Fall 2019 Applicants

[chojo]

Anyone applying to PhD in sociocultural anthro at Princeton?? Based on previous years it seems we should hear back tomorrow or early next week. Good luck to all!

[Psyhopeful]

1 hour ago, GenericResearcher said:

So I was wondering what is the best way to initiate the conversation about funding and the existence of a visit weekend. 

I just got a notification of acceptance to Binghamton ( ?!), but it says nothing about funding or if there's a visit weekend or anything like that. It is the generic acceptance email from the grad school as a whole, not from the department. 

Should I wait or should I reach out to the Anthro department about these questions? I was never interviewed and none of my POIs answered my emails (understandably; it's super busy that time of year), so I haven't actually spoken with anyone at the department before. 

Thanks so much!

Congratulations! What program did you apply to at Binghamton? I applied there too, but haven’t heard anything.

[GenericResearcher]

1 hour ago, perpetualalligator said:

Congratulations! Did the email say anything about the department eventually reaching out with more information? If not I would maybe wait a couple of days and see if the department sends anything and then email the department and not the POIs asking about the visit weekend. I think that department people in general might be more involved in the logistics part of the admission than professors but I guess that depends on the school.

Thanks! It did not; the last line just said "If you have any questions specific to your program or funding, we recommend contacting your program's graduate director." I suspect I won't be communicating too much from here on out with the grad school, as much as the Anthro department. Mostly, I was trying to decide if I should play the wait-three-days-after-the-first-date game or not, or if it was standard for the department to send out emails later. 

[GenericResearcher]

22 minutes ago, Psyhopeful said:

Congratulations! What program did you apply to at Binghamton? I applied there too, but haven’t heard anything.

Thanks!! I applied to the sociocultural subfield within the Anthro department. It's only been 2 weeks since their deadline, so I'm guessing other departments are still making decisions? 

Did you apply to Psych?

I'm not sure how other universities do it, but in my current grad program the admissions committee of the department meets (sometimes more than once), makes decisions and forwards them to the dean of the school (sometimes negotiating over applicants with lower GRE scores and such), then the list is accepted and notices are sent out. I've also heard from some programs that some of them send out decisions based on when competing programs send out their decisions, competing over overlapping visit weekend dates. 

[Psyhopeful]

7 minutes ago, GenericResearcher said:

Thanks!! I applied to the sociocultural subfield within the Anthro department. It's only been 2 weeks since their deadline, so I'm guessing other departments are still making decisions? 

Did you apply to Psych?

I'm not sure how other universities do it, but in my current grad program the admissions committee of the department meets (sometimes more than once), makes decisions and forwards them to the dean of the school (sometimes negotiating over applicants with lower GRE scores and such), then the list is accepted and notices are sent out. I've also heard from some programs that some of them send out decisions based on when competing programs send out their decisions, competing over overlapping visit weekend dates. 

I applied to the biomedical anthropology master’s program (I am mostly focused on psychology programs but I have an anthropology degree too.) In the past I see they tend to notify much later around the end of February, but it’d be great to hear soon. 

[GenericResearcher]

6 minutes ago, Psyhopeful said:

I applied to the biomedical anthropology master’s program (I am mostly focused on psychology programs but I have an anthropology degree too.) In the past I see they tend to notify much later around the end of February, but it’d be great to hear soon. 

Yeah, this wait is awful! It'd be nice to know you at least have somewhere to go next fall hah. 

Best of luck! If you get in and I get enough funding for my broke self to be able to afford to go there, maybe I'll see you there. 

[pyramidstuds]

41 minutes ago, GenericResearcher said:

Thanks! It did not; the last line just said "If you have any questions specific to your program or funding, we recommend contacting your program's graduate director." I suspect I won't be communicating too much from here on out with the grad school, as much as the Anthro department. Mostly, I was trying to decide if I should play the wait-three-days-after-the-first-date game or not, or if it was standard for the department to send out emails later. 

I'm not sure if it's helpful, since it's a different program, but for my one acceptance, I got an unofficial "recommended for admission" email 3 days before I got the official (generic) email, which told me to check my portal. Before I got the official portal decision, I'd gotten a Welcome Week invite, funding info, etc. I mention this because there was a definite gap between the two notifications. And the Welcome Week to which I was invited is organized by grad students, so maybe some grad students are faster/slower than others?

[GenericResearcher]

10 minutes ago, pyramidstuds said:

I'm not sure if it's helpful, since it's a different program, but for my one acceptance, I got an unofficial "recommended for admission" email 3 days before I got the official (generic) email, which told me to check my portal. Before I got the official portal decision, I'd gotten a Welcome Week invite, funding info, etc. I mention this because there was a definite gap between the two notifications. And the Welcome Week to which I was invited is organized by grad students, so maybe some grad students are faster/slower than others?

Hmmmm, good point. I also wonder if it's the gap between the graduate school and the department, and their respective processes? On the plus side, this less-streamlined process actually probably means applicants know earlier, even if they know in pieces. 

[scarseed]

Quick question - do people here generally think Peterson's is reliable viz admissions rates?

[pyramidstuds]

2 hours ago, scarseed said:

Quick question - do people here generally think Peterson's is reliable viz admissions rates?

I didn’t know about that site! But I did just check for a few schools to which I applied, and I’d previously pulled stats straight from the school/department, where available. I assume they’re doing the same, because those numbers matched up for the few places I checked. Interesting resource, glad I found it later as it would’ve fueled my anxiety while waiting.

