greenmt

A favor: as you decide which program you plan to attend, and announce those choices, please consider naming the programs you are declining (and, if you can without compromising your identity more than you wish, your speciality). That might help waitlisted folks a bit in our efforts to read the tea leaves. Thanks. Congrats to all who have already made their decisions. I crave that serenity. PS, I'm planning to be at Tufts' open-house tomorrow, even though I'm still on a wait-list there. I won't arrive until the lunch. If anyone else is going and wants to form a bloc to stave off the intimidation of being the new person in the room, let me know.

OK. Thanks for the feedback. I'm gonna keep plugging along on it. I'm not really trying to prove a point, and I hope that is keeping me from being Pollyana-ish. I just want to see if it's possible to have a reasonable picture of the job market five or seven years from now, instead of five years ago. One of the things I've seen, in the MLA's annual report on its job-board listings, is that during times of greater hiring (flat-out more ads listed), the proportion of tenure-track hires starts to increase. The tenure v. non-tenure breakdown also seems to vary by location (bad in the northeast and the west coast, better in less populated regions), which might indicate a glut in those areas, or might just indicate a ballooning number of undergrads needing their 3 credits of English to graduate. (Or something else, of course.) The breakdown also seems to vary by subject area, with some (e.g. non-European / non-American Lit) more likely to be hired on tenure lines, though in smaller numbers, of course. I get it re: the teacher lack --> glut. My wife got an MA to Teacher's College and taught in the NYC schools for a bit, and we saw some of the effects of the frenzy to get warm bodies into the classroom. I think the difference here is that no one with less than a MA is likely to ever teach in a postsecondary setting (except maybe a professional writer in a writing program), and as we all know, there are already many underemployed PhDs. It would be nice to see some of those folks jump into the tenured world.

Thanks, folks.

Earlier, on this forum, I posted something about projections by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that showed increased - better than average - growth in the profession of postsecondary teaching, English Lit, between 2012-2022. My contention was that those projections must be based on the need to replace aging / due to retire (or otherwise, ahem, exit the workforce) tenured professors. It didn't really seem to get traction, which surprised me because if nothing else it looked to me like a glimmer of light in the (overhyped, imho) gloomy prospecting I've seen elsewhere. I've been doing some research, partly to pass the time while I wait to find out whether I'm going to grad school in the fall. I'm thinking about pulling it together into a short article or blog post. Would others be interested in knowing more?

Has anyone here made it *off* a waitlist yet? Just wondering when, customarily, the shuffling-around tends to start.

This seems just right. My take: the Ivies are brand-names. It's assumed that if you make it through the program, you've had to work hard, but there's more to it. If you're a small college in the hills, it's impressive to have a Harvard PhD on your faculty roster. If you're a big research university, it's expected that you'll have a (lot of) Harvard PhD(s) on your faculty roster. The administrators are complicit in this system. So are the faculty, and so are we. It doesn't mean that people shouldn't gladly (and without guilt) apply to and attend Harvard. I'd love to have access to the Widener Library. But if all of us looking their way continue to look their way, we'll miss out on other interesting options, whether as prospective students, as future faculty hiring committee members, or as future administrators. My hope is that, 10 years from now, those on this thread who snag tenure-track jobs will remember this conversation when digging through the frightening pile of resumes that is taking their attention away from the work they "really" should be doing, and give the candidate from USSC or UConn another look. As with most things, change begins with us. My experience: I grew up 20 miles south of Boston (i.e. practically surrounded by colleges) but no one in my extended family had ever attended college, and one adult in my neighborhood had a BA. No one needed a college degree to make an ok living, so higher education was for other people. That led to a kind of mindset in which people who chose education more or less isolated themselves, or moved into a different social structure. So, from my perspective, there's an ephemeral kind of privilege that often coexists with and reinforces the others identified here, and that's an assumption that education is worth your time, that it's intended for you. This, it seems to me, is the hardest kind of privilege to address. I have a friend whose work is to engage and support first-generation college students in the relatively impoverished Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. These kids are largely white, they have access to college nearby, there's financial support for those who need it; and they still struggle. They struggle because no one in their world every showed them how to assume that they had a right to higher education. I've lived my adult life among people who were born (with parents) assuming they would go to college, and they never doubt that, if they want / need a PhD, that's their right, too. My experience has shown me that education is transformative: its power is in how it changes the way we think and move through the world. The experience itself is rewarding and life-changing, because (in addition to your nominal study subject), you learn to think with greater nuance, you realize that maybe there are other assumptions that are up for debate, and maybe you won't stand for what was unacceptable before. That's why people like Scott Walker want to take it away, why Ronald Reagan's first act as Governor of California was to go after the great UC system. So for me, a PhD in the humanities has value in itself, and I didn't want to pursue it until I was hungry for it. In terms of work outside the academy: I was hired into my first nonprofit job by a person (Yale Sociology PhD) who left a tenure track job to run a little nonprofit association of social-justice funders. It let her do research in her field and continue to publish. A humanities PhD can be a useful asset in looking for a job in federal and state funding agencies, museums, humanities centers, historic houses, libraries, archives, private foundations, college administration, and independent research agencies or advocacy groups, some related to academia. Most of these don't offer some of the best perquisites of a tenured big U gig - though some do offer sabbaticals and such - but you can make a decent living, doing interesting work among smart people. You might even be able to continue researching and publishing in your field. Since many research universities have - or have relationships with - these places, it's baffling to me that PhD programs still focus solely on teaching as professional development for their students, to prepare them for a job market that everyone seems to assume no longer exists. (As I noted yesterday, I'm not sure that's the case.) I'm sure there are other useful and fun things you can do with an English PhD besides teaching, but this at least starts the conversation.

