intextrovert
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Posts posted by intextrovert
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I don't know if we should be too worried about the "great number of applications" comment. After all, I'm sure they receive a "great number" every year, since they're a top program. I think the phrase "record number of applications" would have seemed more condemning. Here's to hoping it's the former!
Yeah, I might be reading into it too much. With tales of Penn's 680 apps and that article about Brown's record numbers, I read it as "greater than usual for us." But you're right, it doesn't actually say that.
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Absolutely - after getting one from Brown I try to assume that anytime I see a school's name in my imbox, it's one of these status update emails. But it's hard not to be jumpy on January 27! It was a nice email, though. I wonder if they've had a lot of people calling about status and felt compelled to send this to quell it. The "great number of applications" part is a little disheartening. I hope the "very near future" is indeed the VERY near future!
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I really love that as their teacher, you took the time to boast about your students on this board!
Congrats to your students! I still remember the sting of waitlist-and-reject from Brown for undergrad... Sigh. How time flies.Haha. You got me. What can I say - I love the little critters!
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I'm not applying to Brown, but I thought those of you who don't read gossip news (not that I do!) might be interested in this tidbit: Hermione Granger (err... the actress who plays her in the movies, I mean) has been at Brown for undergrad for a year (or so). Anyway, a lot of folks are saying that's why Brown's -undergrad- applicant pool has skyrocketed. And no, the trend isn't across the board, so to speak, in the sense that Brown's seen an unprecedented rise that puts their numbers above and beyond, say, Yale's.
That's a funny theory. As a high school English teacher who teaches mostly seniors, that has the ring of truth. Last year, three of the only four Ivy applications of the senior class's 55 kids were kids applying to Brown (two of the three were accepted). As a whole, my students are Harry Potter-frenzied (they were exactly the right age for it when the books and movies were coming out).
But that's undergrad. For grad, I've heard rumors of at least several of the Ivies getting unprecedented numbers this year, at least in English. I'm inclined to blame the economy - more applicants who are less informed, and thus more likely to apply based on perceived prestige, combined with the perception that public universities are the ones primarily suffering from budget cuts, etc. Although you're right, that doesn't explain why Brown in particular.
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I know - I hate when they do that! Even when I know it's too early, my heart skips a beat for the split second after I see an email like that. And the results page makes it worse. Why do people post when they get an email - especially a mass one - updating their app status?! That is not a result.
If we trust the results page, it looks like they typically notify in mid-Feb.
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I'm realizing as I read this that the disciplines that people come from are perhaps coloring their opinions.
I was a biology major as an undergrad. I went to a school where professors told you that you could only use a life sciences degree to a. become a professor b. become a doctor or c. "go into industry" if you got really, REALLY desperate.
Through various work experiences, I realized there are TONS of other opportunities to get stimulating and secure work with a life sciences PhD: working for the government (EPA, USDA, NRCS, defense), as an independent consultant, as a salaried science consultant for all kinds of businesses (banks, television studios, pest management, marketing firms, cosmetics), teaching informally (community agriculture, museums), working with grants MANAGEMENT (where you get to decide priorities for research at a level that COUNTS!!!), on and on. Or, you could get a law degree and work in environmental law. There are SO many options they don't tell you about at universities because they are (naturally, logically, with-good-intentions) trying to indoctrinate you into their way of life!
For me, realizing all the things that are out there helped me decide to go to grad school. I realized that my particular undergrad advisor had a very narrow view of things; he practically invented his field and had a tenure-track job at a prestigious department when he was 23 or something. All he knew was how to be a professor. He discouraged me from grad school completely. In retrospect, I could have taken any kind of life sciences PhD and used it in such a way that I could have found employment outside of academia. Or, my advisor could have talked with me about the courses I was taking outside of science and helped me reach some of the conclusions I later reached on my own.
I'm not bitter; I'm just imagining an alternate outcome.
If, however, I was in the humanities, or possibly the social sciences, becoming a professor COULD have been my only option, if I wanted to use my graduate training in any substantial way. I see a lot of folks with "history" or "sociology" as their interests on this thread. In those fields, it's true that there are a lot of PhDs being given out and no jobs where they can be used. In those fields, it is TOTALLY foreseeable, and possibly appropriate (from a PRAGMATIC point of view), that professors discourage students from spending time, money and energy getting a degree which won't get them anywhere.
Of course, the caveat to THAT is that some people just want to learn something cool. Getting a 5 year stipend to learn about history sounds great! If someone can pull that off - get in, go to classes, finish the dissertation - and not get caught up in expectations of getting a high paying job at the other end, GOOD FOR THEM!
