jazzyd

Er, I completely disagree unless this person also considers people with degrees in Communications, Marketing, and even Business Admin. equally unemployable. The biggest problem with an MA or PhD in English is that employers might shy away from those degrees for fear that they cannot afford the pay grade that such degrees are typically worthy of. So in that sense, I see how that would make us rather unemployable. But if it's about raw skills and ability? How many careers out there require intimate knowledge of human behavior? How many careers require carefully worded and meaningful language to achieve a desired outcome? How many careers require reading and processing information?

Yeah, there's really not much info sent out, so unfortunately the people with offers are probably as much in the dark as everyone : /. Chin up folks! Please try to stay positive. There's at least four more weeks left of 'first round' acceptances and then there's no telling what might happen when people start sending in their decisions. This is why its so important to let a school know if you don't plan on accepting their offer (of course do not respond unless you are 100% sure) so that the department can reach out to others. Congrats to everyone whose gotten offers so far! Very exciting!

Anybody here apply to Chicago at all? I've been browsing signatures but haven't really seen it listed by anyone.

Share it with us! Congratulations!

I feel cruel for saying this, but last year Northwestern notified on a Friday (I'm pretty sure since I was at work) via phone and it was late during the day ~4-5pm. So it should be soon! Crossing my fingers for all of you!

Real life backup plan? (Because I did - do - have one). Something in web development, communications, and/or design. Fantasy backup plan? Beyonce back up dancer.

Where are all these other cities coming from?? I thought the age old debate was Chicago v. NYC (for good reason hehe)

This, too, is what I think of when I hear the term "safety school" (even then, the sister of someone I knew got into Notre Dame but was rejected from a much much less prestigious school in-state). So that's why I back the "no such thing" mantra regarding safety schools and grad admissions. I doubt people who say this (I certainly am not) are in denial that some programs by statistics alone are 'easier' and 'harder' to get into than others because of the sheer volume of applications some schools are getting over others. What's less important than the safety school or not consideration imo, is whether or not the applicant has applied to a range of respected programs (which exist all along the USNWR spectrum) with a great fit and good placement record.

If we're using pizza as a litmus test, obviously any (and only) schools in Chicago are the way to go.

I'm sure they expect it, but I wouldn't do so. You will eventually get a decisions notification from the department, either through e-mail or an e-mail telling you to check the website. If it's been a really long time, like almost April, with no word either way, than maybe maybe check up on the status of your application (and chances are if it's been that long without hearing, it's a no; some departments are rudely slow at sending rejections).

Professor is preferred, I believe.

Congratulations to everyone who's gotten the good news so far! I'm sure this has everyone on edge now, but there's still a lot of time yet before a good chunk of programs start notifying. Another 2-3 weeks at least I'd say. And for those who haven't heard back from schools that started notifying, take a deep breath. This train has barely even pulled out of the station. Still a lot of time to go so don't count yourself out yet at all. Everybody should have a glass of wine and relax.

You'd think, but that's how messed up GC is in a way. Obviously, getting the first acceptance was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, but after one you start to get... greedy? Or maybe just hopeful? Like, "if X school wanted me, surely I have a better shot than I previously thought at school W, Y, Z"? Which is no way necessarily the case at all. Checking gradcafe everyday prevented me from fully appreciating the acceptances I did get. Because no matter what program you get into, someone's going to be getting into another program that rejected you. And its much different seeing it posted by someone in a thread or up on the results page than just knowing in the back of your mind that a program filled their slots with other people. I was even at a point during the process when I considered reapplying the next season, this was after I had multiple acceptances from quality programs across the country. Thankfully some very stern but benevolent members gave me the reality check needed. Applying to grad school, man... it'll drive you cuckoo.

There are no safety schools, thus it wouldn't make sense to keep piling schools on your list by nature of the fact that their deadlines are later. I'm sure the schools you've already applied to make a great list and are a great fit for your interest. Best thing to do now is to sit back and relax.

Hmm, I don't think any program notified me over the weekend; Friday evening was the absolute latest. Not that programs (esp. POIs) wouldn't and won't do so, but for the sake of sanity y'all might want to (at least for now) consider weekends to be "safe".

Programs that are more about the numbers I'm guessing can move through applications faster and thus notify their applicants earlier. Chemistry, Biology, Psychology programs are much more likely to have hard cut-offs right off the bat as far as evaluating applications. If a program gets 500 applications and can eliminate 250 of them based on GRE score alone, they're already well ahead of English. Also, don't deadlines for the sciences at least tend to be a bit earlier? It's not surprising at all. It's not even halfway through January! Classes have resumed here since we're on the quarter system, but I know a lot of universities are still on break and will be for the next two or three weeks. If you're resigned to checking the Results Search page - still I advise, stay away if you can! - you can look at past years and see that mid-Jan is the very earliest (so next week sometime), with early February being really when the madness starts. Good luck everyone! I'm sure your applications are wonderful!

"Things run we; we don’t run things" - Art History, Theory, and Criticism, Stony Brook University Hi-lar-ious

I think most programs are smart enough to realize they'd hardly accumulate the best crop of grad students if they relied on sociability as a factor of who gets in or not.

Well, that's sobering. Any reason to hope the rule is a little less hard and fast for English? Isn't our field the more lovey dovey, it's-not-where-you've-been-it's-what-you're-doing-now type?

Yeah, I don't even think if schools remember what you put down by the time you visit them, let alone when classes start. They maybe would notice if you put down that you were expertly fluent in five languages or something. But if you put down that you have general conversing ability when you're actually pretty rusty that's not something they're going to check for. Professors themselves can be pretty bad with languages, so you're hardly going to sit down to interview and have the other person start speaking in rapid fire Italian. And most programs don't even have interviews, so it's sort of a moot point.

In either case,

Can you contact the grad department and explain your dilemma? It's really their fault if they have conflicting information on their pages. Do you have a longer version of your sample that would be fit to submit? It's so early in the process, they'll probably allow you to submit another sample if indeed they want a longer paper.

I know this is absolutely not going to happen, but my advice would be to get off GradCafe from Feb-March. I drove myself absolutely NUTS running coming to this site multiple times a day (multiple times an hour) refreshing the results search page to see if a school was sending out offers yet. If they were, then I was just sitting nervously by my phone and inbox praying that I, too, had gotten the golden ticket. It also made me less appreciative of the acceptances I did get. There would be euphoria and excitement and a feeling of self-affirmation for awhile... and then I'd check Gradcafe and see that X University was sending out offers today and then the nail-biting would resume. At the time I told myself "I'd rather know, than not know" and I'm sure some of y'all are thinking the same.... but there's really something to be said for not knowing, at least while the first round of notifications are going out. If it gets to Marchish and you haven't heard anything, then maybe poke around here to see what's up. Again, I'm pretty sure nobody is going to follow this advice, but just throwing that out there as an option

Was there a page on the application itself that let you self-report your scores? If so that might indicate that they have scores on file, but that they still need to be confirmed by the official scores from ETS. Or, maybe they have your official scores, but they haven't been matched up with your application yet.

I wouldn't worry too much about endnotes (footnotes would be another matter, since they can really bog down a paper). Just don't count on adcomms reading them closely (or at all) as Swagato mentioned.