Romanista

I think there's a little hypocrisy in each of us in wanting to change the system. We can all choose not to go to graduate school purely because of the inherent structural problems in academia. I remember reading a Thomas Benton article about this in CHE in 2010. Don't go to graduate school because (among other reasons) if you go then you end up being complicit in the the unfair hiring practices of academia. I don't think I can change the system. I'm certainly not going to tell my department that it's unfair to me and my students in having to teach while taking 3 classes, that the university should hire someone to teach full time instead. Is it hypocritical that I'm going along with this in pursuing my degree? Absolutely. I really think that only unionization or some kind of government intervention (like the way they are finally...FINALLY noticing that for profit universities tend to be scams) will end academia's dependence on NTT faculty. I just want a shot at making a living in academia. It probably won't work out but at least I'll emerge from my program a better writer.

How long has everyone been saying this? Decades.

So I'm doing this right now as an MA student and it's very difficult. It's sort of like learning a new language in preparation for writing a dissertation in that language a year later, when you've only studied the language at the beginner or intermediate level (via your composition methodology course, if you've taken one). One thing I've noticed about the field is that it leads to more opportunities to do administrative and service work within the department or university. At my program there are 4 rhetcomp faculty members; 3 of which do part of their work in administration. I'd imagine that with literature there just aren't as many administrative positions that fit with one's research interests. This can be good or bad depending on what kind of job you want, because it seems to me like if you want to work as a WPA then it would be helpful to have a RC degree instead of a lit one. But it also works against the perception of the field. Marc Bousquet writes a lot about this; whereas literature is pigeonholed as elitist and snobby, RC is pigeonholed as not being a real field given that it is complicit with the ongoing trend of eliminating full time teaching jobs and replacing them with full time administrative jobs (or pulling professors out of the classroom to devote part of their time to manage the writing center or the first year writing program).

I think what morristr meant was that, because you are only paid for when you are in the classroom, you are free to budget your time accordingly. As far as I know, a university will never tell an adjunct that they must get their grading done at a certain time of the day or week. Whereas in a 9 to 5 type of job your boss will tell you to do X at Y o'clock even though you'd rather do X at Z o'clock. This isn't to say that adjuncts have a lot of free time since they often have to commute so much, but at least they can plan out their workweek to some extent.

I attended a community college panel at C's last week and asked a similar question: does the prestige of where a job applicant went to school or the location of where a job applicant went to school matter to the search committee? The panel unanimously said no but with a couple exceptions. First, if you happened to get a PhD from a well known program then you may have to justify why you want to teach at a community college in order to dispel the underlying assumption that you're waiting out the bad job market, planning to jump ship the moment a TT job appears at a 4 year school. Second, in comparison to four year schools, the transition from adjunct to full time faculty member is more common at two year institutions (community colleges and satellite campuses of large state universities). The panelists suggested that adjuncting at a CC is useful for determining whether a CC faculty job is right for you. Also the fact that you have part time teaching experience at the same institution considering you for a full time position may help you in getting the job, whereas universities tend not to think this way. This may not be applicable outside of teaching English at a two year school.

I'm in this exact position, except I have a decisions deadline for tomorrow, but I told the department that I would be confident of giving them a decision today. I just emailed them to ask for an extension until tomorrow and they haven't answered. I think I'm getting the fear.

That tells you everything you need to know really. I've never heard of a deposit for a PhD program in the Humanities.

You don't need to necessarily improve your application, you just need to cast a wider net by applying to terminal MA programs. I think a lot of people on this forum applying with a BA (me included) ultimately want a PhD. And therefore we focused on applying primarily to programs that offer a MA that transitions into a PhD. It makes perfect sense to do this because if you are dead set on the PhD you save the time/money of having to apply again and possibly move to another city for the PhD. Also the funding is generally better than it is for separate MA programs. But as we all know the competition is intense for PhD programs. In a sense you want to believe that you are PhD material because to it's defeatist to say "you know what, probably I'm not getting into a PhD program straight out of undergrad." The competition is not as intense for MA programs, even for those with funding. I'm certainly not the first to say this and I won't be the last but I think it bears repeating. It's just a matter of conceding that maybe you won't be getting your MA and PhD from the same school. But if these forums are any indication, that is just not a kiss of death in terms of getting that coveted TT job.

Wow so I applied to a MA program in late January and up until today the application status has been complete and no decision and now it says incomplete. Apparently I never sent them my GRE general scores. They never told me this so I just assumed when it said complete that I had sent in everything. I even emailed the department a month ago inquiring as to when I would get an admissions decision and they said nothing about it. I'm a dummy.

Here's why you shouldn't read Beloved: there are three different characters with the first name Paul. Three! I'm not really into the whole obfuscation thing.

Did any Villanova applicants get the email about the Open House? I'll be going simply because I live like 10 minutes from campus. Frankly it's kind of strange to be invited since I haven't been admitted yet. Perhaps they only contact local applicants?

University of Central Florida provides at least some applicants with a tuition waiver and stipend. Also they are still accepting applications until the end of the month.

Search "site:linkedin.com" and include "MA Villanova English" or something like that. Then see where their graduates have ended up and which PhD programs they got into. Everything is on the internets.

So what's the protocol on responding to an acceptance email if you are still waiting on other schools to respond? Is it expected, polite, imperative what?

It definitely seems like MAs are not as common on the results board. I applied to 6 MA programs, 3 of which have never appeared on the results board. With the exception of people being rejected or waitlisted for PhD programs and then accepted into terminal MAs, it seems that people just don't bother posting MA results. I think the reason people apply to PhD programs more than MA programs (and I am no exception) is that the former almost always have funding opportunities, plus it saves one the time and money of having to reapply once the MA is finished.

I'll admit I fleetingly thought of it when FSU won the BCS championship...the fantasy of twice as many offers and higher stipends thanks to the million dollar TV deals. I haven't been rejected so you can't say I'm wrong.

To the person accepted to the University of Miami: which website shows your application status? This is one of the schools that hasn't sent any kind of information on how to check one's status.

If the board is any indication South Florida seems to send out waitlist notifications before acceptances and rejections.

Waitlisted at USF. My application was only referred to the department for a decision a week ago. Strange that I am the only one who has posted on the board thus far.

Yes I'm reading far too much into the augury of the results board, but my understanding is that if you haven't heard from UCLA that's a good sign. In 2012 they seemed to admit everyone first and then send out rejections. Last year no one got in on the first day they sent out decisions, only a couple people on the second day, but four people were accepted on the third day. Tomorrow marks the third day that they have sent out decisions this year. Hold fast.

My writing sample was on Tristram Shandy and does not really match my research interests all that much. I decided what I wanted to study in graduate school the year after I graduated. In fact, I never even had to write a research paper on my proposed area of study. This is why I will likely not get into any school this season.

Someone got rejected from USC by email when the previous 6 rejections have been by regular mail. ???

Apparently it changes to view decision and I got rejected. Oh well.

Duke applicants, anyone have "Decision not ready" on their application page? Is that a waitlist or something?

Not arrogant at all. Arrogant would be applying to 10 or more programs and claiming that all of them are great fits.