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Wisconsin is a great program - very friendly department, and Madison is such a beautiful, fun town. Similar to Ann Arbor, but double the size, sunnier, between two gorgeous lakes, and with the state government there as well as the university to bring life to the place. I know a 4th-year at Wisconsin who also did her BA at Michigan and is very happy (I visited turn my application cycle and strongly considered going there). Stay in touch with the DGS over the next few weeks to keep reaffirming your interest. I've been rooting for you, as a fellow Wolverine!

I'm one of the people who has said or implied before that Chicago has a reputation for being competitive, so I just want to clarify that I didn't mean that that is in any way an objectively negative thing. There is no doubt that there is some incredibly exciting scholarship coming from Chicago, and that it has excellent placement and some of the top scholars in the field. That it has a competitive environment is a draw for a lot of people - for them, that means being challenged and pushed in a productive way. For me, personally, I knew that such an environment would not be productive; I thrive in mutually supportive, collaborative, collegial communities, and sustained, immanent cutthroat competition just makes me withdraw and live in an unproductive state of anxiety. It's a matter of knowing yourself as a scholar, and knowing what works and doesn't for you. Chicago is absolutely a top-notch program; but there are multiple top-notch programs, all with very different cultures, so it becomes important to figure out your own individual needs and conditions for thriving, and then to choose a program with an environment that suits those needs. Chicago is awesome for people that thrive under competitive conditions, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that; other programs are awesome for people that thrive under more collegial conditions, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, either. At a certain point, you really can't put these things on objective scales: it takes a lot of self-reflection, as well as visiting multiple places and paying close attention.

I think this choice is actually quite clear. It sounds like you are familiar with School 1, and so it is comfortable and feels safe to you. But by every other metric, the other school seems the clear choice. Money is really important, resources both for your interests and in general are hugely important, and having the best faculty fit is so, so important. Those are fundamentals. Another thing to keep in mind is that time to completion is artificially long at some institutions because their grad students are permitted to stay on (and keep getting paid, and having insurance) if they haven't yet gotten a job, even if they could technically be done with their dissertations, whereas other schools won't support you as a fallback option, whether you have a job or not. That's why Yale, for example, has something like a 10-year completion rate. (That's one thing I'd add - if job placement at School 1 is significantly better than at this other place, that could swing things in that direction.) I'd always say all other things being equal, go where you're intuitively drawn to. But in this case, no other things are equal. You'll make the other place a home and eventually be comfortable there, too.

So glad to see this, Jazzy, and that your advisor was able to help you see straight! I concur about visiting as many of your schools as possible - if nothing else, it's nice to make some contacts with scholars you admire at other universities, even if you don't end up there, as well as get a sense of how things work at a variety of programs. Here's a thread from the year I applied that might be of interest to you (though, in classic internet fashion, it gets derailed and spins out of control towards the end): (The funny thing is, though, that we're all talking about the sort of programs you got into as the classic "top tier" that the academy may or may not be expanding out from, but the idea is the same.) In other news, will I see you at Michigan's visiting days? Belated congrats to all the recent admits (and waitlists)! Had a meeting with our DGS yesterday, and he was excited about the recent decisions.

Psht never be embarrassed by an interest in fashion. Here's an awesome new academic book I'm reading that reads Coco Chanel as a modernist, alongside Wyndham Lewis and Mina Loy (who apparently designed jewelry): http://books.google.com/books/about/Cold_Modernism.html?id=t1U0-8fbEMwC

I think this is great. Though Gwendolyn is very right and you could still easily get some acceptances, I'll just tell you what my undergrad advisor (who was the first to suggest to me that I go to grad school so it wasn't just a subtle discouragement technique) told me when I was starting to think about applying: "If you can imagine yourself happy and fulfilled doing anything else, do that." Academia in the humanities is a tough road, jobs are scarce and mean you don't get a ton of choice in where you live, and a frightening number of brilliant people end up doing low-wage, benefit-free labor as adjuncts. While I ultimately decided that I couldn't live with not doing it, and I'm happy with my choice and don't begrudge anyone else who makes the same one, I do still think that was good advice. If you're even tempted, try it! It's harder to start on a non-academic career track after a lot of time in academia than the other way around. Good luck either way!

