NotGiantsButWindmills

Have you looked into full time jobs at the University you'll be attending? The pay isn't always as good as non-education jobs, but often job at university=reduced tuition and, if you get an awesome boss, all kinds of flexibility around your class schedule.

Does Chicago let you teach? If your goal is to teach community college, you should choose the program that gives you the most teaching experience. Depending on where you'd like to teach when you're done, the job market (even for community college) is fiercely competitive. I'm only really familiar with the job markets in Colorado, Kansas, and Texas, but you'll frequently be competing for community college jobs against those who have earned PhDs and often those with the most experience teaching at the university level win. Typically, the competition tends to be fiercer in the metro areas, but even rural CC jobs (like at Colorado Mountain College) tend to have way too many qualified applicants. If CC teaching is your goal, most CC's definitely tend to privilege teaching experience over the prestige of your MA program. ETA: What bluecheese said. (didn't see that until after I'd posted)

I did the long distance thing for ¾ of my MA program and will likely be facing it again at some point during the PhD (my husband is not an academic, but his job likes to move him around). It is a very hard decision to make and definitely not right for everyone. While I hated being away from my husband, it did work fairly well. Friends who actually lived with their partners during school frequently told me how lucky I was. It sounds terribly selfish, but there is something to be said for being in a supportive relationship during grad school without having to deal with day to day issues and couples obligations. If I wanted to work late or work all the time, I did. If I wanted to eat dinner at odd hours, I did. Sometimes it was pretty handy to only worry about myself and not mess with coordinating schedules. We only saw each other over the Christmas, Spring, and Summer breaks, so when we were together, we were able to focus on important things and spend more quality time together. On the downside, my friends that lived with their partners had someone to go home to at the end of a bad day (phone calls can’t even come close to that), someone to bring soup when they were sick, someone to celebrate successes with, and someone to bring to the department Christmas party. If I didn’t have such an amazing friendship with my roommate and a few of my fellow students, I’m not sure I would have been able to handle the distance. It was hard not getting to experience the minutiae of everyday life with my husband and it was hard not to be there for him when he had a bad day or to be able to take care of him when he was sick. It did help to always know the next time we’d see each other and to have an end point in mind. Text messages and Skype are pretty helpful as well. Happy thoughts for everyone that has to make the long distance decision!

Thanks! Austin's a great city! I was Literature track at K-State and focused primarily in medieval lit. I also did quite a bit with medievalism while I was there since the medieval offerings were pretty limited—and medievalism is just plain fun. Have you heard from any of your other schools yet?

Yes, indeed! This was my last shot at getting into a PhD program since my GRE expires after this app cycle and I wasn't planning to go through that again. I am so happy!

Update: I just got accepted to my dream PhD program today. It's fairly highly ranked (top 20) and I am ridiculously excited! Score for K-State's placement record! :0)

I think this is a great idea. I currently work in advising and it's definitely my plan B to continue with it if I cannot get into a PhD program this fall. While Advising jobs can be pretty competitive, they're definitely attainable with an MA in English and can be pretty great if you can tolerate the schedule (I hate being tied to my office 8-5 five days a week, but otherwise it's wonderful). These jobs don't always pay that well (better than adjuncting from what I've seen so far), but the benefits are usually pretty good. And you get to use the University library. And take classes for free or at a discount depending on the school. One can also sometimes manage to teach a class or two. It's a pretty sweet plan B.

I’m a very bad example. I only applied to one PhD program (my husband has a great job, so the plan was to go to school in the city where he worked). The program wasn’t highly ranked by any means, but I think I would have been happy there. I got in with top fellowship funding. I was all set to go there when my husband was transferred for an even better position in a different state. Luckily, the move has allowed me to reapply to my dream school (I made the waitlist right out of undergrad). Once again, I’m applying to just one program, so I’ll let you know how that works out when I find out. As far as news from my K-State cohort goes, it seemed like only a small percentage of us actually applied to PhD programs (quite a few took adjunct jobs—K-State really does a great job preparing you to teach). If I remember correctly, pretty much everyone that applied for a PhD got in somewhere: University of Iowa, Fordham, University of Maryland, and IU Bloomington (not sure if this one was a PhD or MFA). The folks I still keep track of from the year before mine are at U Illinois and Illinois State. I hope you receive good news from your other applications—it’s always fun to have options!

I did my MA at K-State a couple years ago. I loved it. I was a little apprehensive about applying there since I'd never heard of it before my undergrad advisor said "hey, why don't you apply here too?" but I don't regret going there one bit. I actually turned down several funded and unfunded MA programs (even from some pretty competitive places) in favor of K-State. Is there anything you want to know specifically? The professors are great. The program is really friendly and supportive. The campus is beautiful (the library looks like a castle). There are a few pretty excellent coffee shops and Manhattan is a cute little college town. It can feel a bit isolated if you're a big city person, but there are some cool cultural places within driving distance.