Gwendolyn

Just received an acceptance email from Syracuse.  Now I actually have to make a tough decision even if Pitt. and Vandy don't take me off their wait lists...

In at UPenn! So humbled and feeling undeserving.

If they want you, they won't take money away because you accept. I mean, that's akin to punishing you for accepting their offer. If you're certain you'll go either way, why wait? If you feel the need to wait then you probably have doubts.

If they want you, they won't take money away because you accept. I mean, that's akin to punishing you for accepting their offer. If you're certain you'll go either way, why wait? If you feel the need to wait then you probably have doubts.

Unless they specifically say "bring partners/spouses/etc." I would just assume you are the only one invited.  Now, that certainly wouldn't preclude your partner from coming to the city with you and spending some time getting a feel for the locale and how they would feel about living there, but for all school-related activities, it's better to go solo.

Brown!!!!!!!!
 
I can't believe it. It was one of my top choices!
 
 
Eeeeeee!

Just accepted at Brown!!!!!!

Just got into Brown!!!!
 
I can't believe this. After assumed rejections at NYU, Chicago, and Berkeley I really thought I would have to do this all over again and despair for another year. But the day is good! I feel like a bag of bricks was just lifted from my weak and anxious shoulders.
 
Yay!
 
And congrats to all the recent admits! I am so happy to finally share in the excitement rather than lurking in total despair! 

You guys!!  I just got in to Penn State!!! 6 years of full funding!!
 
AAAAAHHHHH!!!

Hey y'all, if you have questions about OSU and/or the city of Columbus, let me know.  You can send me a PM on here, I think.  I'm in the MFA program, but I've taken a bunch of RCL and digital media classes and have interacted with most of those professors, as well as some of the narrative theory folks.

JUST GOT A CALL!!! I'M IN!!!!!!

I've already been admitted into my top choice, but selfishly I want another admittance to stroke the ego. Come on Minnesota and Iowa!

I know, I feel bad about it but I kind of want a third acceptance myself. My first one felt like a slight inevitability because of my current positioning, and the second one still feels like a serious fluke. Ah, the need for validation!

How is that cryptic? You're a finalist. They're gonna let you know later if they accepted you and if they will fund you. Not much of a close-reader, are you?

I love the rhet/comp and digital media programs here. It's very close knit, smaller community in the huge department. Because of this, I feel like I really have gotten to know most of the professors pretty well in the one semester I've been here. There are tons of opportunities for students to be involved in professional activities outside of classes (right now I'm working as part of a team to create one of the first writing MOOCs). The professors are at the top of their fields, but their classes feel more like informal conversations (yet still demanding), and they really treat graduate students more like colleagues than students. It's a very exciting atmosphere to be in because all of the professors and grad students have such a variety of interests, and it's a very collaborative, supporting environment. To be fair, I wish they had more rhet/comp courses offered every semester (there are always at least 2-3), but I think in the future they are going to try to offer more. Ultimately, I'm very happy with the grad school decision I made.

My dad (an ex-vet raised in a third world country) is as supportive as I think he knows how to be.
 
My mother wants to be supportive, but she's a bit batty so I keep her at the far end of a long stick. My older sister will be 27 this year and finally decided to enroll in a community college. My younger brother is 21, lives with my sister and works at Burger King (he dropped out of college after a semester because he didn't have friends smh), so I think my parents are proud of my accomplishments, but they aren't so good at appropriately showing their support (if that makes any sense). 

The high of being accepted is waning a little, or maybe I just have a bunch on my plate this week and my morale is down aside from applications. I'm a bit upset about not hearing from Berkeley (along with Duke, NYU, and UVA) particularly since someone I know has heard back (positively) from three of them(!) But the fact that I got accepted to 3 programs that I could see myself at is enough reassurance that I do have something to offer and my efforts over the past couple years are being recognized.
 
Just working on staying thankful and realizing that it's not a competition (or is it?); because in the end we can only go to one program.

Yay! Friends tend to make everything better 
 

Lemme tell you why assumed rejections are a bad idea...
 
