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ratiocinator

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  1. Thanks! I would hardly call myself inundated (you, on the other hand, can certainly claim that honor), but it was definitely a tough call. NYU was both very tempting and very persistent, but I think it worked out for the best—and I'm so glad that you, too, got what you wanted this cycle!
  2. I accepted at Duke! I also turned down offers from Virginia (President's Fellowship), NYU, and Hopkins. I know that there are several people waiting anxiously on the first two, so hopefully the good news keeps on coming!
  3. I applied so straight-out-of-undergrad that I'm not even out of undergrad yet, and though applying during my senior year was stressful, I'm really happy with my results (in my signature). My sense is that admissions committees look for different things in a BA-only candidate, especially a relatively young one. Somebody with an MA is expected to produce unambiguously graduate-level work. Somebody with a BA must show talent, dedication, maturity, and so on, but one's writing changes a great deal during one's first year of graduate study, so committees are looking for potential as well as previous accomplishments. One professor put it to me this way: "You can teach somebody to apply theoretical methods. You can't teach somebody to be a great writer." Another side of this is that people with MAs are held to higher standards in the admissions process, because it's assumed (correctly or not) that they are less likely to go through an academic "transformation" than a BA-only student. Of course, none of this goes against the excellent point that an MA can be key for people who don't feel comfortable with their undergraduate institution or record (either because of poor grades or because of a change in major)—and that it can give people the chance to explore graduate study without committing to 5+ years. The upshot is that you have to figure out what your needs are, and go with that. Not very precise advice, I'm afraid, but there you have it.
  4. I was fortunate enough to attend a talk by Spivak last week in which she touched on precisely this problem. Her point was that the "postcolonial" label (to which she says she and her peers always assigned an ironic tone) is, in many cases, something of a fiction—that the "post-" is always on the horizon, and that many (not all!) people who use the term "postcolonial" do so with a self-congratulatory attitude, which really ticks her off. When "post-" is inaccurate, she calls it "colonial," simple as that.
  5. I just got in off the wait-list!!! Good luck to those still waiting—there is clearly still hope, and the "near top of the list" assurance seems to mean something after all.
  6. I also just heard from Professor Hunter as well. (Poor guy must be working overtime to keep up with all of our e-mails!) He told me that I am "right at the top" of the wait-list and asked me to hold off on decisions for a bit. It seems that several of us have been told this, though—does anybody have a sense of how long the list is, or how likely we are to get off of it?
  7. As another member of the NYU waitlist, I understand your impatience! NYU only has 9 fellowship spots this year, which means that they can only make offers to 9 people at a time. Every time somebody declines, they will make an offer to the next person on the list. As to how that list is organized—I can't really say. A professor was kind enough to get in touch and tell me that I've got a good chance of getting an offer in the next few weeks, but it wasn't an official or absolute notice by any means, and it all depends on how many currently admitted people decline their offers. If it helps, most programs (including NYU) usually make offers to about twice as many people as they expect to enroll, and based on what people were saying at the open house, a number of people had other offers toward which they were already leaning. I know this is frustrating, but it looks like we'll all in the dark—at least for the next few weeks, and possibly up to April 15. Have you asked for more details about your status? They're a very kind department, on the whole, and I'm sure they will give you as much information as they have. Good luck!
  8. I'm going to cast a vote for the "applying while still in college" side. It's what I did this year, and I'm quite pleased with my results. Of course, there are drawbacks to this—it's possible that you won't get in anywhere without that year of preparation (it's certainly what I was expecting to happen this round, and I feel very lucky), or that you would have done better had you waited to apply. Even so, I think the benefits are immense. You get to apply while still in an academic environment, which often means better access to library/archival materials, immersion in scholarly debate while refining your research interests for your SOP, and continued proximity to professors. As a current undergraduate, I saw my advisers frequently enough that they were more than happy to help me revise my materials; many people who take time off find that the intervening years have weakened their relationships with previously enthusiastic professors. So, with all that said, here's my advice, shamelessly based on what I chose to do this year: if you are absolutely sure that you want to go to graduate school and don't need time off to refuel, then apply—but, keeping in mind that many people do much better when they apply after having taken time off, don't apply to "safety" schools (by which I mean schools to which you wouldn't be thrilled to go). Be ambitious. If it works out, then you can happily go straight through and never look back. If it doesn't, then you can strengthen your application and reapply to a wider range of schools with a better idea of the process. Either way, you won't find yourself trapped in your last-choice school, wondering what would have happened if you'd only waited. Also, to the rest of the still-seniors: hooray for us—we get to live the academic dream AND escape the economic nightmare!
  9. (I'm assuming that this post means you are considering Hopkins as well—in which case, I look forward to meeting you this week!) I've asked these questions of my academic advisers and talked it over with my mentor, who earned her PhD there. My sense is that it's rigorous in terms of theory, but that there are a variety of theoretical interests, and you'll probably find at least one professor who shares your methodology. Based on what my advisers have said, Hopkins is very well-regarded, and it seems like their job placement is hard to beat. In a way, this means that the small size is a plus: they can afford to devote a lot of time and energy to each student. Personally, I'm really excited about how small the program is. I enjoy working in small, intense groups, and I think that it encourages more thematic work, instead of letting students stay within their centuries or geographic areas. However, this is all largely second-hand, and I'd love to hear the thoughts and opinions of people with more immediate knowledge.
  10. I am also being driven slightly mad by the silence. Are they done making offers, or are those of us who haven't heard potentially still in the running? I'd assumed that I was out at UVA when acceptances were posted earlier this month, and I'd come to terms with it, but now that impatient feeling is back... and I have to say, I hadn't missed it.
  11. Thanks for the reassurance! Fingers definitely crossed. It's a shame you can't come to the recruitment weekend—do you think you'll be able to make it out in March?—but feel free to grill me for any information. If I remember correctly, we're both in Victorian studies, so hopefully my impressions will be of some use to you.
  12. I'm flying out from New York on Thursday morning, and need to be back in the city for the NYU interview by Sunday evening... so I, too, am very nervous. Are flights going to be straight-up canceled, do you think, or just delayed?
  13. Branwen, I was in a very similar position at the start of this application cycle. Like yours, my thesis was off-limits (though it's within my subfield—Victorian literature—I'm still in college, and am still writing it), but I did have a very strong 7 page paper in my area of interest that consisted almost entirely of close reading. I read a great deal of relevant scholarship and reformulated my close-reading argument in the context of current scholarly debates. It's certainly not the same paper that it was, but I didn't just insert blocks of academic summary. Instead, I took the time to reframe the discoveries I had made through my close reading within a line of argument that engaged directly with current scholarship. (I hope that makes sense.) It was certainly a lot of work, but I'm pleased with my results so far. If you're thinking of applying next year, this might be a perfect approach—you'll have lots of time to read secondary material and mull it over until you find a new space for your close reading to inhabit. Also, while I plan to study Victorian prose, I am also a total medieval nut, and I love Gawain. Have fun!
  14. One good way to test the waters is to get an MA in English. This could do a lot for your profile: give you the opportunity to produce a strong writing sample; allow you to form relationships with professors who could write your recommendation letters; help you figure out what fields interest you; and provide the theoretical background that a lot of people who don't have much formal training in literary analysis lack. My impression is that an MA degree can be a great stepping stone for someone who wants to change disciplines.
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