True, though the tighter the market, the stronger the workers in the system.

PS, kinda jokey tone. But doublecheck me. Am I misreading? Or is the panic misplaced?

Drat. I was writing a long post, with links, etc., and CRASH! The gist was that I've felt increasingly skeptical about the panicked, fear-driven rhetoric around the job market. A caveat: the Ivies and other elite institutions are disproportionately represented in *every* field that requires at least a BA. Look at a list of Presidents and marvel at the percentage of Harvard and Yale grads. So, I'm not being Pollyanna here. I don't have any great interest in switching from what I do to the TT teaching world, anyway. But the articles I see on the subject are very anecdotal, with any data cited dealing with the current or recent job market... the ones the writers are facing, recently faced, or have seen diminishing during their working lives. So, lots of unexamined assumptions, based on personal experience... surprising in a profession that exists to examine assumptions and rely on published sources. An analogue: my daughter's elementary school saw declining enrollments for 15-20 years, and so the local school board has found it difficult to face up to the fact that enrollments have actually been increasing for the last five years. I mean, they know, but they're not hiring more teachers, planning for adequate classroom space, etc. I've thought for a while now that the boomers are glutting the TT job market, as they have for years, in this and other job markets. This 2011 article from TIAA-CREF (the nonprofit that manages retirement funds for many universities) confirms that many professors in their 60s (and there are a lot of them) have been putting off retirement. https://www.tiaa-crefinstitute.org/public/pdf/institute/research/trends_issues/ti_facultyretirement1211a.pdf That said, they have to retire some time. I decided to look into future prospects. And in fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (which has no reason to pad the numbers) projects growth in our specific field through 2022: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_102.htm - scroll down to "English Language and Literature teachers, postsecondary." Not only that, but the percentage of growth (14.8) is almost half-again the total for all occupations (10.8). Since, by all accounts, there hasn't been a rush to hire English Language and Literature teachers, postsecondary, in recent years, there's every possibility that those boomer-profs *will* start retiring soon and need to be replaced, resulting in 14.8% or higher growth in the job market for English Language and Literature teachers, postsecondary. Which means us. Happy to oblige.

I reapplied to one school this year, after asking whether the program ever considers re-applicants... this after a lengthy wait on their waitlist last spring. Both the DGS and my prospective advisor said, basically, "Yes, of course." It probably varies from program to program. (Edit: my proposed research changed a bit from last year to this, and I completely rewrote my statement of purpose based on their feedback. So, whether for better or worse, there were some substantive differences in the application.) My wife is from San Diego (with a UCSD BA), and I've a lot of good bit of time there. There are great programs in LA, and UC Riverside looks interesting. I thought about applying there, and to USC and UCLA, partly to bring us closer to her family, but it would have been too big a move for us. Anyway, if I were in SD, I'd at least consider the schools in and around LA; we have friends who've been there for years and maintained connections to SD.

This ^^ seems just right to me: useful to hear what others' experiences have been, useless to extrapolate generally. It's easy to forget, because the process is often so faceless (for legal reasons, I would assume), that the people on admissions committees are people, with the virtues and foibles that people usually have. Group dynamics are probably a factor: what decision will make everybody in the room reasonably comfortable, and allow Professor Bob and Professor Susie to get along next semester. Maybe Program A already has a second-career student, while Program B already has a higher proportion of straight-outta-undergrad than it has historically. The above comment made me remember instances in which I've hired people for work: some people just stand out, and it can be hard to say why. They're not always the people with the most relevant experience, or the shiniest, most polished cover letter, or the greatest enthusiasm. They just seem to fit, and you feel they'll ease in and do well in the context you know well (but they don't), and get the job done and be reasonably pleasant to work with. It's probably profoundly unfair to make choices like that essentially by guessing, but it happens in hiring, and I bet it happens a lot in admissions committee meetings, too.