[AnthroScopic]

On 1/30/2019 at 7:17 PM, Psyhopeful said:

I was told in a class my anthropology department does for students about to graduate that when it comes to hiring anthropology professors, the overall hiring is down for everyone except for those at a few elite schools where those people tend to get hired most often. I guess someone measured this and made a chart or something? So take that for what you will. I’m also in psychology, and in that field I think it matters most what work (and how much) you do, not where you do it. I think for anthropology, if your research focus is one that could also work teaching in other departments, like East Asian studies, that might make a difference more than the school,but I don’t know. I think others can probably speak on this better, but I wanted to share what I was told.

If you are interested in hiring practices in anthropology consult these recent publications:

Market share and recent hiring trends in anthropology faculty positions (2018)

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202528#pone-0202528-g001

or

The Social Network of US Academic Anthropology and Its Inequalities (2018)

https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13158

Below, sociocultural placement data:

[RepatMan]

Just so folks know, Penn anthro is making their decision as we speak. They'll be finalized and sent to the Dean today. The Dean is expected to approve those decisions by mid-week next week.

I have really no info about how the wait-list is generated or whether they let wait-listed people know at the same time, but if you haven't heard from your primary contact at Penn by the end of next week, touch base with them. They'll likely have some insight for you one way or the other.

[FrigidSky701]

I see the results page is flooding with results right now. This really gets me worried. Hopefully the results are out next week? Anyone else thinks I should think this way?

[pmcol]

50 minutes ago, FrigidSky701 said:

I see the results page is flooding with results right now. This really gets me worried. Hopefully the results are out next week? Anyone else thinks I should think this way?

Now that it's officially February, we should be seeing results throughout the month. Last week was quite eventful, but I am sure things will pick up on Monday.

I'm sure you're anxious about results, as am I. I would recommend trying to find ways to keep your mind away from something you can't control, try to be positive. Fingers crossed for us!

Edited February 1, 2019 by pmcol

[FrigidSky701]

13 minutes ago, pmcol said:

Now that it's officially February, we should be seeing results throughout the month. Last week was quite eventful, but I am sure things will pick up on Monday.

I'm sure you're anxious about results, as am I. I would recommend trying to find ways to keep your mind away from something you can't control, try to be positive. Fingers crossed for us!

Thanks for the kind words. I will try my best to relax as I just purchased new desktop, new keyboard and new headset. I am on five-day holiday from today, so I will try to ignore everything by diving into virtual world. Wish you luck too! Fingers crossed

[pyramidstuds]

22 minutes ago, FrigidSky701 said:

Thanks for the kind words. I will try my best to relax as I just purchased new desktop, new keyboard and new headset. I am on five-day holiday from today, so I will try to ignore everything by diving into virtual world. Wish you luck too! Fingers crossed

Enjoy your holiday! My friend who applied for PhDs last year (Fall 2018) intentionally timed his wisdom tooth extraction for around the time decisions were coming, so he'd be unconscious/loopy/blissfully ignorant.

[perpetualalligator]

Does anyone know what’s the deal with Harvard interviews? I’m seriously starting to think that interview requests actually  came out on time (based on last year’s results they should have gone out last week) but those “successful” people don’t waste their time here ? 

[synthema]

Question: has anyone heard anything from U of Michigan yet and not posted on the results page? Or have a colleague who might have heard from them?

[kandai]

@perpetualalligator I'm wondering the same thing. I've gotten one interview and one rejection, but haven't seen anything posted about or heard anything from the other five programs that I've applied to. Have also checked the status on the online apps which says "submitted" for all five. I guess it's just a waiting game?

I saw one blip from someone claiming an interview from Yale last week, but nothing else. Anyone?

[perpetualalligator]

Well, shit nevermind 

[kandai]

@perpetualalligator--Just one, though? Judging by past years there should be several interviews reported around the same time.

[bonesandbakes]

7 hours ago, RepatMan said:

Just so folks know, Penn anthro is making their decision as we speak. They'll be finalized and sent to the Dean today. The Dean is expected to approve those decisions by mid-week next week.

I have really no info about how the wait-list is generated or whether they let wait-listed people know at the same time, but if you haven't heard from your primary contact at Penn by the end of next week, touch base with them. They'll likely have some insight for you one way or the other.

Has anyone's POI from Penn emailed them? 

[perpetualalligator]

@ecy I looked at the results from the past couple of years (2016-2018) and it seems like all interview requests go out on the same date. Also there was only one interview post for 2017 but two acceptances (3 if you count one from the anthropology and middle eastern studies program but that might be a separate thing?). Idk this is driving me insane!!

[LetsGetThisBread]

3 hours ago, perpetualalligator said:

@ecy I looked at the results from the past couple of years (2016-2018) and it seems like all interview requests go out on the same date. Also there was only one interview post for 2017 but two acceptances (3 if you count one from the anthropology and middle eastern studies program but that might be a separate thing?). Idk this is driving me insane!!

Ugh I stan that meme so hard. Had an interview at Berkeley and then radio silence which is driving me crazy. 

Sitting on one hard reject from Duke, and I am just assuming soft rejects from all the rest. 

3 hours ago, perpetualalligator said:

@ecy I looked at the results from the past couple of years (2016-2018) and it seems like all interview requests go out on the same date. Also there was only one interview post for 2017 but two acceptances (3 if you count one from the anthropology and middle eastern studies program but that might be a separate thing?). Idk this is driving me insane!!

 

[AnthroScopic]

Do people have thoughts on the University of Chicago for anthropology?

Should I attend if accepted?