From the looks of the results survey, UMass Amherst had already contacted its applicants for an interview with their Writing Program. Yesterday, I sighed and crossed them off my list mentally. It's cool, I told myself. I never really wanted to live in Massachusetts (that was a lie). 
 
It is 6:03AM in California. I woke up five minutes ago to check my email (because I can't help it). When I saw that I had two emails, I whispered, "curses Groupon Getaways!" But then I saw the subject line... "Acceptance from UMass Amherst." 
 
Holy shit guys, I GOT INTO UMASS AMHERST!!!! 
 
The email says they I will be contacted by the Writing Program for an interview soon. It also says that I GOT INTO UMASS AMHERST! I got into a PhD program, ya'll! I already called my husband at work, but it's too early to call my friends and family... So I'm sitting in my bedroom, hopping around my mattress because I GOT IN. Weeeeeeeeee!

Yay! Friends tend to make everything better 
 

Forgive me for speaking generally, but I was referring to the direction in which this thread briefly went (the statement about a user being a desirable candidate largely due to her minority status).  Oh well, the discussion makes for an extremely interesting read. 
 
In another news it's a new day! Hopefully more good admissions decisions are to come  

No offense to Keely, but the diversity scholarship reference tips me off to what may have been so desirable in her application...
 
LOOK I SAID IT I'M SORRY IT WAS THERE
 
I'm sure you're also a very wonderful and hardworking scholar. But let's be frank. This is a hyper-competitive process and any sliver of an inch that gets you ahead can be the deciding factor. So yes, sometimes that sliver is affirmative action. And there's nothing wrong with that. 

I feel like the desire to be politically-correct and inoffensive hinders productive discussion. Why must we infantilize "underrepresented groups" and protect their feelings for them, as if they can't speak for themselves? If I say something you don't like, we can debate the point. We don't have to default to "you're being so offensive wa wa wa."

Long time lurker, but had to post. I hope I'm not the only one who hopes that diversity is factored into acceptances. I'm wading through waitlists like a champ right now, and the thought has crossed my mind that my white maleness could have a hand in that fine line between paradise and purgatory. But I specifically avoided programs with low diversity scores. I don't want to spend the next period of my life studying literature with a cohort that's not diverse. What's the point of collaborating with folks that bring the same thoughts to the table?
 
Now, race does not straight up equal diversity, but we're lying to ourselves if it's not a factor. I'd actually push for more comprehensively documenting applicants range of diversity (a la Yale's diversity statement), since the only thing worse than discussing literature with a bunch of 20-something liberal white kids from the suburbs is discussing literature with a bunch of 20-something liberal kids of different ethnicities from the suburbs.

I know we should move this, but alas, your post is good, and I want to respond.
 
Your post is very interesting. As with you, some of what I know about AA is observational, while some of it has been the product of research. For instance, I have observed my college classes being disproportionately represented with whites of privilege (and seeing as I've always gone to state schools...), which probably informs at least some of my more visceral feelings about AA. I have a clarifying question: did you find that white people in Hawaii were privy to being on the short end of structural inequity? I do not at all doubt the validity of your observations, but would be interested to know more, or if you've ever encountered research on the topic. Knowing nothing, I had just assumed that the indigenous/colonized peoples would be at a disadvantage, as with most cases.
 
I would disagree that achievement is "as" challenging for a white-kid from Detroit (hey, that's actually me! And yeah, it was REALLY challenging, but maybe not for the reasons you think...). All other things being equal, white-kids from Detroit have white privilege, which carries from birth to death, pre-school to grad school, your first job to your last, etc. They didn't ask for this, but it exists, and it is well supported that it exists. I'm not trying to downgrade any white person's accomplishments, but I think it's worth noting that academia and other institutions of whiteness (congress, etc.) are disproportional in representation to US demographics for a reason. So while I understand that AA is imperfect in that it perhaps gives some people a very rare "unfair advantage," there is already a competing unfair advantage called structural bias of favoritism toward whites. (Then you get into the aporia of whether unfair advantages rectify other unfair advantages and this debate gets into being a total mess...)