gradgirl

I went to a catholic school for my undergrad degree and I'm not catholic (nor am I particularly religious). I had no real problems with it, and I suspect as a graduate student it would be even less of an issue. You see people going to mass, but that's about all. It was never forced on me. The administration operates in keeping with a catholic code of morals, so I found some of Notre Dame's policies a little outmoded and not very open-minded; however, a good percentage of the students actively rebel against traditional Catholic values by doing stuff like wearing "Gay? Fine by me." tshirts and other such things. My brother is doing his undergrad work at a catholic school right now and he's a self-proclaimed atheist (or was a couple years ago, anyways; I haven't talked to him about it in awhile and he's not very vocal about it)...and he completely loves it there. I know you want an in-depth answer but I'm not really sure what to say. If you have more specific concerns about it, I could try to address them. Also my experience was as an undergraduate not as a grad student, so I don't know.

Hey, I hope you're hanging in there... I just wanted to say that I just finished the whole application process to PhD programs in English this spring. I was a nervous wreck too... but I survived! Try not to worry too much... I think once you've done the best you can, a lot of it is really beyond your control and you just have to hope for the best. I'm not doing medieval lit (I'm in 20th century lit, with an interdisciplinary focus), but if there's anything I can do or advice I can give you regarding the whole application process in English feel free to drop me a line. So many people on this forum and over in applyingtograd kept me from losing my mind this past fall/spring that I'm really anxious to return the favor and help as many people as possible ) Also, you've said you applied once and feel like you have a better idea of what to do now... that was definitely the case for me, too. When I applied to MA programs, I was basically going in blind and ended up somewhere sort of mediocre at best... but after my MA I felt like I had a much better idea of what to do (or NOT to do, as the case may be) in my application packets. My instincts about what I'd done "wrong" the first time around and how I needed to correct it seemed to be, for the most part, correct. Good luck!

So, I'm headed to a great program with an assistantship. However, they're on the quarters system and i won't receive my first paycheck until October 31. Is it just me or is this a really long time to go without a paycheck??? At my MA institution I didn't get paid until September 15, but we'd get two checks that month (the 15th and the 30th). The first time I moved here I came on Aug 15 and just lasting a MONTH until that first paycheck was rough. At my new school, they expect me to show up mid-August again for a repeat of TA-training, so I'm going to be there more than 2 months without any income aside from a very small stipend for the TA training. Geez. I started saving a little, but my last paycheck just came in this past Friday and I'm starting to freak out a bit now. I have a job over the summer, and a free place to stay for 2 months, but the job's not going to pay a whole lot. I'm a bit concerned.

Ugh. That sucks. I recently locked my Livejournal to friends-only because I had some privacy issues with it. Hopefully if it's locked it's safe. Facebook is another one I've heard that some employers have started to look at. Of course to view any facebook profiles they have to have someone who has an account through an institution, but for academic jobs of course this is no problem. I locked my Facebook so faculty/staff can't view my profile, but who knows if that even does any good.

Ohio State, English PhD

Okay, so there's a good chance I might be coming to OSU for my Ph.D.... can anyone give me a clearer idea of where exactly "Short North" and "Clintonville" are? Are there street names that designate these areas, or are those street names themselves? What side (north, south, east, west) of the city are these areas in, and where is OSU in relation to them? Probably preliminary I know, but I'd like to have a sense of where I might be living if I go there.

Congrats! Congrats! Congrats!!! I'm the happiest for you ever This is such good news.

Yeah, they've already made TAship and RAship offers too. I have to wait for the first round of students to reject offers and then see if I'm lucky enough to get one of those. They've told me to sit by the phone on April 17. Really sucks not being amongst their first choices, but at least they admitted me and there's still a chance... In other news, is this normal?? Not knowing what's going on yet on April 8, that is. Does this make me us some kind of second-class grad applicants? It seems like a lot of people had their deals sealed way back in March, at a time I hadn't even had any offers and/or info yet on anything. I only applied to one Ivy, but most of the other programs I applied to were top 20 or 30 programs in my field... I know I shouldn't judge my worth by this process, but it's so hard to detach it from myself... and this is the second time I've had no clue what was going on and where I was going to end up until well into April.

