YAY! PURDUE UNIVERSITY said YES!

YAY! i got into Purdue University for grad school! this is what the email i received today said:

"Dear Karen - I am pleased to be able to tell you that the graduate admissions committee in American Studies at Purdue has recommended your for admission to the M.A. program. You will be receiving official notification from both the program and the Graduate School soon.

In the meantime, we are working on possible funding packages for you. One of the areas we are looking at is a possible teaching assistantship in the Women's Studies program. They require students to complete an application and other materials. The application is will be available soon on-line at the following URL: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/womens-studies/graduate/assist_app.cfm. Once the application is available, I will notify you and have you complete it. You can then send it directly back to me so I can compile the other information they need.

We are also pursuing the possibility of a teaching assistantship in the Department of History. As I stated above, we will be back in touch soon with more information. Congratulations and I look forward to hearing from you!"

YAY! i wrote back this gibbering email saying thank you like 10 million times! great news! Purdue is in West Layfayette, Indiana. it's less than 2 hours from chicago and less than 1 hour from indianapolis (where my aunt, uncle and cousin live, which is awesome). Purdue is a great school, i had some wonderful responses from profs there, and the living expenses are CHEAP. plus it looks pretty:

so let's take a closer look at this school....the mascot is the Boilermakers, wtf? it's a train, and a "Purdue Pete" (aka someone in a crazy mascot uniform) acts like the conductor, or "boilermaker". unfortunately the purdue website is hard to navigate so that's one strike against it. the colors are black and gold (not bad). this is what it says about history: "Founded in 1869 and named after benefactor John Purdue, Purdue University began its journey with six instructors, 39 students and a mission to provide agriculture and mechanic arts education." there's about 5 campuses (i'd go to the main one, in west layfayette) with 70,000 students overall and 40,000 at the main campus (nice change from skidmore's 2500 people, thats for sure). it's in the top 10 for football, and apparently the "Big 10" thing was the president of Purdue's idea in the late 1800s. it's quite cold and snowy but NOTHING compared to saratoga. (and i miss snow so that's nice). it is 17 hours from my house, and i will have to travel 1061.75 miles to get there from Houston.

alright! this concludes (mostly) your (and my) lesson on Purdue! (to the left is an aerial shot of the campus)

so we have 3 more schools and 4 programs total to hear from (umassBoston, william&mary, and UT for american studies and women's studies). UT is still my #1 school, so we'll see. i kind of feel like it's a marriage proposal to each school-- kansas turned me down but purdue said yes!

purdue does have many great things going for it, and whatever happens-- i will be a grad student in 2008 somewhere! HOORAY! three cheers! HIP HIP HOORAY :)