Macaulay

People starting in the PhD program at UBC this fall: send me a PM, I've started a Facebook group for our cohort.

It sounds like you're rushing this. Seriously, have a phone conversation with the grad director at each school, and talk it over with your brain trust (profs at your school, mentors, etc.). These people know a lot of relevant information that you don't.

I'm currently finishing a stepping-stone MA at UWO, heading to Toronto or UBC. This isn't true. There's usually one student per year at UWO that uses the MA as a stepping stone. Last year a guy went to Northwestern. The faculty is happy to push you, if you're good enough; plus the small class size makes it easier to get letters. Do talk to Igor, or whoever is running admissions. It's possible to get most application stuff done in the summer: choosing schools, SOP, research proposal, planning LORs, etc.

Please list the other examples. I think it's much more likely that List is the exception that proves the rule.

Man, after 11 rejections, the first acceptance feels damn​ good.

Question 2: how do I know if I would prefer a nonacademic job over a pure teaching job?

Does doing a PhD at a third tier program (ranked lower than T30) mean that one is destined to end up with a teaching job at a liberal arts college?

NYU rejections are real. Believe that!

Another thing: are TA duties really 20 hours per week? (220 hours per quarter, quarter = 11 weeks)

Also wondering about this for Berkeley.

ETS used to mail out a score report. Why did they stop? I suppose you could just cover up your old scores and send that; try PDF Escape.

For Canadians planning to apply to the PhD at LSE, this is bad news about the Commonwealth scholarship: "Please note that there will be no competition for academic year 2014-2015." Anyone have other details on this?

If I want to do research on what Acemoglu's doing in development and institutions, but don't expect to get into MIT, where should I apply?

People going to the University of Western Ontario coordinate here!

Still no news from anyone else?

It seems most people see the summer thesis component of an MA as a bug, not a feature. Yes, if you've applied for PhD programs in the fall, a summer thesis is just an extra burden. But if you're applying to PhDs after you finish the MA, isn't a summer thesis quite valuable as an opportunity for supervised research? Perhaps even more valuable than an RA, if you've got a serious paper and are working closely with a professor?

I'm also considering going to UBC for an MA and taking a gap year. It is risky; if you go there and perform poorly, you won't improve your profile very much. But if you think you can go in and kick ***, there are definitely large rewards to be had.

Institution: Florida State Program: PhD Economics Decision: Accepted Funding: Fellowship Notification date: 16/03/13 Notified through: Email Posted on GC: No Comments: Safety school

Which MA programs teach their core courses as "minis", i.e., split into mini-courses with each taught by a different professor? Is it only Toronto that does this?

I'm considering UBC vs. Queen's vs. Western Ontario, with the goal of doing a PhD afterwards. I have partial funding from UBC and Queen's, and full funding from UWO. Talking to some profs today, they said that these programs are more or less the same quality, so it comes down to personal preferences (research interests, location, etc). My research interests definitely line up with UBC (political economy, development, institutions), but this still isn't a huge factor for an MA. Any thoughts, advice?

Institution: Toronto Program: MA Economics Decision: Accepted for regular stream, waitlist for DSMA Funding: none Notification date: 03/13/13 Notified through: Email Posted on GC: No Comments:

Institution: UBC Program: MA Economics Decision: Accepted Funding: 11k TAship Notification date: 03/12/2013 Notified through: Email Posted on GC: No Comments: Weaksauce on the funding...

Three weekends per year sounds like too high a time commitment, especially for a first-year grad student. Hopefully they're scheduled away from exams.

My funding package from Queen's is 14.5k. Out of this I'm expected to pay 7.3k in tuition and 16k in living costs. Is it normal for MA programs to offer only partial funding?

Does Maryland notify by email? On the application status page it says: "Decision information cannot be given out over the phone or in email correspondence."