NRR: grad school--ithaca, nashville, or pennslyvania?

having been to all those schools and cities, but knowing nothing about the quality of their graduate programs in english, i would go to vanderbilt. i believe that most people would agree that nashville is the best city of all of those to live during your 20s.

i mean, there's worse places to be than state college and ithaca, but they are not in my favorite places list when travel for work. both are pretty though.

I am a grad student at Cornell and I love it here. Ithaca isn't a huge city obviously, but if you are going to grad school to study that is not a massive drawback. Running is great here although it does get very cold in the winter. There are always plenty of things to do if you decide to get involved, and the intellectual community here is amazing, with every resource you can imagine.

Nashville...

I lived in Nashville from 2003-2005, in my mid 20s just out of law school, and loved it. The city is clean and well-run, there are a lot of fun things to do. I didn't spend a lot of time around Vandy, but the campus was nice and there are a lot of bars, restaurants, etc. there.

Running wise, you get all four seasons, its hillier than you'd expect, and the air quality can be bad in the summer (some sort of bowl effect from surrounding hills).

Overall though, I wish I still lived there.

nashville, awesome city

when job time comes, cornell will be the only choice, unless you want to work in the south or pa, because the committees froth at the mouth when they see ivy on your cv, regardless of what you have accomplished.

I just finished a Ph.D. in the humanities (not English) at Vanderbilt. Nashville's a good place to live, study, and run. The running scene is not super-fast at the top, but there are plenty of races, and Percy Warner Park is a sweet place to train.

Penn State has a fantastic running scene (well, I've never been to Vandy or Ithaca). LOTS of runners around there, solid running club, great routes to run. I love the area and can't recommend it highly enough.

That said, I remember from my undergrad days (2001-2005) that grad students had some ongoing feud with the administration over lack of insurance benefits or some such thing. I never paid it much attention, but I would look into that. It seemed like it was one of the few schools that did not provide this for their graduate students. So, look into that further, but other than that (and knowing very little about English in general at Penn State, or any school), I would still recommend State College!

Cornell's program (granted, a few years back) was ranked in the top seven; the other two were outside the top 25.

I spent a fair amount of time in Ithaca. The running is fine, and there's plenty of non-running stuff to do, as well; but the main thing, as someone said above, is to go for the "name" if you're interested in your post-school employment prospects.

Penn State is an overhyped state school in the middle of nowhere, and its pretty ugly.

This should be your last choice.

Go for the place with the best "name", and academic credentials in your field (English).

I just started grad school at Cornell after finishing my undergrad at Penn State, so I have some experience with Ithaca and a lot of experience with State College (I actually lived in State College before undergrad, so I know the area very well).

State College is a great town. It's one of those towns that is just the right size to have some nice amenities without the typical urban problems. Good public transit, a few quality restaurants, bars ranging from undergrad dives to classy, etc.

As the other poster said, State College has a great running scene. Miles and miles of trails and bike paths. Lots of runner safe streets as well (this is important when there is snow on the trails and bike paths). There are some good running groups as well.

Having lived in State College for 24 years, I could go on for hours. I don't want to ramble too much, so if you have anything specific you want to know about, go ahead and post it and I'll elaborate.

Penn State itself is a good school. I think it's underrated by many, but it really is a top notch academic institution.

As for Ithaca, it has been nice so far. I haven't found the great running locations yet, but I haven't been running more than 30 mpw since I moved in. Once I get back in shape and start running I might find some good trails. What I said about State College having solid amenities without urban problems applies to some extent with Ithaca as well, however State College is much more affluent than Ithaca.

Just looking at the towns themselves, I'd lean toward State College, but that might just reflect my hometown bias. Ithaca is Beautiful and is a nice town as well. I guess I would say that you can't go wrong with either.

Again, I don't want to ramble too much, but feel free to ask if there is anything specific that you want to know about or anything you want me to compare between the two towns.

As a fellow English grad student, go to Cornell--if they are paying you to go there.

I had to choose between paying to go to a top public school, or getting paid to go to a small liberal arts university. I chose the smaller school so that I could get out debt-free, but not going to the other one will haunt me when it comes time for a job. If you are going on to get your doctoral degree, then it does not really matter where you got the M.A., but it will definitely help you get into those programs.

I suppose what I am saying is, if Cornell is paying, then go. If they are not, then go to whoever is paying the best, if any are at all.

If you are a guy and hot women of are interest to you, then Nashville. We used love going up to Vanderbilt for cross country invitationals. Way hot women!

I've lived near Ithaca. Nice college town. Good place if you like hiking and ice fishing but it's rather remote.

I attended Penn State. Similar to Ithaca but feels just a little bigger. Lots of good concerts and entertaining sports.

It sounds like you are interested in places with a reasonable cost of living. Why not consider University of Virginia?

Seriously, don't even think about location. You need to go to Cornell in this job market (assuming you're getting paid--don't ever take out a loan for academic grad school).

The only exception would be if you want to specialize in a certain type of literature for which a lower-ranked school is particularly renowned. An example might be 19th century American lit at UNC.

I lived in Ithaca for 4 years ('99-'03) and it was fantastic. I hated it at first, because it was too rural from what I was used to (suburban NJ), but then it built up a little and I grew to love it. Running is great, but can require a lot of mental toughness in the winter months. Winter seems long. It seemed like it would start snowing in October and end in May. There weren't large accumulations of snow, but by March it got old wiping a quarter inch of snow off my car everyday.

I can agree with the other posters here that the Cornell name means a lot. No, not as much as some of the other Ivies as many here will argue (though the program I was in there was ranked #1), but regardless it still carries you far.

Nice campus, relatively safe, good running.

hm? wrote:

Penn State is an overhyped state school in the middle of nowhere, and its pretty ugly.

This should be your last choice.

Go for the place with the best "name", and academic credentials in your field (English).

Axe to grind?

By the way, Penn State has the largest alumni association in the world. Your chances of running into someone who went there (and will connect with you) are a lot higher than Cornell.

To clarify, I meant meeting a future employer from Penn State.

If you are going into English/comp. lit. then Cornell is by far the best program, although Vandy and PSU have fine departments as well. What is your concentration? I'm assuming you don't mean post-doc when you say post-grad? Really, location is not nearly as important as having strong faculty willing to support you in your research area.

I don't know your history/credentials, but the acceptance rate into these programs is <5%, and this from a population of people who all believe they are competitive in the field, many already with an MA. Quite honestly, unless you went to a top undergrad (Ivy or SLAC), have great LORs from well-known scholars, submit an already published writing sample, or are a minority, acceptance into any one of these programs is unlikely. I don't say this to be a dick, but instead to let you know that the reality is that the average applicant does not get into ANY Ph.D. program.