Getting more info

[booksareneat]

I am wondering how other chronic wait-listers are approaching April 15th. Are you gathering information on the schools and how so? I'm thinking that come April 16th I may have to quickly decide between more than one school and so I'm trying to get ready for that possibility.

I've emailed each school's DGS to try to get in contact with a current PhD student in my field. But what questions need to be asked? How do you really get an idea of a program and how you'd fit in? Right now, I'm asking two sets of questions: how is the funding (how much do you teach, what do you teach, is there healthcare)"? and what is the atmosphere of the program like? This second question is tough to get at and I'm not sure what questions to ask to get the kind of answers I'd like. Obviously, you can't know until you're there, but I figure I'll do the best investigation that I can.

Any thoughts?

Or, if anyone has any experience with Maryland, Oregon, Minnesota, WUSTL, I'd love to hear it (even if it's via PM).