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Just curious: Someone posted an admit for Rochester which they apparently received via email today? (The post in question reads: "Full tuition waiver for one year, renewable up to three additional years. Teaching assistantship and stipend. Nominated for university fellowship.")

Would someone like to claim it and offer any details? I'm curious because I thought Rochester was done notifying over the past week. Also, I'm surprised that the funding package seems a bit..lower? compared to other similar programs (the norm appears to be 5 years full funding + any stipend.) Is Rochester having possible funding issues?

Thanks!

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On Saturday I received an official rejection from Indiana University (Bloomington) Culture and Communication Program. This is the first response I've received during this application process, I'm pretty bummed by the outcome. I'm also beginning to panic as I foolishly assumed this was the one program that I would at least gain admittance. This decision really leaves me questioning all of my application material, mainly the SOP. Is it possible to resubmit a SOP to the programs that have not made a decision yet? After further review of my SOP, I feel I could really improve on some of the points I made, and provide a stronger focus on my academic goals.

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Without knowing the list of places you've applied to this season, it's difficult to make a suggestion either way. However, most of the more prominent programs have already announced their admissions, or are very far into the process. The exceptions that I know of are NYU, Iowa, Harvard, Michigan (and a few others that I probably don't know of) which still have to notify anything. Regardless, I'd say it is pretty far into the process this time to try and turn things around by sending in new material.

Not everyone will have a successful season, given the severe competition all around (avg. admits seem to be on the level of 3-5 out of 100-150+ applicants). You'd be much better off using the upcoming year to gather up your resources and make another attempt in the coming fall, IMO.

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Swagato,

The other schools I applied to were NYU, UCLA, and UT-Austin. Should I really just cross my fingers and hope for the best?

You can check the results database to get a sense of when, on average, those places send out their admit/reject notices. Personally, I would not bother admissions committee this late with a new SOP unless you have something very radical to report.

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@duke, I definitely agree with Swagato. I would recommend emailing POIs and asking them what programs/departments are looking for in the applicants. A professor at UMich was kind enough to tell me not to bother applying because I would not get in, which I appreciated. He recommended that I spend another year working on my language skills to make me more competitive. I recommend figuring out what you need to do in order to make you a better applicant. Are there specific professors you're speaking with? I get the feeling that you need to have a certain person in the department fighting for you, if that makes any sense. The spots are so limited that a professor must want to work with you specifically.

@swagato Thanks for doing all of the groundwork and research. Can you verify that we should have heard from all schools now except for NYU, Iowa, Harvard, and Michigan? I haven't heard from NYU, Yale, Brown, UChicago, UWisconsin, WashU (comp. lit dept.), and UCI (visual cultures), but I'm assuming that they've already sent out interview requests/acceptances. I'd appreciate any clarifications you could make. Also, I've applied to Stanford's Art History dept. as a Film studies scholar. I just returned from interview weekend, and I am really high on the program now. If they admit me, I will most likely attend. PM me if you'd like to know more. Good luck!

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Duke - I'd echo the conventional wisdom here, which is that there's no such thing as a safety school in our field. My strong impression is that your SoP is the most important part of your application, by far, because it conveys the passion for your project that will get a Professor excited enough about your application to make a case for it. That being said, I also agree that it would be pretty inappropriate to revise it at this point, if the programs who have not yet notified would even let you. You still have to hear back from a few schools, so don't give up all hope yet.

I'd also add UT Austin & Florida to the above list of schools that seemingly haven't notified anyone yet.

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On 2/21/2012 at 7:54 AM, JCoe Wants to Go to School said:

@duke, I definitely agree with Swagato. I would recommend emailing POIs and asking them what programs/departments are looking for in the applicants. A professor at UMich was kind enough to tell me not to bother applying because I would not get in, which I appreciated. He recommended that I spend another year working on my language skills to make me more competitive. I recommend figuring out what you need to do in order to make you a better applicant. Are there specific professors you're speaking with? I get the feeling that you need to have a certain person in the department fighting for you, if that makes any sense. The spots are so limited that a professor must want to work with you specifically.