Dear God. 5 PhD acceptances at BU. I wish that schools would give some inkling in advance of their intentions. It looks like a fine program, and it fit my research interests well, but honestly, I would not have taken the time and spent the money. According to what hreaðemus says above, I would have had better odds at Yale.

Sorry for the rejections, and here's hoping on MIddle Tennessee SU. Did Pittsburgh accept *anyone*? I've only seen rejections. It looks like a good program, but there is the matter of diminishing returns, as these programs accept fewer and fewer people.

I paid / took loans for my MA, at one of the city colleges in New York. Can I say which one? Why not? It was Hunter. I signed up on a lark, because it was inexpensive and because I was jealous of the fun my wife was having in graduate school. I worked about 3/4-time and took one or two classes at night. It was a great experience, and working allowed me to not go far into debt. Lots of people slid directly from the MA into PhD programs, while others were studying for dual subject / teaching degrees, and still others were writing students. This enriched the classroom discussion, and in a small, non-rated program, it was easy to get access to and attention from the faculty. They're happy to be working with grad students. Also, the city college system is set up so that many faculty are dual-appointed: they teach at the Graduate Center as well as the satellite colleges, so depending on where you go, you might have the chance to work with star faculty. Many of them publish regularly and are well-connected. They certainly know other people in the city, so if a Fordham PhD is your ultimate goal, getting a CC or Hunter or Brooklyn College MA might advance that. They helped me to get extra work in the department, and the city college system as a whole has opportunities to teach undergrads, or to run little public programs, or to edit small journals. At Hunter, anyway, the faculty treated us as peers / scholars, encouraged us to publish and in other ways professionalize. Maybe it's not ideal if you're not already in NYC, because the tuition costs go up. But it might be worth seeing what their policies are re: gaining state residency for tuition purposes. Anyway, if you want to study in New York, and you're happy going for an MA as a transitional degree, for now, I can't recommend the city college system highly enough.

PS, a wait-list question I don't think I've seen asked elsewhere: for those with admits, are you planning to choose once you've heard from all of the schools on your list, or after visiting the school, or based on some other factor? I'm trying to glean info re: timeline... after what point I can reasonably expect my waitlisted spots to turn into yeses or nos. I know 4/15 is the drop-dead date, but I'm guessing most decide before then? Thanks.

This is my second time on this merry-go-round; last spring ended with a grueling couple of months on a waitlist and ultimate rejection. I had plenty of time to think about the ways these assumptions are deeply embedded in all layers of the experience, from undergrad (where we valorize faculty with impressive publication lists, regardless of whether anyone learns anything in the classroom) to the clustering of applications toward top-tier programs, to the ways the programs themselves prepare applicants for the diminishing pool of tenure-track jobs to the exclusion of the many other possible professions for which a PhD prepares a person. This is understandable because these well-funded, well-resourced schools / programs are staffed by people who made it to the top of the heap, and presumably they recognize as success the thing they succeeded in doing. Friends with PhDs in the sciences or professions don't always expect to teach, sometimes because there's more money to be made outside the academy, sometimes because they can get pure-research gigs in for-profit-land, and sometimes because they want to be out doing the thing they were prepared to practice. I kinda feel like it's time for this profession - meaning humanities programs, meaning humanities faculty - to really put systems into place to support the professional development of students interested in alternative careers, instead of just saying, "Don't expect to be where I am in five years," and subscribing to versatilephd.com. Those systems might include offering equivalent fellowships for non-teaching department / school support, such as management of events, seeking financial support, writing business plans, and other things people will have to know how to do if they will truly be prepared for the alternative careers everyone says are out there. This is a bit of an ax to grind for me, you'll see: I've never taught and don't have a huge amount of interest in teaching, and I think there are other ways to advance the profession....

Well, rejected by BU, and with the waitlist notice this morning from UMD, I know where I stand, at least, with all four applications. There's a part of me that wishes I'd applied to 15 schools, but there's value in narrowing / focusing, too. The strange thing is that the schools I thought were closest to my particular subject area - both strong in 19th C and music / popular culture - were the flat-out rejects. If any 19th C Americanists admitted to UMD or Tufts are planning *not* to attend, please do a brother a favor and say so to them. So's to keep my sanity, I'm gonna mostly stay away until I hear from them one way or the other. Best of luck to all who haven't heard from all of their schools yet. Congratulations to those who have had good news lately. Condolences to those with less happy recent news. You're all articulate and kind and mutually supportive, and that gives me hope for the academia of the future.