The moral of my (mid-conference, slightly tipsy) post is that we should keep in mind that the context can change the meaning of the particulars. Depending on your field and what you expect to gain from graduate education, it may or may not make sense for a professor to bring you down to earth, or to encourage you to do something which others might find silly.
red_crayons, that was a really smart/astute post. Discipline really affects how valid some of these concerns are, and I think in the humanities, it's almost a moral obligation of profs to discourage smart people who love to read/analyze from following a path that requires a lot more than that to succeed. It's unfair to not let prospective grad students know about the odds and the difficulties ahead of them, even if they are talented. Anyone thinking about academia in the humanities SHOULD be forced to seriously consider and try other options, and if you can be discouraged out of it that early, it's probably a blessing; you'll figure out other less miserable/risky ways to put your talents to good use. Only if you CAN'T be discouraged, because it's not who you are, should you go for the degree.
I also like what you said about the intrinsic value of getting a PhD. If it's just a means to an end, it might not be worth it for most of us humanities folk. But I figure that no matter what happens at the end of it, I want to spend those years going as deeply as I can into my research. We're taught to be so driven by certain definitions of success and financial achievement that it's hard to accept the value of it. But I figure I'll be studying something that is meaningful to me, and as long as I'm making enough to get by, if I'm learning and thinking about what I really value and am passionate about for six years, that's good enough for me. Even if I don't get a TT position at the end (though that would be very nice).
But in the sciences, it is different. The whole "moral obligation" to discourage isn't nearly as applicable, since there are so many different places where an advanced degree can be useful. Discouragement in that case often might be driven more by a prof's ego than by genuine concern for the prospective student. Although I DO want to be in academia more than anything, I am jealous of science people, who have a lot of interesting options available outside of that if it doesn't work out that way.
I wish Obama wanted a Literary Interpretation Czar!
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I received the same thing from Oregon several weeks ago. That would be pretty sweet if it were true, but I think it's extremely unlikely that they looked over apps and sent mailings to the "good" ones. Much more likely that it's an automatic mailing to anyone who applied.
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Professors gossip. I've overheard adcom conversations in public hallways this month, which was a bit disconcerting. Professors I never met before said things like, "so and so told me about you; you have quite a reputation!" to me when I was a student. Some people are responsible and private, and some talk a lot, and that's kind of how it is.
Yeah! I had a prof tell me, who I'd never met (although she later became my thesis adviser), "your reputation preceded you into my office." That freaked me out a little. It's like when people say they had a dream about you - it's weird that people can sort of own you in that way. But now that I'm a teacher, I get it. Teaching is an enormous part of your life, so of course you talk about your students. For the faculty here, it's incessant.
I agree that it's better to hear harsh advice than get sugar-coated encouragement. Academia is rough, and involves a lot of proving yourself against terrible odds. Being honest about those odds, and addressing your weaknesses, is not a bad thing. It sounds like the prof did it without a whole lot of tact, which is always lame. But I do think the sage words of one 98 Degrees can be applicable: "You've gotta be cruel to be kind."
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I just recently talked to a potential advisor at a program that I'm applying to. For the most part, I remained polite but, it's so difficult to gauge their reactions over the phone. I , also, at one point, interrupted her and completely forgot the word I was looking for while I was talking to her. Needless to say, I'm being hard on myself and feel myself a fool.
The first time I talked to a potential advisor, I had been talking to some of my students after school and had to rush away to my classroom for privacy. She asked if why I was out of breath, and I was a little flustered and took a while to get my bearings. I still cringe a little thinking about it. SUPER embarrassed.
But she passed my email on to the DGS anyway and then had much more productive, positive conversations with her and other profs. The little things get SO amplified in your mind, when really, others probably hardly notice them. I second that it probably wasn't nearly as bad as you think it was. Besides, phone conversations are so awkward anyway - it's so easy to accidentally interrupt or talk at the same time, etc. because you can't pick up on visual cues for pauses, shifts, elaborations, etc. I wouldn't worry. Though sending an email thanking her and apologizing in passing about seeming nervous probably wouldn't hurt. They know you're human.
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I like how I seem to have started a sociologist brawl.
I can't speak to the influence of binge drinking, casual encounters, and frat parties on the development of political ideology. But I can say that if you are one of those liberal academic wannabes, this week has been seriously depressing. Between whimpering about the Massachusetts election and dissolving in angst over the Supreme Court decision, I've barely had time for my regular what-if-I-don't-get-in mindgames.
