DontHate

I used to have this goal, to publish a book by the time I was 27. Now that I'm older I've adjusted it: I want a PhD by the time I'm 30. Even that might need to get adjusted, but here's hoping. Also, before I accomplish these goals I won't allow myself to reproduce. That last part isn't very difficult to abide by because I'm single as fuck.

Why didn't I get into SUNY-Buffalo?!??!? I'm so pissed. I guess I should've sent in an application there. Well, you live and you learn.

I'm 74 but I age backwards so it's all good. I'm actually quite young for my age.

I'm always up at 7 am. May have something to do with my intense levels of anxiety lately

24 going on 87 going on 13

confusing people in book clubs should totally be a thing that booksellers do.

how do you fight the dr. eckleburg glasses?

Keely is awesome. Grad school is hard in the same way that being a teenager is hard. It feels pretty impossible from the inside, but from the outside everyone's all like "look at you, so young and beautiful, you'll never be this happy again!"

I also find silence confusing.

Wow! Always awesome to hear about someone getting in off a waitlist!

Yes exactly. I'll be indifferent once I get one acceptance too.

haha

In answer to the title of your post: I think so, yes

I was always very grateful for the presence of "more mature" students in my undergrad classes, particularly fiction writing workshops. Their work wasn't as narcissistic and auto-biographical, it had much more depth and range than that of the 19-year-olds (myself among them). I wasn't being sarcastic. I'm 24 but I have an old soul, and I really think it's great that you decided to do something different, tried for 3 years, and did it. That's very cool.

I was never like that.

Congrats Paul, that's a very cool story. I want to be just like you!

I've been waiting all month for news, like a goon, and I really feel like I should probably just start figuring out my strategy for re-applying. Maybe this is because I'm an incredibly impatient person. I just feel like so much silence, by now, equates to so many rejections. The results board is also silent, but it gives me no comfort because my discipline is so tiny (comp lit). Oh the humanity! Seriously though, I've only seen 1 acceptance from Yale and 1 from NYU. Should I count those two schools as implicit rejections if I haven't heard anything? My applications for them weren't my strongest (and my writing sample in general wasn't very strong). Oy vey.

The Ivy League is a historically fancy and prestigious brand -- they are some of the oldest schools in the country (ex: Harvard was the first school founded in the colonies), therefore they have that brand longevity so sought-after. They also generally have massive resources compared to other schools, partly due to their age; they have many generations of generous alumni to draw upon. That's about all I can think of to explain the appeal of the Ivies. It's comforting to feel yourself an approved member of a longstanding and classy system known for producing lots of successful ____ (fill in whatever it is you want to be here). Going to a newer, up-and-coming program takes a bit more blind faith in progress rather than the other kind of faith that draws upon past success.

I don't think GRE matters for sh*t. The best bets for improving an application are SoP and writing sample and CONNECTIONS -- try to get in good with a prof or two at a program you like.

I heard from CUNY as well, interviewed there last week.

Obviously Jazzy should do what Jazzy's heart tells Jazzy to do. If it's Columbia or bust, then go for Columbia. But it is statistically a truly random process, in many ways, and it is very possible that Jazzy will be throwing away a chance to go to Brown or Chicago WITHOUT ultimately exchanging it for entrance at Columbia (or Penn, or Harvard, or wherever it is that gives you butterflies). There will still probably be many programs that will take you, but they probably won't be any more "dreamy" than the ones you got into this year (because those are damn fine programs!) Unless something massive changes about your application, like you win a genius grant or publish a best-selling (academic) book [ha!], you'll be putting yourself through the exact same crapshoot that you went through this year, and you may not like the results. REAL TALK. I don't think it's entitled or spoiled or hyper-competitive to want to go to a certain school very badly (granted, I didn't read your controversial post that everyone was bashing]. I do think it's lacks pragmatism to not thoroughly weigh the consequences of giving up another year just to play the odds again, unless you have a killer plan [and that takes a lot more that improving your GRE and SoP.] Like, for instance, if you would be spending the year as a research assistant for a professor at your target program, that may be worth a shot. Or if you would be doing a Fulbright researching somewhere amazing. You get the idea.

Sarte didn't get into ENS on his first attempt at taking the exams. Second attempt: ranked #1 nationally.

What is this "real life" you speak of?

Eh, whatever you want to call it -- it just means figuring your shit out. It's not a luxury that only rich people can afford. It's available to everyone.