Fall 2017 Applicants

[museum_geek]

UCI has a couple faculty members who do visual anthropology, but I don't think they have a program specifically dedicated to it.  

[museum_geek]

When one of your letter writers submits all their remaining LORs in one day

 

[shell]

Hi all i've applied to University of Edinburgh Medical anthropology and got accepted but now i'm looking to apply for Medical Anthropology in US but i want a school whose Anthropology Dept offers Graduate assistantship jobs. Any ideas 

[bioarch_fan]

36 minutes ago, shell said:

Hi all i've applied to University of Edinburgh Medical anthropology and got accepted but now i'm looking to apply for Medical Anthropology in US but i want a school whose Anthropology Dept offers Graduate assistantship jobs. Any ideas 

Check out Mississippi State University. We are hiring a new medical anthropologist to begin next year because we're losing the one we have right now. I know that's not the best situation but that's all I know for sure. Plus the department usually tries to fund all of the students that they bring in. And we're losing 2 of our graduate students that are TAs for the cultural class. So they would likely give funding. Plus we definitely need more cultural because we will only have 1 cultural grad student that is taking classes regularly.

Let me know if you have any questions about the department!

[Bschaefer]

Submitted my first app. This is wicked relieving 

 

[bioanth]

3 hours ago, shell said:

Hi all i've applied to University of Edinburgh Medical anthropology and got accepted but now i'm looking to apply for Medical Anthropology in US but i want a school whose Anthropology Dept offers Graduate assistantship jobs. Any ideas 

The University of Alabama has a good biomedical anthropology program, and they fund almost all of their MA & PhD students!

[knp]

@shell Are you looking for a master's or a PhD? All PhD programs in anthropology that are about as good or better as Edinburgh should offer all their students full funding. Or, do you mean, research assistantship rather than teaching assistantship? That will be significantly more idiosyncratic, and I doubt I can help you. More MAs aren't funded, and I have no idea of the lay of the medical anthropology master's programs out there, so I defer to other posters who actually know things. Are you applying for this year? Most PhD deadlines for anthropology are December 15 or were on December 1; I think MAs tend to be later, but span a broader range, too. What are your goals with your degree?

[DancinFool]

Any Northwestern applicants here? There's a video question that just says, "Video Q -- 1:00 time limit: Please tell us why you are interested in attending Northwestern University." Like, ugh. Anyone tackled this yet? Does it let you re-record?

[AnthropologyNRT]

On 12/7/2016 at 1:34 PM, museum_geek said:

UCI has a couple faculty members who do visual anthropology, but I don't think they have a program specifically dedicated to it.  

They Have Keith Murphy who co-runs the Ethnography Lab. Very heavy visual focus.

[suavesana]

My top choice program had the earliest deadline (Dec 1) and now that it's done, I'm having such a huge gap in motivation. I don't wanna do any more! And I'm impatient about results. Anyone else feeling this? Haha.

[museum_geek]

The waiting really sucks but I feel like the end of semester grind is really exacerbating things.  Once break starts and I have some time to unwind and not think of everything in terms of my next deadline I feel like I'll have a better grasp on the waiting game.

[enfp]

Anyone applying to Brown? Any idea if they require more than one writing sample? The application gives an option for two uploads and the department website isn't clear about it...

[Bschaefer]

@enfp I submitted my application a few days ago and was confused too. I didn't get a straight forward answer so I uploaded a chapter of my thesis and a paper on developmental defect/congenital anomalies in Peru

Which subdiscipline are you?

[EvelynD]

11 hours ago, museum_geek said:

The waiting really sucks but I feel like the end of semester grind is really exacerbating things.  Once break starts and I have some time to unwind and not think of everything in terms of my next deadline I feel like I'll have a better grasp on the waiting game.

I graduated over a year ago and I'm now working two jobs. Eventhough I don't have to worry about course work in the evening this hasn't been an ideal situation either. I feel like I have to divide my attention between so many things that I made some small mistakes in my applications. Ah well,...nobody's application is perfect I guess! But now its (almost) all done my pre-app nerves have change into 'I'm sure you did everything wrong' nerves  

[enfp]

@Bschaefer Sociocultural! I emailed Jessaca Leivaweaver, the DGS. She said submitting one is fine but that some people submit two to show range. She emphasized it's unnecessary though. Submitted yesterday, so nervous! Brown is kind of the dream.

[unitstructures]

On 12/10/2016 at 4:44 PM, DancinFool said:

Any Northwestern applicants here? There's a video question that just says, "Video Q -- 1:00 time limit: Please tell us why you are interested in attending Northwestern University." Like, ugh. Anyone tackled this yet? Does it let you re-record?

I applied to Northwestern. It's supposed to let you preview and re-record but the system has problems. Mine may not have uploaded properly because although it said "thank you for saving the video" or something like that, all I saw was a gray screen, where it should have shown a still image. I contacted the department, the graduate school, and IT, but none of them helped much. In the end, I submitted the application anyway because it was the deadline date, but my application is probably screwed. The department is not answering my email about this problem, either. You might not have this problem at all though. Good luck with your application!

[DancinFool]

26 minutes ago, unitstructures said:

I applied to Northwestern. It's supposed to let you preview and re-record but the system has problems. Mine may not have uploaded properly because although it said "thank you for saving the video" or something like that, all I saw was a gray screen, where it should have shown a still image. I contacted the department, the graduate school, and IT, but none of them helped much. In the end, I submitted the application anyway because it was the deadline date, but my application is probably screwed. The department is not answering my email about this problem, either. You might not have this problem at all though. Good luck with your application!