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I get "So you study maps?" and "You study rocks, right?" a lot.
Haha. One of my good friends/roommates in college was a geography major, and though we knew the gist of what geography is about (and some of us had even taken a few classes in it), we still reveled in teasing him about being a map-maker/cartographer ("You know, I hate to tell you this, but I think they've already mapped out the whole world...") and for his bad sense of direction. But only because it irritated him and drove him to insist that geography was not about maps. (Duh.)
However, his argument was always undermined when he'd run home all excited after a number of hours in the GIS lab: "Look at the map I made!"
It's an easy target. But honestly, if I switched fields, geography would be it. It's fascinating. I study space and place in literature, so it makes sense that I'd feel an affinity for the field.
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It's like you've read my mind; thanks so much for putting into such perfect words (and for making me realize I'm not alone). Because I couldn't manage to go about this process in secret (I'm living abroad and needed my parents to help put application materials together), I feel as if it's not just me who's going to be cosmically disappointed when I don't get accepted anywhere; it's going to be my whole damn family. Not to mention that because I've asked for a letter of recommendation from the chair of the English department at the high school I used to teach at, it'll be that whole community there, too, who realizes I suck. Plus, of course, the many friends and current European colleagues who had to be told about the process so as to avoid making them think I had, over the past year, come down with a severe psychological ailment, and last but certainly not least, the professors who have cheerfully written letter after letter on my behalf, only to be told come this spring, that the undergrad they expended so much time and effort trying to help, is, alas, without even one measly grad school acceptance -- not even to one of the four mediocre but passable programs she applied to. The bottom line: so many people's best (abstract) wishes and best (tangible) efforts are riding on this, that to be denied from every program won't be a rejection I suffer in silence, but a humiliation and shaming I'm forced to endure in public, among the very people I most respect and whom I would most want to be proud of me. It really is the shame of shames.
*Steps off soapbox* Now, that feels better... sort of.
You are definitely not alone! I think we all feel like that. But I also think it's distorted from our own perspective; the prospect of rejection looms so large in our own consciousnesses that it feels like it must put us in a precarious position with others, too, as if they were "counting" on us to get in. In reality, though, these people wouldn't be disappointed IN us, but FOR us. I felt pretty shamed having to tell my letter writers two years ago, but they were really supportive, and when I contacted them again this round, my adviser told me not to think of the first round as a setback, and that I was a better candidate now and better for it.
I think about how I'd feel if, say, a friend was rejected from med schools. She might feel humiliated, but I wouldn't think differently of her, and certainly wouldn't be disappointed in her - I'd just feel sympathy and hope it worked out for her the next time. Even if I'd done something like write a letter in support (like I did for my best friend's Peace Corps app), it's not like I'd feel it was wasted effort, and I'd be more than happy to do it again. It's helpful for me to think about it like that when I get too carried away imagining "letting down" everyone and having to tell my students I didn't get in (they are seniors and like the idea that we are going through the app process and "graduating" together). It's like how if the lesson or discussion I'm leading tanks, I spend a lot of time thinking about it and it majorly affects my morale, and I feel like a bad teacher. But they are 17, and have their own lives, and forget about it immediately; it's just me that it's really important to. I have to recognize that imagining others' disappointment/frustration with me for not getting in is just a projection of my own fears and feelings, not an accurate or realistic picture of their likely reactions. Bottom line, focus on yourself! You may feel embarrassed, but recognize it as that: your feeling of embarrassment, not anything that corresponds to anyone else. This will have zero effect on how the people who have supported and cared about you up to this point think of you.
OR, we could all just get in and not have to worry!
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I am also reapplying - two years since my first attempt. I spend a lot of time trying to rein my mind in - I can't help but skip ahead a few months and imagine best-case scenarios (which I try to stop in their tracks for fear of jinxes), worst-case ones, and all the ones in between (which really, are also best-case because they don't involve all rejections). Last time I applied, I was working an office job and applied in secret, so only had to tell my close friends and parents about not getting in. This time, since I'm teaching at a school with a very close community, everyone knows: the administration, fellow faculty, even the students. I keep telling them that it is a very real possibility that I won't get in, but I don't think they really believe it, and it will suck a LOT to have to tell them that I'll be back next year. Though they assure me they'd be happy, particularly the administration who is not looking forward to replacing me - the department head (who's taking a sabbatical next year) keeps trying to "bribe" me to stay by offering me the chair, haha.