I would be curious to see how the 21-25 category, which looks like it's significantly the largest at about 60%, breaks down. I was 24 when I applied (25 when I enrolled), and so had spent 3 years in the working world after graduation. Because of that, I felt much more affinity for the mid-late-20s people than those coming straight from undergrad. So I do wonder how much of that category is 21-22, and how much is 23-25. I also wonder if there's a difference in admissions success between those older and younger applicants, or alternatively between people straight from undergrad and those not, and in which direction. Anecdotally, there was only one person in my cohort who came straight from undergrad, and that person was older than the typical undergrad anyway. We need some statistics people in here!

Jazzy, bringing the drama! I also read the original post, and basically the issue to me is not that you want to go to Columbia or Berkeley, which is totally fine, but that you want to go to those programs solely because you think they are viewed as more prestigious than the ones you got into. It doesn't even seem like you're concerned with anything substantive about the programs themselves. Where are you getting those ideas? The idea that Columbia or Berkeley are appreciably more prestigious than Chicago or Brown or UCLA is just straight-up bizarre to me. They're all different, sure, but in type, not degree. I mean, there are multiple people in my program (Michigan) who turned down Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and a ton who have turned down Berkeley to come here - and that's just my cohort and the ones directly above and below. I feel like we always have a bunch of admits who are deciding between Berkeley and Michigan, and it's usually about 50/50 if they come here or there. I'm not tryin'a brag on my program or anything (though it is awesome!), but it's just reality. A lot of people consistently turn down multiple Ivies for Rutgers, which has better placement than most Ivies (and really, why does prestige matter except for that? Isn't that sort of the ultimate test of prestige?). It just seems like your ideas about prestige are coming straight from US News's exact rankings, which is stretching them beyond what they are capable of doing. Your friends who got into Berkeley or Columbia - did they get into Chicago or Brown or UCLA or NYU? I highly doubt they got into everything, because it's individual at that point and not about how "good" you are. It's not like undergrad where there's an objective scale. If there is something about Berkeley or Columbia specifically, substantively, that you really, really can't live without, that's totally fine, and I agree that if you really want it, apply again and go for it (and that time around, don't apply for schools you won't be thrilled to go to)! But don't do it because you think the schools you got into aren't prestigious enough. It's just simply not true. And hey, if you are a competitive person, I bet you'd LOVE Chicago!

Just to piggyback on Phil Sparrow: I'm concerned that you seem to think that there is some sort of difference in admissions standards and program quality between the schools where you were admitted and the schools where you were not. There is not. They're all in the top tier, and the differences between them are horizontal, not vertical. You have definitely met the criteria like GPA and GRE of any school to get into the schools you did, so that would be a 100% waste of time. Promise. In no way are you guaranteed admission at any of those places the second time around, either - just because they have room in their cohort this year for a person with your research interests doesn't mean they will next year. When you say "the schools I really really really wanted to go to," why did you prefer them? If the answer is anything but "research fit" (which admissions committees themselves are probably better positioned to judge than you, especially before you've visited), it's wrong. Your extraordinarily good results testify to the fact that it is certainly not that you weren't "good" enough on any objective scale to get in to any programs. Visit, and learn more - the way you're viewing your acceptances is coming off as underinformed. The only reason to not accept one of those offers is if you aren't really sure about doing literature grad school at all. Which is something to consider, and seriously! I echo Phil Sparrow's question about undergrad, because I have a brilliant friend who went to a top English program right out of undergrad, and I remember him feeling uneasy and unsure about it right before graduation. He dropped out after a few years because he realized he had just gone because it seemed like a natural next step, instead of figuring out whether it was really right and exploring other career options. After a few years of working in the "real world," he re-applied, and is now attending a program perhaps not technically as highly-ranked as his former one and many of the schools you are accepted at, but an excellent program and an excellent fit for him nonetheless. And he's much happier. But he needed some time in "the real world" to understand the stakes - and also to understand that grad school/academia actually is the real world, which is hard to see if you've never spent any real time out of school. So I don't mean to brush off your uneasiness - it can certainly be a hindrance to making grad school worthwhile. Basically, if you are not feeling good about going, don't! But not because you think you can get a program more prestigious. You can't; you're already there. If you turn down offers, do it with the mindset that you might get not get into ANY of those programs next time around, and that even if that were the case, you would still not regret turning them down and doing something else for a while.

Hey, good to "see" you, too! I'm glad you like Louisiana - I miss it sometimes! Went to New Orleans for a bit this summer. Michigan has been good to me, too. I just did prelims in January, and will be done with coursework after April (I'm taking one course and teaching one course right now). In that stage where I'm supposed to be coming up with a diss topic, but every time I have an inkling of an idea, I find the book that someone already wrote on it last year. Yikes. And yes, I am lurking to look for new admits. I totally thought it was going to be late last week, but we're much later than usual this year. We also have had job candidates, but just for one position (y'all have FIVE?! couldn't they have waited a few years on a couple of those for me to get my PhD so I could apply?! ), so that may have something to do with it, along with starting the semester a week later than usual and having a new DGS this year. I also just figure I got so much good advice from generous grad students when I was applying that it's nice to pay it forward a bit. If anyone has questions about Michigan, PM me!