What a mess! Sorry that happened to you. I guess I'll just give it a go and hope for the best...

[museum_geek]

On 12/12/2016 at 1:40 PM, EvelynD said:

I graduated over a year ago and I'm now working two jobs. Eventhough I don't have to worry about course work in the evening this hasn't been an ideal situation either. I feel like I have to divide my attention between so many things that I made some small mistakes in my applications. Ah well,...nobody's application is perfect I guess! But now its (almost) all done my pre-app nerves have change into 'I'm sure you did everything wrong' nerves  

I feel your pain, applying for MA programs when I was working one full time job was bad enough.  I can't imagine applying this cycle with two jobs!  I can also identity with the "I'm sure you did everything wrong" nerves, especially since I found a typo in one of my SOPs where I had an extraneous comma.  At this point all you can do is try to relax and enjoy the holidays - I'm sure January will be stressful enough as is!

Edited December 14, 2016 by museum_geek

[EvelynD]

Me too! I found an 'and' that I should have deleted! Urg!!! And I mistook the date of one of my applications. I thought it was in January but it turned out to be on the 7th of December. When did I find this out? On December 6th at 23:00, when I was already in bed and watching Gilmore Girls. I send my letter requests to two professors, but one is doing her fieldwork now and she wasn't able to send her LoR. So now I have to email the department to see is she can still send it. Sh*t like this keeps happening all the time, bo application has been going perfectly so far. But I'm not the only one, right?  

I'm thinking about applying to one more uni because I feel like four might not be enough, but I'm doubting if I should. My PoI and I work on the same general subject, but nobody in the department works outside of the US. My project is very internationally based. The program is good, but I'm not sure I wanna spend another 75$ 'just to be sure' when I'm not sure. What would you guys do? I feel a bit bummed because I found some great schools when their app deadlines had already passed, but don't think this school is the best school for ME, eventhough its a good school in itself.

[UsernamesAreTricky]

If I do end up being a professor, this is a public promise to myself that I will never, ever leave a student freaking out the night before her application is due because I haven't submitted my letter yet.

2/3 of my letter writers haven't submitted their letters yet, and my application is due tomorrow! I already sent them a reminder last week (which they both confirmed seeing), so I'm worried sending them another reminder, less than 24 hours before my deadline, would be overkill 

@EvelynD I would say it depends on how you feel about your four other applications. I'm pretty sure a typo won't be a big deal, but if there are other reasons you don't feel very confident about the other universities you applied to, then it might be worth applying to this one as well  I'm only applying to one place which is why I'm so anxious about my referees submitting their letters on time!

[EvelynD]

Pff that must suck a lot  I got an extension from the uni where my prof missed the deadline. But, since she is busy with many other students / stuff she told me she might not have the time to upload it today. Thankfully I have my third referee as a back up, he read my message yesterday evening but hasn't replied yet. And today is the definite deadline for letters.

I've had three referees, but from two of them I'm getting this vibe that they are kinda done with uploading their letters, even though I've only applied to four schools. Makes me feel like I'm over-asking them. I don't know how people apply to up to 10 schools, I don't think I would get away with that.

[museum_geek]

58 minutes ago, EvelynD said:

I've had three referees, but from two of them I'm getting this vibe that they are kinda done with uploading their letters, even though I've only applied to four schools. Makes me feel like I'm over-asking them. I don't know how people apply to up to 10 schools, I don't think I would get away with that.

It's part of a professor's job to submit letters of recommendation.  They know that it's part of their role in academia and if they aren't up for it then they shouldn't agree to write a letter in the first place.  From what my current advisor has told me the letter itself doesn't really change from school to school aside from minor details - once it's written it's just a matter of uploading the file via the link that gets emailed to them.  One of my letter writers submitted letters to 7 schools in the span of an hour the other day.  

Bottom line, it's not difficult to submit a letter of recommendation once it's written, and asking a letter writer to submit for more than 10 schools isn't asking too much.  As long as you give enough advance notice to your letter writers then it shouldn't be a big deal for them to get this stuff in by the deadline.

[DancinFool]

@unitstructures I had similar technical issues with the video interview and emailed the department. They responded: "No need to submit the video. The video is an existing feature of the Online CollegeNET Application system and not a requirement for the NU Anthropology application." So I think we're in the clear! Breathe easy.

[usiwenawasiwasi]

Is there any rhyme or reason to interviews? I know that they help committees decide between a shortlist of candidates, but it doesn't seem like they are done everywhere or all the time.

[EvelynD]

9 hours ago, museum_geek said:

It's part of a professor's job to submit letters of recommendation.  They know that it's part of their role in academia and if they aren't up for it then they shouldn't agree to write a letter in the first place.  From what my current advisor has told me the letter itself doesn't really change from school to school aside from minor details - once it's written it's just a matter of uploading the file via the link that gets emailed to them.  One of my letter writers submitted letters to 7 schools in the span of an hour the other day.  

Bottom line, it's not difficult to submit a letter of recommendation once it's written, and asking a letter writer to submit for more than 10 schools isn't asking too much.  As long as you give enough advance notice to your letter writers then it shouldn't be a big deal for them to get this stuff in by the deadline.

Right? Thats what I was thinking. The only think I can think of is that the prof was angry that I gave such short notice, but I admitted I made a mistake. Thankfully my 'back up' referee helped me out.