Last time I made no contacts with people at the departments I was applying to, and this time I have, so I'm trying not to put too much stock in the positive feedback, since that is obviously no guarantee. Like the rest of you, I feel a lot better about my application this time around - and a lot more ready for grad school - but it's such a lottery, and I'm terrified of a second round of rejections. You know: reject me once, shame on you. Reject me twice, shame on me. Ha. I REALLY don't want to have to do this again.
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Congrats on the publication! That's really exciting.
Mostly seconding JennyFields's feather-in-cap comment. My adviser suggested that I work on turning my senior thesis into an article and trying to get published, but the impression I got that it wasn't really the publication itself that would impress them. She said the most important thing it might communicate was that I'd kept up my academic/professional energy even as I was outside of academia. As it turns out, I did not have time to do so with my current job! That sort of continued energy and initiative can be communicated in other ways, though.
At any rate, it gives you some confidence about your sample!
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I'm going to Red Lobster to stuff myself full of cheddar biscuits and order Parrot Bay Shrimp with a super giant "as large as a tire" adult beverage. Either way.
Haha, I love this! And of course you are a fellow Louisianan. Food and whiskey is the prize and consolation prize for everything in life down here. Crawfish etouffee for me, either way!
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The weird thing is that at my age, I'll have to socialize with faculty!
Maybe. But where I currently teach, I have lots of cross-generational friendships. I'm 24, and the people I'm closest to (where I live - my closest friends are still college friends, but are scattered all over the world) are 29, 38, 53, and 62! And we all have a great time together. When you all want to devote your life to the same thing, you can find commonalities and solidarity, even where your life experiences and situations are vastly different.
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Thought this article in the NY Times about why liberals become academics (not the other way around) was interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/arts/18liberal.html?em
I'm not totally sold on the idea that stereotyping is the most major factor. Or to put it another way, I think that the stereotype is fairly well-founded: "nerdy, longwinded, secular" - don't you kind of have to be like that to want to be a prof? I think it's more likely the latter explanation, that there are aspects of the job of "Professor," particularly humanities/social science professor, that correspond to aspects liberalism. You value certain things over other things as a liberal or conservative, and I think a lot of those things are strongly correlated with things you have to value to want to be a prof, or devalue to find it undesirable.
So, as you fine ladies and gents are the future of The Academy (I love the pretension of that term), it made me curious about the members of this board. Where do you self-identify on the political spectrum? What's your field? I think he's probably right that science/math/business people are more more likely to be more politically split, but who knows. What's your theory on why the Ivory Tower, like that notorious one of Pisa, leans so far to the left?
(By the way, if you couldn't guess from the fact that I read the New York Times, I define myself as a liberal. Not necessarily party-line or on every issue, but pretty darn liberal. And I'm in Literature - Humanities with a capital H.)
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So I guess "Option 3) You wait and re-apply to the place she gets into" is not on the table?
Ha - my thoughts exactly.
In that vein, we're not all "fellas" here!
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Your probability of getting in after this kind of contact is certainly higher than your overall probability. That doesn't mean it's 100% (or even 50%), but it is way higher than average (which for most programs is, what, 5%?). At least, I'm guessing. How could it possibly be otherwise?
Well, that's good to hear. I'm grateful for any edge at all. I mean, of course it makes sense - but when you get the impression that so many people are getting that kind of feedback, you have to wonder if it's just what they say. But I suppose this board is not a representative sample.
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Considering I'm in the humanities, I really like numbers. So I crunched mine, too:
On jacib's scale, I got a 91%.
On Lauren's, 302.8.
On moralresearcher's, 11.52.
As fun as these are, I highly doubt the programs I'm applying to would ever use such a system. For one, as coyabean noted, English programs don't care two cents about your quantitative score unless maybe it's alarmingly low, so my randomly high Q won't be helping me. I really think we tend to focus intensely on this stuff because it's something concrete and quantifiable to fret over rather than the sort of nebulous concepts like quality of SoP, writing sample, and "fit," which is near impossible for us to figure out how a department will evaluate. Not to say that there might not be some cutoffs, but I bet they do initial glances to flag anyone who's borderline but might be a good fit.
Further proof that they likely don't use such a system: I was rejected everywhere but one my first round with these same numbers, which on these scales seem to be pretty high. I'm sure people with weaker stats than mine that were less naive, better focused, and a better fit were accepted, and I'm okay with that. Because now I'm older and wiser and I focused purely on making the non-quantitative side of my app better!