I'm still waiting, too. I'm in English. I've had 2 acceptances, but I'm waiting to hear about funding. Can't go without funding. Waitlisted at two places. And i've heard nothing from 3 other programs (2 of which are probably rejections; the other I still have a glimmer of hope). It IS dangerously close to the deadline. I didn't want it to play out this way, this time around. When choosing my masters program I ended up making lots of decisions the day of the deadline. This is so stressful.

Oops... sorry for my delay.. I've been really wrapped up in work so I haven't been checking the forum as much as before... Unfortunately I'm not going to be a lot of help on your specific questions. I haven't heard of Riverside North. The city isn't super biking/walking friendly; in some areas there are no sidewalks, and if you want to go from, say, Notre Dame campus to the shopping area on Grape Road, there are no sidewalks on or near Grape Road. I can't speak much for public transportation; my mom has always been very fearful of it so I tended to avoid it. I know in some areas of town the system is rather unsafe, but the bus that runs from ND's campus to downtown or ND's campus to other places may be better than other areas. ND/Saint Mary's/Holy Cross also has a shuttle between campuses and around the parts of ND's campus which can be nice if you need to get from one side of campus to the other, although it only makes a few stops (grad housing, Library, Debartolo, and possibly Bookstore I think.) A lot of students bike around campus; my brother uses his bike there constantly to get from his dorm to class, the library, and his gf's dorm. It's off-campus where things are much more car-friendly. I'm not sure about parking but I believe there's a visitor's lot over by the stadium (south of the stadium) in which you can park without a permit. Also, there's a smallish visitor's lot on the east side of Juniper, across from the Library and beyond the faculty/reserved lot. However, they may have closed Juniper or made other construction-related changes since I was there last. Hope this helps... sorry I can't offer more knowledge about your specific concerns!

Mildly reassured by the fact that the rare acceptance to somewhere good is still trickling in... There hasn't been much news lately on the results page, but about half of it's been good news of waitlistings and acceptances from BIG programs where I thought the game was pretty much over (ie. Delaware and Mass-Amherst)... so maybe all hope isn't lost for my last 3...although, it IS virtually April now... maybe I'm being unrealistic :? I'm still waiting on a funding offer from a school I got admitted to and really want to attend. I probably wrote about this before, but they've told me I'm essentially waitlisted for funding... they only made 4 funding offers to PhD students and those people have til April 17 to decline, at which point I might get an offer. Do you guys think it's tactless/inappropriate to contact the department to ask how far down the funding waitlist I am? I mean, I don't want to seem like I'm grovelling for money and have no dignity, but if I'm 3rd or 4th or below there's a pretty good chance I'll not be getting an offer, and I'd kind of like to know... I already called once about a week and a half ago, though, to find out the fact that I was waitlisted for funds in the first place and I don't want to be annoying...

Hey, congrats. I just got a rejection email from WUSTL earlier. I hope you get in.

So... I just found out that Temple has updated their admissions status stuff on their website, OWLnet. However, i cannot find ANYWHERE any information on an ID number from them, or a pin number, or a username, or anything. I went through all of my files and my email. I have the information I used to log into my online application, a receipt from paying online, and a confirmation number for payment. I've tried every possible combination of everything I can possibly think of... Any ideas???? I'm going crazy here. Did they snail-mail these ID numbers and passwords at some point and I just never got it or something? And is it just a randomly generated number that I'm never going to guess? My social sec. number wasn't working for it.... Any help ASAP would be great... this is a huge distraction now. Edit: also, their website is completely uncrackable--i mean, you can't do ANYTHING to get a pin number emailed to you without knowing your univ ID number. grr.

I'm still waiting on 4, too. 3 are probably rejects; jury's still out on the 4th. That 4th school is rumored to be conducting phone interviews last week and next, so we'll see. It's really a drag because things around here are really slowing down; on the results board, I mean. On the programs starting with "E" page, there are only 6 results left today... previously there were 100+ almost every day, or at least more than 75. It seems like so many people already have this resolved and know what's going to happen to them and I still have no clue what I'm going to do or where I'm going to be. :cry:

Yeah, at my school I didn't get paid until September 15 and my offical "start date" was August 15. This meant my security deposit and August's rent as well as food for survival until Sept 15 all had to come out of savings. So did the money to fund some basic furniture-type things for my apartment after moving. I'd definitely save up. The good thing is, I got TWO full paychecks in September--the one on the 15th and one on the 30th. I'm not sure what exactly the logic is behind this. It would've been nicer to just get a check at the end of August instead of them holding out for 15 extra days.