sadthatthisdefinesmylife

Agreed. And I think what we should all learn is that, as scholars, we are all dependent on each other. Our work is better when the work of others is better. Of course we strive to be the strongest possible. But it should be our ideas that are competing. It shouldn't be personal and petty. Maybe that's idealistic. Maybe I'm just trying to build up good karma. Also, speaking of totally selfless good karma, congratulations everyone!

Yay!! Congrats!

This is the thing that scares me the most. My undergrad GPA was not that great. It was a mixture of a little too much partying, being unfocused, and really not knowing what I wanted to do. My mom passed away when I was getting my UG, which is always how I explain it on applications, but the truth is that I just wasn't working hard enough. I'm in the last semester of an M.A. now and I've got a 4.0 in that. Doing the M.A. has been amazing because it reminded me that I wasn't stupid during my undergrad years, but I was an idiot. Despite that, I'm still scared of how large the undergrad GPA looms. When are we allowed to escape our past? Am I forever damned by the sins of my earlier self? So, to sum up. I'm there with you.

Congrats on all the WUSTL/Buffalo love. does that sound weird?

Yay!

Congrats to everyone who's received good news! You all deserve all the best for your hard work. That's true for the people who've received not so good news too. It's just the beginning of what, I'm sure will be a roller coaster of a few weeks, I'm sure that each one of us will get the positive news that we're looking for.

I kind of forced one of my professors to be a mentor while I was starting this whole process. One of the things that he said to me was "Doing these applications is going to take way more time than you think. Between researching programs, writing SOPs, cleaning up writing samples, and chasing down recs, it will be more like a part time job." I really didn't believe him. I thought it was just something that people said to make themselves sound like they've done more than they really have. Turns out, I was wrong. What he didn't mention was all how much time you spend thinking about it outside of the actual work. Blerg. His other advice was "don't apply to theory only programs," "only apply where you want to go", and "if you want a job at some point in your life, go to a top 20 school in your field." I guess the thing that I most regret about my apps is that I wish the SOP I submitted to my early deadline schools was as good as the one I submitted to the late deadline schools. Now that everything is in, I've actually had to force myself to stop going back and rereading my SOP and writing samples because it fills me with dread whenever I do it. The only other regret is that I wish I'd thought to use one of my rec's on my applications sooner. Throughout the whole process, I had my top three recommenders that I knew I was going to use. I chose them (all from my M.A.) because each of them represented a particular strength that I have (theory, writing, and analysis) and I knew they would talk about the contributions I could make to the field. I thought that they were also perfect because they didn't really ask me too many questions. It was more like "Sure, just send me the form." Right at the end of the process, I had this inspiration to contact one of my undergrad professors. She's not a real big name person, but she's pretty established, respected, and well known in her field. She's always been really supportive of me, but I was nervous to contact her because it had been a while. I was also nervous because I knew that she would ask to see all of my application stuff. It was kind of late in the process and the idea of having someone tell me that all my applications needed work freaked me out. I didn't want to have to go back and work on my SOP and sample anymore. Eventually I just decided to do it. I send her all of my stuff. She gave me great advice and kind of reframed my whole idea of how I presented myself in my application. I'm really glad I reached out to her, it just sucks that I didn't think to contact her for all of the applications that were due in December. I also wish that I'd included a hot picture of myself in my application.

I just assumed that's what we were all writing about. Either that, or an informitive text about how to fully explain the word without sounding like a creepy person.

Now that, for the most part, this application non-sense is out of your hands, is there anything you regret about your application? Do you wish you'd included a more esoteric Marxist in your writing sample(the one where you defined "The Three Little Pigs" as a narrative created by a shadowy capitalist figure who seeks to control Ideological State Apparatuses in order to manipulate children into particpating in the brick industry)? Are you paranoid that your overuse of Northrop Frye in your statement of purpose makes you sound like an 80 year-old?Any advice you wish you'd taken more seriously? Are any of us any wiser for having gone through this process? Is anyone 100% happy with their appication?

I got that too and had the same reaction. They should really have "CALM DOWN! THIS IS NOT THE DECISION LETTER! PLEASE GO OUTSIDE AND GET SOME SUN INSTEAD OF STAYING BY YOUR COMPUTER ALL DAY" in the subject line.

I'm attempting to get through all of Proust's "In Search of Lost Time". I'm about halfway through "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower" right now. I also just finished Erskine Caldwell's "Tobacco Road" and am starting his "God's Little Acre"

Congrats! FYI. I had finally settled my angst down, telling myself, "It'll be a couple more weeks. Noone knows anything yet. There's nothing I can do. Relax. Relax." That just went out the window. Congrats again on your success!

Well, now that all of my applications are in, there's nothing else to do but sit back, relax, and dive into a bottomless pit of doubt and uncertainty.

Most of my applications are submitted and are in the safe hands of admissions departments (they're all safe and well run, right? They'd never lose anything, right? They respect everything that I send them, right?). I listed an extra recommender for most of my applications. It turns out that it's a good thing I did, because one of my rec's has been incredibly negligent in responding to the online forms. So here's my question. Is it worth my time to go chase this person down, tie them to a computer, and force them to fill out the rec? Should I just let it slide?