thepriorwalter

I'm fairly confident notifications for the different programs have historically been separate, looking at the past results board info. I don't think the same person even makes the calls! Crossing my fingers for both of you!

I'm English Language and Literature -- I don't think I've seen any of the joint programs post on the results board, so maybe no news is good news? (Or at least not implied bad news?) The visit days are March 26th and 27th. I hope you hear back soon!

Having searched this forum for older Michigan threads, it seems like they were never very active (or instructive). Lots of "Just got back from my visit, and I am definitely accepting!" (which is helpful in its own way) but not a lot of discussion about what sets Michigan apart or what people liked about it or what the department looks like. Anyone here accepted for Fall 2015? How are you leaning? I don't think I've seen anyone in the acceptances thread. Anyone going for the official visiting weekend? Planning to visit another time? Anyone around currently at Michigan want to talk about their experiences? (In thread or in PM?) Small personal aspect: I've been accepted with the Rackham Merit Fellowship, which makes the funding offer very generous (much more than any of my other offers), and Michigan is obviously an amazing program, and yet I am still hesitant for some reason. It's definitely a nice problem to have, at least. Hoping a visit helps clear things up.

In Hac, funny that you posted -- I was just coming to this thread to say that the OSU DGS was making his calls today to announce the results of the graduate school fellowship nominations, so I imagine they have a better understanding now of what their funding situation looks like and people should be hearing back soon (more acceptances and wait lists).

The University of Florida has a number of scholars interested in digital humanities and, more so, has an active graduate community in DH. There's a reading group that organizes department events and is very active.

Wow, so many schools today! Congratulations all!

I think I am unclear on why the suggestion is to do this before acceptances/decisions come out.

Very interesting about Michigan. Thanks, Ramus! Cost of living in Ann Arbor is way higher than I realized -- it startled me. It's lower everywhere else I got in (I think I assumed because it's mostly a college town that it would be lower). Really appreciate the advice to primarily negotiate with the school you are most interested in, so that the DGS doesn't waste their time and effort on finding you more funding (if possible) that you don't plan to take.

If you have more than one offer, are you negotiating it? How? Looking to do less teaching, hoping for more money, asking for matching funds from another offer? Explicitly negotiating? Just mentioning other funds to the DGS? If you've negotiated in the past (successfully or not, because sometimes it's because the department doesn't have more money to give), how did you do it and what do you recommend other hopeful negotiators know going into the process? I'm interested in doing this but terrified (engrained, ridiculous attitudes about discussing money, engrained attitudes about gender, and general anxiety), so I'm trying to collect as much information on the process as possible before I begin. (I know this has been discussed a few times on gradcafe (particularly in other forums), but I thought it was relevant to bring it up on the Literature board in particular, not only because I find many of the discussions on the other boards off putting, but also because lit can be its own animal in many ways and I was hoping for a recent conversation.)

Just my two cents on this -- I didn't contact a single POI at universities I applied to, nor did I mention professors by name in my SOP, and my "fit" paragraph was basically one sentence and then I spent the rest of it talking about teaching experience (as something I could add to the department). I don't think it could hurt, certainly, especially if it's something that will provide peace of mind, and I do wonder if a pattern will emerge where we see that contact POIs appears to be a "requirement" at some schools but not others. But more than anything, I'm fascinated by how different everyone's application experiences and backgrounds are.

Thanks, WT!! Congratulations yourself! I'm glad you have some security in this process now. Getting caught up on the thread--congrats to all the wonderful acceptances! This cohort is pretty amazing and wonderfully supportive. Great to see.

Got a call while I was in the movies and assumed it was a telemarketer. Just saw they left a 2:00 minute voicemail, so I checked. Michigan acceptance?????

OMG CONGRATULATIONS ON GEORGIA STATE, IN HAC!!!!!

Pittsburgh!! [dances] Their email came at 8:45 PM, way after I had counted them out for the day. ETA: Sigh. Wrong thread. Won't repost, but sorry, y'all.

Confession: Because Pittsburgh has typically notified on the first Friday in February, I've convinced myself that they did, in fact, notify on the 6th but asked people not to post it on gradcafe so they DGS wouldn't have to deal with "where is my decision information" emails. I've truly lost it.

Crossing my fingers for you so hard!

