christakins

I was accepted tonight! I am so happy! I can't wait to meet you all in April.

Welcome, Carolinahopeful (though in a way you are already here)! Hope to meet you all in April. Feel free to PM with any questions--I'm a grad student in the Eng dept.

I'd say visit the schools but make your decisions as quickly as you can afterward. Ask yourself how likely it is you're going to choose one of your options over another. 
Last year when I applied, I quickly turned down programs (within like two days of being accepted) since I knew I had 3 top options and definitely wouldn't be attending the others. The programs seemed very appreciative to get such a quick reply, and of course I highlighted how honored I was to be accepted, emphasized that now the next lucky applicant could get some good news, etc. etc. so as not to be insulting. I narrowed it down to 2 programs and visited both and I had AGONIZED over which school to pick for months. They were pretty evenly matched. So, before I even flew back from visiting the second school, I said, well fuck it. I'm going to make my decision now instead of going back and forth until the deadline and I did, and I notified my choice that I would be accepting before I had even left the other school's visit. It really made me feel more peaceful. 
 
Did I make the right choice? I have no idea. I'll never know. But I did lessen the agonizing and that paid off, and I lessened the anxiety of people on waitlists, so that was a good thing IMO. 

Part of what makes me sensitive to these endless fights is that this is precisely what we should not be doing, fighting against other people in the humanities or in English. We should instead find solidarity and argue for the legitimacy and importance of each other's work.

I've been admitted to UNC-Chapel Hill!!!!
 

 
I accepted the offer and I couldn't be happier if ice cream and waffles and cappuccinos started falling from the sky. I'd been hoping *hard* since February.
I'll be in North Carolina this fall. Go Tar Heels!

I also got in to UCLA this morning! I can't believe it. The one school in LA that I applied to accepted me. I guess I'm meant to stay here a while longer, because I will gladly put up with LA for the next few years to attend!!
 

This morning, I was ACCEPTED TO UCLA! So excited! 
I had another very lovely offer, but this is amazing...UCLA's a top 10 school, I visited in March and loved it, the funding package is amazing, I'll get to work with Christopher Looby and Rachel Lee...
 
Last year, I was essentially shut out of programs (got into 2 unfunded things). I was rejected from UCLA. I took a gap year to move to Berkeley where I took classes and got a new rec letter, reworked all my materials, and began working as an editor.
 
If at first you don't succeed...KEEP APPLYING UNTIL THEY LOVE YOU 

1. I see literally no one in this thread who questions that there's a labor crisis in the contemporary university.
2. I see literally no one in this thread who questions that there's exploitation in the contemporary university.
3. I see literally no one in this thread who questions the deprofessionalization of the professoriate in this thread.
4. "The faculty" is not a monolithic bloc and describing them as such does not help us in the structural or in the particular.
5. Yes, it's important to describe and criticize the labor crisis in the university; in fact, many faculty members are among the most strident and vocal in doing so. Sure, there's also faculty members who are part of the problem, and they deserve criticism, and I have made that  criticism, publicly, many times. But there is no question that the ultimate culpability lies in the hands of politicians and administrators. That's not displacement; that's a fact, a plain fact about who holds power in the contemporary university. It just doesn't fit in your ongoing psychodrama, which you are busily inflicting on the people here every da  y.
6. People who are entering the profession (and I'm not sure what your scare quotes prove, other than that you escalate meaninglessly when pushed back against) are having that conversation. We have it all over the internet, and have, for years. We have it here all the time. The fact that you don't get to dictate every aspect of that conversation does not mean it doesn't happen. We are not here to serve the needs of your ego.
7. Putting capitalism in scare quotes does not diminish the plain reality that I'm describing, which is that almost every aspect of the academic labor situation you deride is a product of the system in which it is embedded and is not reducible to a morality play which pits those mean faculty members against our hero VirtualMessage.
8. No one is "theorizing" anything; we are talking about the real world, and many of us are doing so in a profoundly less romantic and more concrete manner than you are. 
9. Labor issues are political issues and structural issues and material issues. Reducing them to a meaningless whinge about personal morality and the naivete you are so addicted to observing in others does nothing for anyone.
10. Things are bleak. Progress is possible. Both of those things are true. What is necessary is for people to formulate a plan to try to secure that progress. I see some of that from some faculty members. I see some of that from the people here. I see nothing resembling a plan from you. I just see bitterness and recrimination that plays out in the most emotional, least constructive terms possible.
11. I don't mind naivete. I don't mind cynicism. But your brand of naive cynicism is tiresome and narcissistic and personally I've had quite enough of it.

Yeah, you should be outraged!  You are right that it's "utterly ridiculous."  
 