:-) You wrote Reptilians. I read Republicans. Probably says more about the nature of my political outlook than is appropriate in this non-sectarian environment.

Thanks, InHacSpeVivo. One of the things that occurred to me last night, after I heard from UMD, is how crazy-narrow the funnel is into these programs. UMD is accepting 8 people out of about 200 applicants. In that context, just being seriously considered is an accomplishment. 8 out of 200 is 4%. How on earth do admissions committees even meaningfully assess 200 applications? I mean, 4% of people think the world is controlled by lizard-people. http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/03/poll-4-percent-of-americans-believe-lizard-people-control-world/ (Sorry for the Daily Caller link, but you have to admit, great story.) 4% is not an uncommon sampling error. You stand as good a chance of being falsely sent to death row: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/28/innocent-death-penalty-study_n_5228854.html My point, of course, is that to some extent the decisions are out of our control. Sitting on a couple of waitlists, and hearing the variety of experiences here, I want to say to myself, and others, not to take it personally, or to glean any meaning in particular about ourselves and our ambitions, if we don't get in. I write a lot of grant proposals in my work, and a truism there is that getting turned down is often an invitation to a conversation that will improve your proposal next time around. The funders often want to fund you; they just have limited resources, and sometimes you're just not asking the right way. I suspect there's an analogue with these programs / committees... as hard as it is to wait a year and come back around. For what it's worth....

Waitlisted at UMD.

Thanks for this, and to those who suggested coping mechanisms. Where I live, it's been unusually cold this winter, compared with recent years, and I'm spending more time indoors. The combo of cabin fever and anxiety over how all this will turn out is contributing to the compulsive checking. Earlier tonight I got a waitlist notification from the DGS at the U. of Maryland; saying so in case anyone else here has been waiting to hear from them.

Those of you who have been on here for this whole application season: how have you managed the compulsion to constantly check in? I confess that I purposely stayed away because I knew that I'd be unable to avoid coming here to kvetch, complain, and commiserate. I started looking a week or so ago, just to remind myself roughly when schools start sending out announcements, and lo & behold I cannot stop looking. It's also prompted me to neurotically check email and the application sites. I was preparing for a job interview this morning - one possible Plan B - and I stopped what I was doing and checked this board to see who got notified overnight / early. Compulsion. Congratulations to all who have been accepted so far. It seems like a good, mutually supportive community of folks. I'm still pretty sure it was a good idea not to come here between November and January, because I probably would have ignored everything else for 3 months instead of 3 weeks. Finally, are there any BU applicants here? I'm assuming I must be on a waiting list or something, at this point, or rejected but not notified....

It's refreshing to read people's stories of Plan Bs past and present. I have one observation, which I hope people won't find presumptuous. (I've just come back to this board in the last few days, mostly to see who's sending out acceptances, so feel free to ignore, if this sounds like the new guy in the room spouting off. It's basically, if you don't want to read further, an apologia for Plan Bs.) I work at a college where most of our students are professional whatever-they're-studying-fors: teachers, writers, artists, mental health workers, so I'm around students who range in age from teens to, no joke, 80s. Most of the faculty are people who did whatever-they're-teaching for a while before they pursued their post-graduate degrees. Both faculty and students are *driven* in their academic work, in part because the questions they want to answer have arisen through life / work experience. So, at least for some folks, taking time outside the academy can be beneficial. When you realize how little you know, and you're hungry to know more, or do more, or integrate disparate threads of experience / inquiry, that's a good moment for school, in my experience. I've spent over 20 years in the nonprofit world, and it's made me much better prepared for academic study: I research, organize information, and write for a living, and I've managed small- to medium-size orgs, which means explaining complicated / abstruse ideas so they become understandable; disseminating those ideas, and the tools that hold / carry them; learning how to talk to all kinds of people; managing budgets and other logistics; and not being afraid to ask for money! I'm also - because I've been reading the job boards - seeing a fair number of inside / outside the classroom gigs; humanities centers, archives, digital humanities, and given the experiences of people in my circle who have PhDs, I suspect there'll be more of these coming down the pike. Many / most colleges are nonprofits, and even the community / state / land-grant colleges are needing to think more strategically about where the money comes from and goes. Getting some experience running something might not be bad experience for the job market five years from now.