jelris

I know that feeling. I recently declined a very generous offer from SUNY-Buffalo to accept an offer at Emory. I was very torn about it but knew that it was the right choice.

Vermont is clearly superior in all respects that matter. And as a bonus, Burlington is a very nice city.

No, placement data is a perfectly legitimate concern when looking at graduate programs. Unfortunately, the information is often opaque and/or disorganized. Sometimes departments will have a reasonably extensive list of alumni, when they graduated and where they were placed, if anywhere. If any of your programs do that, you can always try and do a manual list. I have heard that, if you're bold, you may be able to squeeze placement data out of a department by e-mailing the office but I'm not sure how well that would work. It all depends on whether they have the statistics and are purposefully keeping them opaque or whether they are just not keeping very good stats. One kind of soft measures you can kind of use is the NRC ranking for a program (https://www.chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-English/124728). The "Students" rank is derived from "students' completion rates, financial aid, and other criteria" where hopefully other criteria includes student placement. Sometimes, you can find data on the site for the Graduate School as opposed to the departmental site.

I just got waitlisted at Loyola Chicago today so it seems they are still sending things out.

@NotMyAncestorsPhilosophy First of all, congratulations on your acceptance! A prospective student visit that soon does seem to indicate that the acceptances as a whole have probably been sent out. Perhaps your potential cohort members do not use thegradcafe which seems surprising yet possible. I am currently in an MA program and one of my colleagues had never heard of it until I mentioned it recently in his presence. Thanks for the info!

Does anyone have any details on Memphis perchance? I noticed that one person, but only one person, has posted an acceptance so far. Not sure if this indicates that acceptances have been sent out or just that one early acceptance, perhaps to a fellowship nominee.

@Mopreller See you at Emory!

Just got a Skype interview request from Penn State!

Seems like Northwestern just sent out phone call acceptances.

To everyone that got into Buffalo today: Congratulations! And as an inside scoop, they will probably have their new admit visitation days on 3/12 & 3/13 or 3/13 & 3/14 or so I've been told.

As one of my professors once told me in regards to coming up with a list of schools to apply to: Don't rule out any place that, right now, you think you might not want to live in. Your expectations and priorities may change as you move further along in the application process.

@Crow T. Robot Thanks! Hope Duke Literature works out, it would certainly be warmer than the Twin Cities.

Yes, I applied to Emory and Northwestern as well as OSU's Comparative Studies program and programs administered by Comparative Literature departments such as SUNY-Binghamton's PLC program and UMN's CSDS program. So far, I've been admitted to OSU, been waitlisted at UMN, and have received an interview invitation to Emory. Best of luck!

@Warelin That's useful to know! I kept wondering what sorts of outcomes are possible and what sort of yield is probable after something like an on campus interview weekend.