Cactus Ed

C'mon. This is just a humble-brag disguised as a naive question about the adequacy of qualifications. You're fine.

What program did you apply for? The likelihood of an interview at this point (April) is probably very small. April 15 is the unofficial "cutoff" date on which accepted students are expected to accept or decline offers of admittance, waitlisted students are admitted (or not), etc. So if you haven't heard a thing by now, especially about being on a waitlist or alternate list, it's probably not looking good.

Well, I would assume a Master's thesis earns you the Master's, which is a nice prerequisite to have when applying to PhD programs (when competing w/ those coming in with a BA). A publication is always better, however. I turned part of my Master's thesis into a publication once I entered the PhD program, but it was mostly ready before I applied and likely could've been picked up before I entered my PhD program (I didn't edit too much of it). I just didn't have the confidence to do so. My advice would be to polish the hell out of it and send it off somewhere just to get the experience. If you get a publication, big time bonus.

Sorry for the delayed reply. This course was part of my PhD coursework and part of a recent initiative on the part of the department to take responsibility for helping professionalize students in a more formal setting. In the past we've had lots of extra-curricular workshops and talks that were woefully under-attended, so my program now offers this course, one on the pedagogy of teaching literature, and others. It was a great course to take in that it essentially functioned as a 12-person workshop in which we all arrived with a draft (seminar paper length/20+ pp.), distributed that draft, and each student got to sit (silently) and listen to the class discuss the piece amongst themselves and give feedback. Each student got two "sessions" like this - once before and once after revision. It was nerve-wracking to hear a room full of people discuss my written work, but incredibly useful, too. We also did a lot of reading on scholarly publishing and learned how to familiarize ourselves with the journals in our fields, how to do things as simply as write abstracts and cover letters effectively, as well as what book proposals look like.

About a year and a half ago I was in the same boat: looking to publish a (heavily revised) chapter from my M.A. thesis. I was in my first year of my PhD program and took a course on scholarly publishing, and what I learned ended up getting me a publication in the leading journal in my field. So here's my advice on selecting a journal (besides taking time to look through the last 5 years or so of each journal to vet the types of subject matter they tend to publish): 1. Consult your bibliography. If you're trying to figure out which journal might be interested in your article, you can save yourself some time by looking at articles you cite in your paper to figure out which journals might be open to accepting work in the same vein. While this doesn't serve as a stand-in for doing further research on journals, it can help narrow the field down a bit. 2. Search the Penn CFP page to see if there are any special issues that might be good for your article (http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/) 3. If you still have access to the library database from your M.A. institution, search the MLA Directory of Periodicals. This will give you crucial information on submission information, including number of articles submitted vs. accepted per year at any journal, peer review details, time to decision, and more. You can use this information to weight the options. 4. Aim high. Assuming that this is your first submission, you've got relatively little to lose if your article is rejected. And you've really got lots to gain. If you get a revise and resubmit or an acceptance, that's awesome. If you get a rejection (which is the norm even for established scholars), you will often get very valuable reader's reports that can help you strengthen your article before resubmission. Sorry for the long response. This was the information given to me and my article was accepted outright the first time I accepted. While that's not the norm, I do think this advice helped a lot.

Rejected! Rejoice! The season is finally over

Based on these two statements ("a few" Masters Degrees to heighten your chances?), I suggest you do more research into the application process. You sound woefully underinformed about this whole process. No offense intended here; your "do whatever it takes" attitude is laudable -- that's the right attitude when it comes to applying to doctoral programs -- but it might be good to gather a bit more information before you stake your dreams on a single Ivy League with infallible faith in your writing samples. Also, follow asleepawake's advice. It is sound.

I will say, being that it's the 18th of April (over four months after the application deadline), it irks me that I still haven't received a decision. I kind of want my money back.

I grew up in Missoula and did both my BA and MA at the University of Montana, and I can tell you that it will be a bit harder to find an apartment in November than it would be in, say, July or August. However, it's not impossible, it's just that the availability of properties, in my experience, is very much tied to the university schedule. If you don't mind commuting by car several miles to get to campus, you should be fine, but it might be harder to find a place closer to campus in November since most lease cycles for students probably aren't coming to an end in the middle of the semester.

Congrats on the acceptance! I figured the process had to be wrapping up, and I've already accepted elsewhere, but CU is the last school for me to hear from so I hope that rejection comes soon Best of luck, thebeatgoeson!

P.S. I've already accepted another offer, but I, like you, want to know definitively. I don't know if I care enough to pester them though...

I'm pretty sure one person in the waitlist thread ("Waiting for Guffman") claimed to have been accepted off of Colorado's invisible waitlist, and he/she ended up taking the offer. I can't confirm that with a results board listing, though. Other than that, I've heard nothing on my end.

Congrats!

I'm sorry, lindse. No letter here yet, but it'll probably come today. I'd say it's not in poor form at all. The least they could do is give you some bullet points after all the work you had to put into your app.

OK, I can be more explicit since my thoughts were probably needlessly oblique: go to the cheapest option. Houston is your best bet.