What a relief you are so smart and cunning to detect such a fraudulent scam.  How dare a program ask for a deposit to save a seat for an applicant that is accepted.
 
Don't all schools know that everyone who is accepted into a program will automatically attend?  It's not as if applicants apply to multiple schools and many get more than one offer. 
 
Yes, you should definitely complain to the graduate school.  They need to be admonished and rebuked for their greediness and for this ridiculous and absurd request.  They probably won't rescind your offer of admission and instead will reimburse you and offer you free tuition.  Don't they know how lucky they are to have you attend their program? So yes, they should fully fund you and heck, compensate you for your initial application too!
 
Hurry before it's too late.  Complain and protest immediately!  

Just made it official-- attending UCLA this fall! So thankful for all the amazing people I met thru GC this year <3<3<3

Just chiming in to say...I just received a full GAship offer with full funding: total tuition remission, faculty health care plan, and a generous stipend.

Made it official today: I'll be attending UC-Davis in the fall. Excited, nervous, can't wait, terrified, ahhh!

Accepted off the wait-list at UMD, my first choice, for 19th C. American.  Now I have to figure out how to move the family caravan to suburban Maryland.  (Help!)
 
I appreciate what a mutually supportive environment you all have made here this year. 

I accepted Chapel Hill's offer. SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAALLLLLSSSS

USC just emailed. I'm. in. 
 

 
Actually crying real tears right now as I sit in a pile of books. 

Can I ask-- why do you want to be an English professor? I'm sure there's a lot of reasons that your experience was unpleasant, and I don't doubt that there are many pompous professors in the world. But if you're particularly bothered by that kind of thing, academia might not be your long-term career goal. I don't detect a lot of pomposity in my own academic life, but I'm not sensitive to it. More to the point, I worry that your hate of NYU's MA program may have less to do with the specific program and more to do with academic culture writ large. I'm also disturbed that you would define your MA as useless and a school as "really shitty." If you don't value your own education, how can you turn around and ask PhD programs to respect your work? I get that this is partly why you want to get an MA in lit. But if your MA in lit is only a means to improve your PhD program chances, that seems like a low-upside approach to me, given that the literature job market is so terrible and that you'd likely be paying out of pocket/with loans for an MA in lit. And since you're talking about getting a second MA, then teaching high school, then getting a third MA, we're looking at, what, 4-5 years in a best case scenario, then 5-8 years of a PhD? I'm not trying to be discouraging. I just don't really get this plan.
 
Do you want to teach high school? It's an honorable profession that can be very rewarding. The pay is low to start and it can be a major emotional investment, but in time you'll make more money. And your odds of building a career are much higher than in higher education, and would take way less school than the plan you've laid out here. Have you thought about that? Or is high school teaching just something that you see as a means to get into a PhD program? I'm not sure that would help you. I dunno, just my 2 cents.

I'm in off the waitlist at chapel hill!!!!!!!! I'm walking around downtown Charleston SC sobbing and I don't even care.

Below is all of the data that we've been able to collect about acceptance rates at English programs this season. The document is still open, so please post any additional information you've been able to uncover.
 
Please note that, sometimes, there's a slight difference between a university's acceptance rate and their matriculation rate. UVA's acceptance rate is around 11.66%, but they have a target class of about 12, so their matriculation rate is about half of their acceptance rate. A lot of schools, like UCLA, for example, post their matriculation rate on their website rather than their acceptance rate, which makes the program look slightly more competitive. (Other schools, like Emory and USCalifornia, admit only as many students as they expect to enroll.)
 
In past years, Columbia has had upwards of 700 applicants; this year, the university had 543. For that reason, I think some other universities that historically receive a large number of applicants (Berkeley, U of Michigan, UT-Austin, Harvard, UCLA, Yale, NYU) have also experienced similar downturns this year.
 
In general, English literature programs are pretty competitive, with very few programs accepting more that 15% of applicants.
 
University: accepted/matriculated, applied, acceptance rate/matriculation rate
 
U of Toronto: 18, 125, 14.40%
UC-Berkeley: ~20, ~400, 5.00%
Harvard U: 10**, 300**, 3.33%
Columbia U: 19, 543, 3.50%
Yale U: ~14, ~300, 4.67%
Cornell U: 11, unknown, unknown
Duke U: 15*, 309*, 4.85%
UCLA: 20, 350**, 5.71%
UVA: 26, 223, 11.66%
U of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 12, 408*, 2.94%
UNC-Chapel Hill: 15, 266, 5.64%
UT-Austin: 41, 357, 11.48%
UW-Madison: unknown, unknown, 12%
CUNY Graduate School and University Center: 21, 197, 10.66%
UC-Irvine: 10, unknown, unknown
Emory U: 7, 170, 4.12%
OSU: 20, unknown, unknown
Vanderbilt U: 12, 350, 3.43%
U of Maryland-College Park: 9, 200, 4.50%
Rice U: 8, 120, 6.66%
U of Southern California: 8, unknown, unknown
Tufts U: 8, 120, 6.67%
U of Minnesota, Twin Cities: 12, 135, 8.89%
Boston U: 5, 200, 2.50%
U of Colorado-Boulder: 4, 200, 2.00%
Boston College: 5, unknown, unknown
Texas A&M U: 12, unknown, unknown
George Washington U: 3, 63, 4.76%
Michigan State U: 20, 61, 32.79%
Syracuse U: 4, unknown, unknown
UCONN: 15, unknown, unknown
U of South Carolina: 10, 100, 10.00%
Texas Tech U: 5, unknown, unknown
 
