1Q84

Good point. I should just go read some Faulkner to keep myself busy and off the boards

Ermm. I saw the thing on the results board about how Toronto has changed statuses to "Decision Made" and will be sending out letters. I am on their wait list... but I can't imagine they're sending out a letter to confirm that with me. Does it mean that they've taken everyone off the wait list that they can and are sending out rejections now?

The director was probably just peeved that a majority of UK schools don't guarantee funding, forcing their admits to spend an inordinate amount of time securing financial stability instead of actually getting research/coursework done.

The answer: super badly. I already described it in the GRE thread from this past cycle so excuse my repetition but basically: our testing room was beside an outdoor frat concert. The bass literally shook the walls of the room as we wrote. After an hour and a half of that, an elementary school play day appeared in its place and we had screaming children right outside the room. (This is not to mention that they started the test an hour late because they had to 'wait to fill up the room'; if I didn't feel like livestock before then, I certainly did at that point. I was stressed as hell over getting a parking ticket since the maximum time we were allowed to buy was not covered by the testing time with the addition of the one hour of waiting).

Whoa! Are you me? I'd add Judith Halberstam in the place of Benjamin, personally. And the two Gayatris (Spivak, Gopinath). Oh and Lisa Lowe!

Gah I wish I could give my free retest for the subject test to one of you.

Congrats on the big decision! It certainly sounds like it'll be much better for your immediate mental well-being. My sister was doing her Ph.D. at a prestigious UK university in the sciences and ended up with a Masters as well because she ended up really hating the atmosphere. She took a long break and went out into the world, worked, etc. and now is going for a Ph.D. in Germany! So yes, breaks from academia are healthy and wonderful. Good luck finishing up the MSc!

(inspired by windrainfireandbooks talking about x-files in another thread)

Good god yes

Or pull a Larry David and hire a sex worker to get to a Dodgers game on time. Oy! I forgot you're an international student too. If I didn't have solid funding for international tuition, I'd run screaming for the hills! Glad you have other fairer offers to consider

sharp cheddar

Yowch! But yknow what they say about wait lists: faculty wanted you but some arbitrary incidental factor meant another candidate got the acceptance nod instead! In some way you could see it as five acceptances

Thank you! I don't hear enough (good things) about USC on this board. Strange how barely any applicants and (as far as I know) zero current graduate students frequent TGC. I find it funny how visitors to LA are always pleasantly surprised how little they hate the city and its people I'll be honest, before I moved here I was kind of wary myself!

Agreed! I hope my post isn't being interpreted as me being pushy with folks. I only asked because I'm curious if campus visits really "sealed the deal" or not. I'm kind of in the same boat actually... my campus visit made my decision much less clear cut as well.

I don't think it's so much the list of achievements or the time-out-of-undergrad that determines someone who is inflexible. If you look at the actual rejection response with the arrogant listing, one can only imagine what the SOP looked like. Clearly, this person is brilliant but quite tone deaf. It doesn't take much to irritate some faculty members, especially when it comes to overweening arrogance. Let's remember that this applicant doesn't even have a doctorate yet and supposedly has accomplished far more than some of the junior, TT-faculty.

Agreed with all of the above. Full-funding for typical number of years to receive degree is a must. But we all know how I feel about funding so I won't say anymore... I'm curious about folks who have done campus visits now: when do you aim to make a decision? Was the campus visit the last piece of intel you needed before decisions or are there still other forthcoming considerations?

Am I the only one in here?!

That's kind of amazing. I'm sad I didn't know about this kind of SoCal university consortium beforehand (I only knew of the UC-wide one). It's making me feel pretty excited about the academic community in this area.

On this note, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that many events run by the Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute are organized in part by one of my POIs at Riverside and one of my POIs at USC! That was nice. So I think the informal consortium is in place. It's also nice to know that I'd be able to work with all of the great faculty from both schools regardless of which of the two schools I end up through the Huntington EMSI. What do you mean USC and UCLA students switch around a lot, though?

I was in a very similar situation to yours, OP. I took about five years off after my undergraduate degree but luckily I had profs who, even though I made no effort to connect with them because of extreme anxiety, were very supportive and wrote my letters three times and continued to do so when I kept failing at getting into programs. So I'll echo Ramus' advice and say that if you show your readiness for grad school and give them a good reason to write a rec for you, they most likely will be able to. I'll add that you should provide a copy of any essays that you wrote for the professors that you want to recommend you, ideally with their original comments still on it. My profs told me that having that kind of material definitely helped them speak more clearly to my abilities. Also, I had a semi-low GPA, too, and decided to go to the MA route. I'm very, very glad that I did because, personal/academic development aside, I can now present a much stronger profile for Ph.D apps rather than the mediocre one I had from a rocky undergraduate career.

Agreed on the meditation bit! I took a 10 day meditation course in the middle of the woods a few years back. No talking, no writing, no reading, two vegetarian meals a day and meditation from 5am to 9pm. It was really intense and gave me a lot of time to be aware of myself. It was insanely difficult and painful and I'm not sure I'd be willing to do it again. It's Vipassana meditation, if anyone is interested... completely free and they have centers around most of the world. Clearly I had no time or energy to keep it up during application season... who knows, it might've helped me perform better like it has for you. Ah! Nothing better than a smoke while driving on a beautiful day... though my ("healthy") choice nowadays is a vaporizer, not real cigarettes. And honestly, getting out of east coast seasonal cycle really helped my mood too. I couldn't stand the 6-7 month snowy season anymore.

PIIIIIINOOOOOOOOOT NOIR!