Between Fields

I got a few extra days out of them (phew!) but it's still such a short window. And thanks! I'm still very excited, even if I do feel so very rushed.

I just got admitted with an assistantship offer today (4/14) but the letter says they need to know by 4/15 (tomorrow!!!!). Is this a real thing? Have others experienced this sort of thing? I'm still waiting on other offers and I'm freaking out. It's a good school and a relatively generous offer, but... one day?

I'm a TA, but 80% of my students call me "Professor." I gave them the "use what makes you comfortable" line on day one, but only one uses my first name. The graduate dean here thinks TAs merit the verbal address of Professor, though, as we're the instructors of record in our own courses. I never ask for it, though, I just don't correct them downwards if they use it.

I'm doing the final edits on my MA thesis and I find myself distracted checking my phone every two or three minutes for updates on waitlists. It has earned me pity on the Jane Austen paper I cobbled together in two hours, though.

Exactly. I teach composition and this is what I tell my students. Write everyday. It doesn't have to be anything in your field, just write something. Guidebooks can help, but there's a lot of evidence out there that says direct grammar and style instruction are not really transferable (in a classroom setting), but if you write a lot and use those books to edit your writing, you may eventually pick up on your own idiosyncrasies and learn to compensate for them.

Have you communicated with the programs that rejected you? If you asked, they might tell you the areas in which your application file was lacking.

So, a PD asked me to email her around this time to talk about funding. I'm "high" on the waitlist (and it seems possibly first) for funding. She asked if -I- had a deadline that I needed an answer from her by? I'm in the exact same situation at two other schools. Do I tell her she has all the time in the world?

A professor from one of the schools I'm waitlisted at is visiting my MA institution in a few weeks. Granted, he's in creative writing and I'm not, but I wonder how much elbow-rubbing I should do... I guess it would be odd if I didn't go to the reading or didn't introduce myself, but won't it also look like I'm trying to curry favor (which I sort of am...)?

Has anyone heard from Bowling Green? I saw one lonely acceptance up on the results page a while ago...

Yes, because Phi Beta Kappa is only for undergraduates and only in the liberal arts. Phi Kappa Phi is for all majors in either four-year undergraduates or any graduate programs. I think certain other votech sorts of things are also excluded, but basically anything a typical research or liberal arts university would have.

I'm in it. It's the graduate and non-Liberal Arts equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa. It's worth the fee for the CV line and there are actually quite a few discounts (Apple, Dell, car rentals, etc.) that come with membership.

I ran a POI's name together with a coordinating conjunction because I copy/pasted. But I got waitlisted, anyway, so I guess it was only mildly crippling.

In most (read: all) areas, LGBT individuals are in the extreme minority. We do much worse in long distance relationships because not only is our partner far away, but sometimes we're the only non-hetero/cis-gendered person we know at all, and so we're faced with two separate kinds of isolation. Not to go all gloom and doom, but an LDR is never great advice in the first place. My ex picked his MA institution for me, because I was already in. To be honest, it wasn't a great decision, but he ended up liking it in the end. That's a bit of a different situation, though.

Has anyone on the waitlist at Illinois State received an email or a letter? Other parts of that application process came in paper, so I've been checking the mailbox every day for a week, but all the application page says is that I'm now on the waitlist... no indication of the time/length involved or whether funding is also involved.

Some schools want transcripts from every single place you've ever had a credit. Some just want degree-granting and post-bacc work.

There are a lot of factors to consider with cellphones. For instance, I have several international students in my composition class--I have no way of knowing whether they're using the dictionaries on their phones or texting their friends. If I think someone's genuinely texting in class, I might call on them in discussion until my point is made, but I have only twice ever specifically asked someone to stop texting. Really, you should be concerned about alienating your students, whether or not you think it's philosophically the right thing to have to do. TA or Professorial authority aside, our main job is to make sure they're engaged and getting the material; the way to do that is not to smash their phones. We need to present ourselves as if we care about their progress (and oftentimes we do), not as though we're in it for the power trip. Like it or not, that's how students perceive things like that. Calling out one student is also a great way to get the rest of the class united against you. This is how we were orientated in my department, anyway.

One Direction, because I want to know what makes me beautiful.

In many states, programs' productivity is measured in the number of graduates they produce per year, at least for public universities. It's to the department's benefit to meet that metric. Otherwise, it's mainly what others have said: slave labor.

I just saw a waitlist notification on Illinois State University's online system, if anyone's still waiting to hear back from them. I haven't seen a paper letter or email, yet. The system doesn't show any information about the length of the list or the lukewarmness of their feelings for me, so hopefully that will come soon. Wait-lists are so awful for my psyche, even with one acceptance...

I've found their program kind of hard to interact with. Wait times are usually pretty high on emails. They actually called me a month ago to ask a question about my application, but then never followed up on email, so I didn't see it until a week later... This is the modern age; phones aren't for talking to people anymore.

It's making finishing my MA thesis slow waaaaaay down. (Much to my advisor's chagrin)

Don't we all! I can't decide if I'm going to lose 20 pounds from stress, or gain 40 from eating my feelings. For the sake of fitting into my clothes, I need this to end. Hah

I got accepted to URI last week and didn't find out about funding info until the DGS emailed me a day or so later. EDIT: And in related news, paper waitlist letters from Missouri were dated 19 February and I got one, today, if anyone's still waiting...

Rhetoricians do love hyperbole. That view also has something to do with teaching first-year composition and realizing how disadvantaged students are who skip out on it, later in their university career. But on the other point, no, that wasn't laid out clearly in their directions. It's frustrating.

I sort of embarrassed myself by going to the trouble of securing a fourth letter, when one of my recommenders' secretaries told me that she hadn't done it yet, but she actually had... The lesson I've learned is to have faith.