*:recent application cycle, **: from website

Holy Holy, I got into USC's creative/critical PhD off the waitlist today. They only accept 3 poets and have stellar funding, so this is a surprise on top of a season of surprises, for me.
 
Waitlisters DO get accepted! My fingers are crossed for everybody!

I made it off one just a few days after being waitlisted--about two weeks ago. I think it depends on the program. I spoke to my POI on the phone, who was kind enough to send a congratulatory email once he heard I'd been admitted, and he spoke to a situation a few years ago where this particular university had too many people accept their offer. Thus, to keep the cohort down to manageable numbers, available funding, etc. they began extending fewer offers from the jump. This of course means their waitlist tends to be active far sooner than some other schools. 
 
I think it's fine to have weekly check-ins with the DGS wherever you're waitlisted.
 
 
Yep, I agree with Ramus--mid-March seems about right. I think many people want to visit before making a decision, and open houses typically run through mid-March.

I think the publication issue varies widely according to student ability. Some are ready, some aren't. That said, I don't think readiness to publish at the early MA level is necessarily a precursor to success. Some people fizzle. Some have hit the peak of their abilities, and some keep excelling. But some who weren't ready when they started completely transform themselves and end up on top. All this to say, in a round about way, don't compare yourself to your buddies. Also, don't believe people who brag about how fab their writing is until you read it. Also, if you do want to publish at the MA level don't send your work out to a top journal unless your mentor has assured you it's ready. Otherwise, you might get crushed by the rejection and reader's notes.

You're welcome for all the unsolicited ramblings

(crappy school computer erased original post, so this might be a little terse).
 
I was dismayed to only find out about this event late last night, which prevented me from being able to adequately plan for any action today. As I understand it, NAWD is meant to be awareness-raising action only, so in that I think organizers have both failed (I didn't know about it until last night) and succeeded (main goals have been pushing us to inform undergraduates/general public).
 
Here's what I did: I didn't tell students class was cancelled but when they arrived, I informed them that it was NAWD and talked for a bit about adjunct issues and how they affect higher education (and thus, their education). I fielded questions and allowed any pushback. Then I "refused to teach" and allowed them to leave (they were pretty happy about that last part). So kind of a half walkout.
 
Most students, surprise surprise, didn't care much (most hadn't even ever seen the word adjunct before) but some came up afterwards and said they were glad to be made aware of the issue, which was comforting.
 
Anyone else take action today? Some good examples here: http://nationaladjunct.tumblr.com/page/2/
 
 

Same deal. My husband I will be moving ourselves, a cat, and a dog from Oregon to either D.C., Indiana, or Texas. We made an even longer trek (and with an additional cat) from Florida to Oregon 6 years ago, and it worked out fine. Our dog was a puppy at the time so he was in a kennel, as were the cats, but we made sure to stop every couple of hours so he could have a play break. Sure, it added some time to our trip but saved our sanity. We found most Best Westerns are pet-friendly and cats generally get really vocal after 9 hours in a car. 
 
As for pet-friendly housing, we've been lucky here; it seems everyone has a dog. In general though, independent landlords as opposed to apt complexes are more open to pets. Check around on Craigslist, and ask those in the area for recommendations. Also, don't rule out a place because the ad says "no pets." Give the landlord a call, explain the situation, and offer to have your dog meet him/her. It's worked for us. Good luck!

I know this isn't your point, and it's not to say that it should be the case (it definitely shouldn't), but I think we greatly underestimate the enemy if we think teaching in the modern university--whether adjunct or tenure track; whether at an elite private university or a public community college--is somehow vastly different from working for a corporation.

Yikes. I hate to say it, but I find this talk of "dinky" or "podunk" colleges really elitist and unproductive, even if you're trying to frame it as a rags to riches story. It's still kind of gross. 
 
I don't think these are the kinds of conversations we need to be having if we are the generation that's going to remedy the crisis in the humanities. We need to work against the system, not let it control us.