radiomars

Yale is wonderful, I'm quite smitten. So: adcom hasn't met yet, there will most likely be 12 offers total for anthropology and most likely a waitlist.

Thank you! I'll see what info I can weasel out Yes, this, exactly! It's a big chunk o' your life, you gotta know where you're headed.

Since I'm on the East Coast for a couple weeks, I decided to contact the POI at Yale and see if I could arrange a campus visit. He said he'd be "delighted" to have me visit and asked me to stay all day to catch a colloquium and meet the faculty. It's happening in about a week. I'm over the mooOon about this! If any of you are in similar situations, ie. can make it over to a campus for a visit before decisions, I highly recommend it. Just because they don't do official interviews doesn't mean you can't create your own.

I’d just like to take a moment to thank President Obama for his income-based-repayment plan for student loans. Thanks to the plan, my monthly payment is now zero dollars for the next year. Amazing. Best news of 2013.

This particular weekend is for a Social Psychology program. I have heard of Anthropology programs having similar events. I wouldn't say it's strictly restricted to STEM.

Yeah, it's a good idea if you plan it ahead of time. I'm doing the same thing in a couple of weeks. I figured if I didn't visit when I was right around the area that I would regret it. I feel comfortable in interviews and want to do a little school-shopping myself. Since some of the programs I applied to don't do formal interviews, it seems like a good step to make it happen anyway.

Yeah, good point. I'll definitely still be going in with my A-game, and will try to spend a couple weeks prepping.

Awesome, thanks for the input, guys. Yeah, they are covering the costs so I'm thinking that's a good sign. I just got an email with the itinerary: Sounds pretty good. Although, what in the world is a "data blitz"?

I truly don't have a back-up plan and am kind of refusing to make one at this point, so here's hoping Plan A works out. I feel you on the whole wanting to plan but not being able to plan thing. I could be in any of four cities next year and it's driving me crazy not being able to prepare for it. And I actually had to end a relatively great relationship recently as I've been traveling for 5 months and am moving out of our city, but I also don't want to start dating new people now because of the same reason. It's weird being in limbo like this.

Went to UCLA for undergrad, I can help you out with questions if you have them. Just message me. General advice: -I would avoid graduate student housing or any UCLA housing really, it's overpriced and everyone knows it. -Best areas to look for apartments: I would highly recommend looking in the "South of Wilshire" neighborhood. There's a free shuttle that services the area and is fantastic. It's a quiet location, but still has a lot of students. The off-campus housing areas to the west of the campus are clogged with undergrads, but the distance to campus can't be beat, especially if you are planning to walk to/from campus. Avoid Landfair Ave, it's loud and obnoxious. The further you get from Landfair, the better. Look at Veteran Ave and maybe Roebeling. -You can make do without a car (I did), but let me tell you, it's hard to leave Westwood. The public transit is notoriously unreliable and almost entirely filled with poor students, confused tourists, and homeless people. If you can get a car, it's probably better but parking on campus is super expensive. - West LA is nice. It's fairly rich and clean, but lacks a bit of character, in my opinion. For fun / good nightclubs / a younger scene, I'd head over to Los Feliz / Silver Lake / Echo Park. Oh and if you want your own room, you need to either pay a lot of money, or find an apartment that has some sort of transitional space that can be turned into a second bedroom. You will most likely need roommates, assuming you're not made of money. I was paying something like $650 just to share a one-bedroom with a roommate. It can be very expensive. Keep that in mind.

I recently got invited to a Recruitment Weekend after being told I was "among the top applicants". My family has already started congratulating me on acceptance, but I'm not sure that's what it means. They certainly never told me explicitly that I was admitted. So, not too sure what to expect here. Does anyone have experience at one of these things? I'm under the impression that they're trying to "woo" me, but does that also imply an acceptance on the horizon? Or is this an informal round of interviews before they decide?

Just got invited to the University of British Columbia's recruitment weekend: Feb 7-10. This is for Social Psych.

I just got a very exciting email from the POI at one of the schools I'm applying to. He said it was clear that I was among the top applicants to their lab and they want to fly me out to the school for the grad student recruitment weekend! And he said "you and I can talk more concretely about your potential future research". Sounds good, right?

It's difficult, but it's a lot easier to make long distance work when you know the exact date you don't have to do it anymore. Just keep in touch via email and Skype. I took up writing handwritten letters to friends back home from my field site -- it was a fun and personal way to communicate. Six months is long, but fieldwork generally goes quite fast (at least in my experience) because there's so much to do. You'll be fine, don't worry!

Yeah, at the end of the day, it's an oversight on my part, but it was my first time using OpenOffice and I didn't think twice about the default margins.

Well, I hope none of you used OpenOffice like me. Just had my application rejected because the margins of my essays were 0.79", which is the default for OpenOffice for some unknown and painful reason. They deleted my app

In my experience, after presenting at my first conference and getting wicked drunk with people I respect, I decided that I was going into the right field. It was a particularly cool experience because it was a 3-day conference, and the 2 nights were spent camping at a nearby forest. And pretty much everybody camped, including Deans and Chairs. A very unique experience, especially because you knew how hungover everyone was the next day. I found it really comforting and reassuring that I got along with everyone I met quite, and felt much closer to them in terms of interests and personality than with people in the other fields I was considering (esp. medicine). I thought that was a pretty good sign. Also, it's true, you can get some great ideas while chatting informally. This is greatly facilitated by alcohol.

I'm fine most days, but once every week or so, I'll have a hyper-realistic dream about getting into one of my schools and wake up feeling like a million bucks, only to realize it wasn't reality. O, cruel fate, why taunt me with these dreams.

Bah, I think I have at least one more month until I even hear back about potential interviews, and probably something like two until the first offers come around. I wish there was an early decision option for my schools!

"What a waste of your talents". Thanks, Grandpa. "You need to apply to medical school". Thanks, Dad. "You're only applying to four schools? Do you have any safeties?", not really understanding that there are no safeties. "What can you do with a PhD in anthropology?". I'm not sure what reply they want to hear here. "You're a shoo-in!", without knowing anything about the app process, my CV, or the schools I'm applying to. Anytime they hear anthropology, most people go off about ethnographies and rituals. There's more to anthro than sociocultural, people! Anytime they hear psychology, they assume I want to become a practicing psychiatrist.

I know it varies by department and school, but I'm just wondering what the general trend is.

Everything is fully submitted, and now I'm just waiting. I thought I'd be relieved to get to this point, but now I'm just nervous with nothing to focus that energy on.

Note: not all UCSB graduate students receive funding. I know some of the cohort there. Santa Barbara is an expensive city and if you're not funded, I personally would not accept the offer.

I did the same thing as you: in department names it is capitalized, otherwise it is not.

Good luck with apps! May I ask who you're applying to @ Yale and Harvard / if you have an intended sub-specialty in bio. anthro? Always good to meet more bio folk. Yeah, but I put in the extra time early on to get all my stuff done because I've been travelling for the past three months (currently doing field work in Morocco). It'll all come together soon and then you'll never remember the prep anxiety again