My program (Florida) is no longer offering terminal MAs (they collapsed that offer while I was in it), so I can't recommend a specific MA program, but I can talk about the experience of doing a fully-funded MA: I took time off after undergrad to do Teach For America, and it was (quite frankly) the worst experience of my life. I was having a number of personal issues as I was applying to graduate programs, but I ended up receiving two offers: one to Florida's terminal MA program and one to a PhD program. I had just committed myself to two years of TFA and hated every minute I was in the program. What if I committed to 6 years of a PhD and hated that too? Rather than feeling more ready for graduate study than when I finished my undergrad degree, I felt less ready. I had reason to believe that some of that was in my head, but overall, I really wasn't in a good place. So I took the terminal MA, with the hopes that if I liked it, I could either stay at Florida or reapply to programs and go somewhere else for my PhD (and if I didn't like it, I at least took two years to try to get my mind right and wasn't leaving the program on bad terms because the expectation was that I would only remain in the program for two years). My MA program experience has been amazing. The hours are long and the pay is low and the thanks are few, but my department is supportive and my colleagues are nothing short of amazing. I am a better scholar and thinker now, and I have developed a number of strategies and skills that I consider invaluable in my personal and academic development. I know some of that is highly personal and specific, but I can say a few things confidently: (1) I am receiving better offers after having an MA than I did straight out of undergrad, (2) I was able to work with different people for my graduate degree, so I was able to replace one of my recommenders with someone who only knew me at the graduate level and I am sure that helped, (3) I now have conferences to put on my application (of limited importance perhaps but has helped me develop important skills), and (4) my interests have shifted a little but, more importantly, my understanding of how to talk about my own work has evolved, and I produced a much more efficient SOP this time around. None of this is to suggest that anyone ELSE should choose an MA over a PhD, just that if what is offered to you is a funded MA, I think there is quite a bit to learn there. ETA: I applied with the exact same writing sample this time around, too, so the things that changed were my CV, my SOP, and my transcript.

[whispers] I think Pitt should notify this Friday. Why isn't it Friday? Alternately, why can't we live in a world where Pitt never notifies?

I believe a wave of wait lists also traditionally goes out around the time when the department finds out the results of the university-wide fellowship competition (February 16th this year, as I was informed in an email today), if past years are any indication. They also said they're expecting a cohort of around 20 (10 MA/10 BA), if that helps. I am not sure how many people have already been accepted at this point though.

Totally agree about the 2012-2013 application cycle!! I avoided here for a long time because of that. Glad to see it's a different environment this time around.

I took this into account in a really serious way. Most of my work is on YA lit, and there just aren't that many programs who have dedicated faculty working in children's/YA lit, let alone more than one person. The way I looked at it: (1) I set about finding programs that had professors who worked in children's lit and, for the most part, applied to those schools if the program was one I was interested in (for example, Illinois State got crossed off because it seems to have much more of a teaching focus than a research focus, despite having a number of wonderful and famous children's lit scholars, and that's not something I'm interested in). (2) To round out my list, I tried to find programs where I was interested in the scholarship professors were working on, despite not working in children's lit. So, for example, since I do a lot of work with gender and sexuality and queer theory, looking for professors whose work in these areas as a critical lens interested me. This produced a pretty huge list of schools but gave me a good place to start narrowing. (3) At every school I produced in point 2, I tried to look for graduate students working in children's lit. Even if there wasn't dedicated faculty, having a graduate student working in YA told me that the professors there were willing to support scholarship dedicated to that area. It cut quite a few schools off the list but made me feel better about the "fit" of where I was applying. I did other things to narrow the list after that (mostly looking at funding and placement relative to my current program), but that's at least how I considered the fit question.

I didn't even apply here but I find this so strange. What??

Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I can rename it. We can insert it after the school name and people can say whether it was an acceptance or a rejection. I think this might help to see some of the randomness of the process? I suspect the difference between acceptances and rejections will be pretty invisible to us. Good call!

Yeah, absolutely. And so few schools have notified at present that it makes the people who fill it out now seem much more exposed, in a way. This is for voluntary participation only, when/if a person feels comfortable doing it, filling in as much or as little as one is comfortable with. No obligations. Just intended as a way to get a slightly better read on some soft qualifications. I just would've liked to tell Fall 2013 me that if I never get the nerve up to email a POI, it's not going to mean the end of the world.

Just stealing your shorthand for "did you mention specific, lesser-known prof in your area or did you mention the prof that 3/4 of other applicants also want to work with in this department?"!