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See, I knew it was smart not to grin from ear to ear when the graduate director at one program I'm pursuing told me, "This program is perfect for you." Oh yes, it's perfect for me... Now the trick is to show the powers-that-be why I'm perfect for it.
Ah, tell me about it! A DGS at a program I really like told me the same, and man, I agree with her. I've really been trying not to get my hopes up on account of that, because there are just so many variables. I did write follow-up thank you emails after meeting with a few profs there, and one wrote me back, "Please come to [school]." I'm thinking, um, please accept me to [school]!
This thread is definitely keeping my feet on the ground. With all these accounts of rejection after positive contact, though, it's also kind of making me doubt whether people actually do get in after that sort of contact! Yikes.
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Well, a little harsh but probably mostly true intextrovert. Still, Columbia subsidizes grad housing and it's definitely doable. But you're right, no way it merits 700 applicants.
Haha, I didn't mean to sound judgey or harsh. My internet persona maybe comes across a little more sarcastic than I really am. I mean, I was naive and not too informed my first time around as well. And there's nothing wrong with liking the idea of living in New York while you're young - it's just not great criteria on which to base your decision to go to grad school. There are bound to be a lot of uninformed applicants, since it's really hard to get info about programs, so basing it on things like location and institution reputation is the easiest thing. But because we are all on Grad Cafe and thus have done our research, that doesn't apply to any of you fine people!
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I think the huge number of applicants at Columbia must be partly because people want to be in NYC, because other tops schools such as Stanford and Harvard state on their websites that they generally receive around 350 applicants. Though UPenn did receive 690 applications this year, which is up there with Columbia.
Yeah, it seems to me that there are several factors that create enormous application numbers, and the two most important seem to be Ivy League status and location in a major city. Both Columbia and Penn qualify for that, and Columbia seems even Ivier and big-citier than Penn - hence the consistent figure of 700s. But I'm not convinced the quality of those large applicant pools is comparable to, say, Indiana's, which would draw people who have done their research and want to go there for reasons other than the idea of living a shiny, glitzy dream city and the idea of going to a school that the world at large recognizes as "good." People who aren't necessarily extremely informed or serious might apply because of perceived prestige and the glamorous idea of the city. That's a major and maybe unfair generalization, but that's my sense. There's no way that Columbia is that great of a "fit" for all those applicants, so it's got to be something shallower. Even looking at those dubious rankings, it gets way more apps than higher-ranked programs. This sense is reinforced by the fact that the number of applications NYU receives is also regularly close to that range. All I can think is, good lord, it was difficult for me to get by in New York with a cushy salaried job in publishing and sharing a tiny 3-bedroom apartment with 3 other people. I can't even IMAGINE doing it on a English grad student's stipend! Godspeed to those "lucky" few of the 700!
BTW, those links I posted are almost definitely outdated - departments don't keep them up regularly. I remember all of them except for Michigan's being the same in 2007. So who knows how helpful they are. Bottom line is that acceptance rates are absurdly low.
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From Brown's site: We receive approximately three hundred applications each year, and we are able to offer admission to approximately 18 of those applicants.
From Michigan-Ann Arbor's site: we aim for an incoming class of 12 students. During the fall 2009 admissions process, we received 353 applications.
From UC-Berkeley's site (though, due to budget cuts, this will probably be much lower this year): The English Department typically receives between 450-550 applications each year and offers admission to 40-45 applicants, of whom 18-20 enter the program.
From Stanford's site: We are able to matriculate about 10 students with funding from an applicant pool of 350+.
Subfields?
in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
Posted · Edited by intextrovert
I didn't really have a choice except to apply in Modernism - most of my major work has been done in that era - but if I could go back in time to when I was vacillating on thesis topics, I might seriously think about choosing the Romantic one I was considering instead of the 20th century one I did. Not that I didn't love doing my thesis, because I did, but I do think it makes things even more difficult for me now. But I am what I am, and I do care about Modernism, so all I can do is cross my fingers and hope I beat the odds this time around. I'm also hoping my slightly unusual methodological interests - ecocriticism, psychogeography and space - set me apart a bit. That's assuming there are faculty with those interests, but I really tried to do my research and target programs that fit.
On the other hand, I've also heard once or twice that since Modernist courses tend to be the most popular undergrad choices, there might be a few more positions in it. So even if it gets double the apps, perhaps there are a few more slots out there? But to echo JennyFields, what do I know? Probably just wishful thinking.