@swagato Thanks for doing all of the groundwork and research. Can you verify that we should have heard from all schools now except for NYU, Iowa, Harvard, and Michigan? I haven't heard from NYU, Yale, Brown, UChicago, UWisconsin, WashU (comp. lit dept.), and UCI (visual cultures), but I'm assuming that they've already sent out interview requests/acceptances. I'd appreciate any clarifications you could make. Also, I've applied to Stanford's Art History dept. as a Film studies scholar. I just returned from interview weekend, and I am really high on the program now. If they admit me, I will most likely attend. PM me if you'd like to know more. Good luck!

NYU/Iowa/Harvard/Michigan: No sound out of those places yet that I know of.

Brown: I'm assuming you mean Modern Culture and Media. I called them last week after the first MCM admit was posted here. I was told that while the MCM coordinator couldn't give me specific information, all admit/waitlist/reject notices had been sent to the Graduate School, and Embark would notify us to check the application this week.

UChicago: 99% sure all their admit/waitlist decisions have been communicated and we're just waiting on the reject notification now.

UWisconsin/WashU/UCI: No idea; check the Results database I guess.

I am extremely interested in your Stanford story, because I recently added that to my list for next round of applications. I'm very interested in how you pitched yourself for that one, what you'd like to do at Stanford, why Stanford, and how your interview went, and anything else you can tell me about the program, really. Stanford is typically not mentioned in the same breath as the 'canonical' film studies programs (Chicago, USC, and so on) but from what I recently saw, I'm very interested indeed. Do feel free to PM me anytime.

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Just heard from UT Austin's Radio television and Film department, I'm in! :) They've sent out 8 admits, has anyone else here heard from them? There's one more acceptance posted on the results database, would anyone like to claim it? I'd be really interested in talking about UT Austin, as I'd given it the least amount of thought in the entire application process and nearly not applied because I didn't hear back from professors there.

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Congrats, Vanilatea!

I'm one of the waitlisted students there, which isn't surprising, as I don't feel like I have a wonderful fit between my research interests and the program's strengths.

I'd be happy to give you my scattered thoughts on the program. PM me if you want to chat or correspond.

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Saw someone posted a Masters acceptance to UT as well. Can anyone confirm this? Seems strange given the history that usually Masters decisions are usually made 2-3 weeks after PhD. Perhaps someone made an error?

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Hi Brandib,

Congratulations on your acceptance! Just to ask one question if I may, did you apply to the PhD and get into the Master's, or directly to the Master's program? It just seems odd that Texas would do both their programs at once, as opposed to doing PhD first and then Master's. I'm basically trying to convince myself I won't get a rejection letter tomorrow. UT was my #1 choice—the program fit me perfectly and had good comments back from both my POIs. Alas, now I am going crazy.

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Perhaps we should try calling the Dept. to seek some sort of clarification?

Edit: Followed my own suggestion. Emily was not particularly enlightening, but what she said gave me the impression that positive news goes directly from faculty to the admits, and from faculty to the GSAS.

Edit 2: Aubergine, feel free to try your luck though!

Edited by Swagato
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Perhaps we should try calling the Dept. to seek some sort of clarification?

Edit: Followed my own suggestion. Emily was not particularly enlightening, but what she said gave me the impression that positive news goes directly from faculty to the admits, and from faculty to the GSAS.

Edit 2: Aubergine, feel free to try your luck though!

Thanks! I guess she doesn't know (or won't say) whether or not they have selected the admits yet. Oh well, I guess I'd get the same answer. Will just have to wait it out! For the snail mail, maybe.

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Could the Harvard admit please provide some details? Do you know cohort size/Have all notifications gone out/anything else?

Also, a brief summary of yourself would help wonderfully.

And naturally, congratulations!

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Anyone else get an interview invitation from Michigan's Screen Arts and Cultures program? I just got an email from the DGS. (They're my first choice - I'm so excited I can barely type.)

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