You should absolutely make some initial contact in the next day or two to express your strong interest and desire to remain on the waitlist. As far as, "If admitted, I would attend," goes, that's the golden sentence, but you'll want to wait for the right time to say it - not before you've heard back from all of your own schools, and probably not before you visit and have a much better sense of the situation. If you want more advice on waitlist strategy, PM me. I was basically a professional waitlister the year I applied, and it worked out for me!

It means expressing continued interest, staying in contact, asking for updates, and keeping them updated with your own status - persistently but not annoyingly so - will be key. Ask them if they group their list by subfield - it's likely that they do. Congrats! That they invited you to the weekend is very promising.

My favorite story about the US News rankings is that a few years ago, in the History subfield rankings, Harvard was near the top for Latin American history. The catch: Harvard had absolutely no Latin American history faculty. Now it's #9, and they have exactly one historian of Latin America, and she's junior faculty. The subfield rankings are especially bullshit, since it's based not only on professors' vague sense of what programs are good (often, as you said, based on their own experiences from the '70s), but also from people not even in those subfields. Oh, and US News faculty survey that the rankings are solely based on also has a 30% reply rate, and it's done completely voluntarily and not through randomization. They actually did an update on a lot of the NRC data fairly recently, but you're right in that there are a ton of holes. The bottom line is that treating rankings like gospel or in any way objectively superior to the research you can do about these programs yourself is not only foolish but absurd.

I love seeing this epiphany happen. And not just because my program is ranked #13 by US News and #4 by NRC.

Yup. It would be absurd to make a decision at this stage based nakedly on the US News lists, especially when they're within 10 or so steps of each other. It's not that rankings don't tell you anything, because they are totally a good guide to general reputations when you're first researching, but they're simply not designed to differentiate between, for example, #7 and #13 in any meaningful way for individuals. It really depends on what you envision your particular project being and who in the faculty can support it, what sort of atmosphere is going to allow you to thrive and do your best work - all the stuff on greekdaph's list on the "Questions to Ask" thread. Ultimately it's your project that is going to get you a job; reputation certainly matters for getting you in the door, but you're already in the door with both of those schools. So it becomes very individual at that stage, and visiting is really the only way to get a sense of those things and what matters for you being able to be at your best. Usually, after visiting, it'll be pretty clear, especially with programs that have cultures as different as Brown and Chicago (so I hear!).

I think there's only one situation in which it would make sense to tell them that, and that's if you've received all of your decisions, you're waitlisted, and truly mean that if you got in, you'd definitely accept. Don't do it before they've even made their first decisions - that means you also haven't gotten all of yours, and you want to be able to genuinely choose between your options without committing yourself early. If you tell them they're your top choice, they let you in, and then you take your time deciding or even eventually accept another offer, it's considered pretty bad form. Basically seconding kcald's advice. Don't jump the gun. Keep some cards in your hands.

The N function is about a preference for abstract thinking and making connections between ideas, as opposed to a more concrete, sensory, fact-based orientation towards information. So yes, it makes sense that it is very common among academics, particularly in the humanities. In the general population, 75% are S, and that number is reversed plus some towards N in academia. -an ENFP/INFP - I'm right on the border and get each result about half the time.

I can answer this! I was admitted there several years ago, and the funding situation was pretty bad. Not all of us were offered first-year funding (in the form of a research assistantship, which paid a stipend way lower than any of the other schools where I was admitted) - there was a funding waitlist, and that was for the straight-up admits. On April 15 I was finally offered funding, but I had just gotten in off the waitlist at a program I preferred, so it ended up not mattering. It's possible that they've since switched to a model where they only admit those they can fund, but if anything the funding/union situation at Wisconsin as a whole has only gotten worse, so I doubt it. I have nothing but good things to say about the department itself, though, which was lovely and by which I was very tempted. Blame Gov. Scott Walker!

They always say that every year so that anxious applicants don't start bugging them if they run a little behind. If the past five years or so are any indication, admits and waitlists will almost certainly be notified by phone or email within the next week and a half or so, and rejections by post in early March.

