Lycidas

I'd add to this that the crisis has essentially annihilated the (already very grim) academic job market for 2020-2021 (not just TT jobs but also a large percentage of postdocs), which means programs will face a lot of pressure to find ways to support students in their final years who will be left with very, very few options for continued funding. Finding money to extend funding packages an extra year will very likely cut into the available funding for new cohorts of PhD students and thus the number of available spots.

Without sounding panicked, universities of all sorts have already begun to make it clear that in the fallout from COVID-19, many humanities departments will find their already-thin budgets on the chopping block (see, for instance, Karen Kelsky's running list of announced hiring freezes). A union isn't necessarily a silver bullet that can save you from all of that, but a union contract definitely makes it harder for a university to cut stipends and other funding as a cost-saving measure, or to dramatically increase the amount of work you're expected to do (in order to compensate for a smaller pool of TT and NTT faculty due to a hiring freeze, for example). At places without a union, you risk finding yourself reduced to begging the administration not to cut you. An example: my institution has a 3-year English postdoc, and has already made it clear that they will be cutting those short and releasing postdocs at the end of this year, even if they have additional years left. This the kind of thing a union is built to fight, but left on their own these folks have little more than the option of trying to seek out a lawyer and possibly challenge the university for violating their contract (in the midst of figuring out life in general right now). When push comes to shove, it's a lot better to have a legal contract on your side than to have to ask an administration politely not to toss you out in the cold.

Also rejected by Penn. That one stings a little (it would've probably been the best school geographically for me), but I'm really thankful for my acceptances. Decision time!

Declined BC this morning. Really hope it goes to a GradCafe human!

Add me to the Harvard denial list! Now if UPenn would just hurry up and reject me I can officially say I made it through an application season alive

I should've worded my post better with regards to "rejection season"; I just meant that it's the start of rejection season for me, since most of my remaining schools have notified accepted students already. Since we don't have any remaining schools in common, I think you have much better odds of getting some acceptance calls soon!

Hi keema––I was accepted to Northeastern a few weeks ago. My impression is that all acceptances and waitlist notifications for the PhD program have gone out, but I don't know about the MA program. I second 1Q84's advice: I would get in touch with the graduate program administrative assistant and inquire about notifications

Got the official Yale rejection. Sadly it looks like rejection season has begun

Congratulations! April 6th is at least a bit better than some schools "We'll tell you at 11:45pm on April 14th if you got in or not" policies

Also denied by Rutgers, thanks to you folks here for the heads up to check. At least Columbia is in a consortium with them, so I can still take a course with my POI if I want!

Messing with the livelihoods of public school teachers and university employees/students was just Scott Walker’s warmup… http://www.npr.org/2015/02/26/389005148/gov-scott-walker-goes-head-to-head-with-labor-over-right-to-work

Yep, the acceptance on the board was me. I've since gotten an official letter from the graduate school via email, so my guess is that official acceptances have now gone out. As noted above, they took a very, very small class in order to offer more significant funding (they offered better funding than any of the other Boston-area schools I've been admitted to so far). That said, it's very possible MA letters are still going out, and I don't think any sort of waitlist has gone out yet either (although I'm not 100% sure if they have a waitlist or not)

Me too! Hooray for waitlists!

Waitlisted at Stanford! So close, yet so far

It’s worth thinking about the kind of debt you’ll be going into if you opt for a 60K unfunded MA (with maybe additional costs for living expenses, unless you’re willing to work a whole bunch on the side). I’m guessing your 10K undergraduate debt is in government loans (of course, it might not be; correct me if I’m wrong). But the likelihood of you being able to take out this much in government loans for graduate study is low—the Ford Direct Loan Program, which is the US Government’s main loan program for grad students, tops out at just over $20,000 per year. Which means you’ll probably end up having to take out private loans, which will be a whole lot harsher in both their interest rates and their repayment terms. This is something to consider in making your financial calculations.