air_supply_fan

i had wanted to apply to the poli sci dept at ucla first. but then i emailed one of the students there and she said the funding opportunities are extremely competitive. she said they would rank grad students based on gpa and decide on who gets funded. that scared me away. do they really not guarantee four years of funding?

yeah, i do see the whole application process needs some luck too. aside from that, there are a lot of random factors. i got funding from one of the top programs in my field while one of my friends didn't, although my friend had far more conference papers and i personally believe my friend is a stronger applicant than me. i always believed she would get funding and i would be rejected. my strength (i guess) is that my current and future research interests/plans mesh more with what the profs in the top program are doing. it would be best if you could ask the top programs why you got rejected; that would definitely help you get an idea of your weaknesses.

sweet, pistolwink, there is a lot of collaborative work between these two schools/depts. i just wanted to find a cheap, but not too shabby, place to live, b/c i like to study in my office most of the time and i wanted to save money. not quite sure about the bus system there. as along as the apt is on the bus route, i guess it also sound good. it seems like many people talk about bicycling around. is it a good way to go to school?

personally, i mentioned the names of profs in all of my personal statements. i guess it's b/c i'm applying to a ph.d. program and i wanted to show i'm focused and know exactly what i want to do. i usually mentioned three profs who are doing research in my area. from this you can see that the programs i'm applying to are all very strong in my area in that they have quite a few profs with the same interest. i know these profs are all close friends judging on the large number of papers they co-authored. and btw, the DGS of all the programs i got into are working in my area. don't know whether that's a benefit or not.

i've decided to go to wisconsin-madison for my ph.d. in mass comm. anyone going too? do i need to put on layers of clothes in the winter? i'm in a cold state, but most of the time, i just put on an overcoat and a tee on the way and in the classroom i just wear tees. does that work in madison?

i would go with WWS....................

i know some people who have already been admitted. funding decisions they say are yet to be made..............

it's indeed hard to decide. i thought you really need to make sure the prof in CHOICE 2 is nice to work with. when you visited their dept, you should tried to find this out. personally, i don't care about the location (unless you are studying journalism or business of course) or the amount of money (as long as it reaches the bottom line). i would think more about the possibility of working with great people who can help me find a good teaching position. believe me, my situation is far more complicated :-(

really? i'm thinking of attending their journalism and mass communicaiton program. how is that one? it has a pretty good reputation in the field, but i find there are lots of new profs who just came to teach in the last five years and don't see any really "old" profs in that school. muse, do you know about that school?

yin-bodhi, thanks for all the info. it's been really helpful. i was wondering whether you know anything about the weather (or other stuff) in madison, wisconsin? is the weather (or other stuff) better than madison?

OMG, is the weather really that bad? How can you work efficiently in such cold weather? Wasn't I told by someone that it was ranked the Best City to Live in the United States?! How about its career prospectives? Is it easy to find good internships there? One prof told me that a lot of students leave Minnesota when they graduate from UMinnesota, coz it's too cold there. Is it the same with UW-M?

i guess i would definitely try to visit the schools and interact with the profs and students there (like you are already trying to do now). i would try to see whether there are any profs there who are doing the kind of stuff i'm interested in, coz sometimes what they are really doing are a little bit different from what their websites describe. or i would try to see whether there is a really prominent prof there (huge reputation, large network with other big names in the field, supporting students, willingness to help students find good jobs) and see whether i could work with him/her. that's just my personal opinion. or if you really want to go to a top school, take a couple more years off and strengthen your resume/CV. then apply again. but there's still hope, honestly. big offers might still be waiting for you. many overachievers have a bunch of offers in their hands now, and some won't decline those offers till just before April 15. some offers (not many though) will come out around that time i suspect. but anyways, keep showing your interest in those school that admit you or give you offers. that's at least what i would do. let's hear what other people say.

i haven't heard of a formal decision from UMich. but i called them, and they said the applicants who got the first round of offers had already been contacted. since i was not contacted, they said i could assume that i wasn't in :cry: guess i was waitlisted, but b/c their american politics field is so strong that few people would decline their offer

has anyone heard of funding decisions from wisconsin-madison (ph.d. in mass comm)? i'm been waiting anxiously for their response. rumor has it that they admit a large number of applicants but only fund very few

The results from annenberg school are already out