), Queens (Astoria), and Upper East Side (below Harlem) are more affordable and popular with grad students. The East Village is ideal but a bit pricey. Manhattan apt hunting is an art so I recommend doing lots of research before you make any moves. Student housing may not always be the cheapest option but it is probably the easiest.

I'll be starting a PhD program in the Fall. Will need Bobst library buddies!

I would say this is a very accurate portrait of the MA students. I would also add that very few of the students have any idea what PhD work or advanced research entails. As a result, you will occasionally encounter students that believe they want to do PhD and are "hardcore" but really are more interested in the prestige of the designation. This is true of PhD applicantion pools in general but it can be somewhat socially frustrating if you are in a large MA program and students enjoy the department politics game a bit too much. But I do think if you are a serious student and can easily absent yourself from the drama you can do well at NYU. Just don't listen to all the myths and rumors that are constantly circulating among the MAs. Very few have any clue what they are talking about.

In General, I can say that the acceptance rate of grads (to PhD programs from MA) is not as high as it might be for other programs. Mostly, this is bc the MA program is huge. However, NYC is one of the best places to do cinema research and immerse yourself in the independent cinema world. What I would also caution is that they do not actually take a ton of their own MAs straight into the PhD program upon MA completion. It's usually about 1 student. They do try to reserve spots for MA alums from previous years but it's not the gaurenteed spot that you might think it is. True, there isn't a ton of funding for MAs but there is some. You can reapply for funding after the first year and you might get some. Does this help?

Have they sent out ANY rejections? At first, I was assuming if I hadn't heard that meant secret waitlist but I e-mailed and got information to the negative. 1. either that's not the case or 2. they have trimmed their waitlist now.