I'm in my second year of a PhD program, and I calculated that in January of this year, I read 3,600 pages total. It was sort of an unusual month in that I had two presentations that required reading an extra book apiece, but otherwise pretty typical. A standard literature-based grad seminar will have maybe a novel a week plus an article or two. A theory-based class, a monograph and/or several articles adding up to the equivalent of a book per week. Typically, it involves doing a presentation once during the semester, sometimes weekly 1-2 page responses, and a final project that is either a conference-length (12-15 page) or article-length (20-25 page) paper. Seminars almost always meet once a week for 3 hours, though some courses are twice a week for 1.5 hours. In my program, you generally take 3 classes per semester until you're preparing for prelims in your 3rd year, when it drops down to one (you also have the option of taking one class pass-fail starting 2nd semester 2nd year). Starting in our second year, we are also teaching a course each semester, so prep and especially grading adds to the workload. So yeah, it's a lot of work, but is generally manageable until the end of the semester when you're researching and writing papers, at which point it doesn't always feel like it! (I'm reaching that point now!) As for the tone, my experience here has been that everyone is extremely collaborative and collegial, my cohort is lovely and hangs out all the time, and I don't feel in competition with anyone but rather like we're all rooting for each other. (Part of that is that we're literally not in competition - everyone is funded the same. And our interests are diverse enough that I feel like we all have our own niche, so it's easy to just relax and admire what other people are doing instead of angling.) People lend articles and books to each other if it reminds them of someone else's interests, and we do things like workshop each others' third-term review statements and attend each others' talks. Couldn't be happier about that. Hope that helps!

Just to back up what everyone is saying, do not pay for a PhD. To be blunt, a PhD acceptance with no funding is a rejection. Programs fund the students they want, despite what you seem to have heard - it is actually quite uncommon for them not to fund in some form, whether it's a public or private university, and whether you're coming in with a BA or MA (terminal MAs are a different story, but even doing that unfunded is generally discouraged if it can be avoided). There's a lot of talk (on forums like The Chronicle) about whether it's even ethical to admit PhD students in the humanities without funding, even for just the first year. If you don't even have guaranteed funding after a year, you should not even be considering it. I considered it when I was on a first-year funding waitlist at UW-Madison a couple years ago (I eventually got off and was awarded a fellowship, but accepted at another program anyway), but only because I had guaranteed funding for five years after, and because my grandfather had just died and left me just enough money to get by for a year without going into debt, and because Madison has a great placement record. But the DGS at the time was very wary of my doing it even then, and in retrospect that would have been terrible. DO NOT TAKE ON DEBT to do this. Especially since you already have a lot. I know money can often seem abstract, but eventually that much debt will come to be very real, and crushing. You will not be able to pay that much off, even if you are one of the lucky less-than-50% of PhDs to get a TT job. I don't think you'll be able to find a single well-informed person who thinks it's not a horrible idea. Sorry if this is harsh, but I think it's one of the few situations that warrants it. I know rejections are awful, and I've been there, but listen to people and don't do it. Re-apply - if they want you, they'll accept you with funding next time around.

Re: Michigan. About half of my cohort had MAs upon entering, and half had just BAs. I think it's similar for the cohort above me. The cohort below me had fewer people entering with MAs. So it varies, but there's certainly no policy against candidates with an MA. The way I understand it, it's all about the work you produce, so while a committee may expect that someone who has been in grad school for a few years should have a bit more direction or professional sophistication, an MA can actually help you build that. You do have to start over, though - everyone has the same requirements in terms of courses and structure, whether you have an MA or not. I think that's pretty typical, though.

Kaja Silverman is amazing. Lucky anyone who gets to work with her!

My cohort is about half and half entering with a BA vs MA. If anything, I think it's more common to go straight to the PhD, at least in my program. (I just finished my first year, and came in with just a BA, though I'd taken three years off.) But every program is different, so Buffalo is perhaps one that prefers its PhD students to have MAs first. At any rate, I wouldn't worry about it much. Those with an MA in hand may have a little bit of an edge just in knowing the ropes of how to be a grad student straight off the bat, but I don't think it makes a huge difference - I've been impressed by my peers with and without MAs both. You'll get into the swing of things quickly. They accepted you, so they think you're well-prepared, and no one knows better than them! As for people being married and having kids - remember, you're going to be there for 6+ years, so one or both of those things may apply to you by the end as well! Congrats and good luck!

Wow. With that reading speed, you're going to be just fine in grad school! I've had the hard copy of that book sitting on my shelves for over a semester now. I keep telling myself, oh, I'll get to it soon...