viviandarkbloom

I'm on the wait list and spoke to the DGS (a ridiculously nice man) over the weekend. I'm pretty sure they'll notify today, they've already made their decisions. They're making 24 offers and aiming for an entering class of 12 - apparently that's slightly fewer than in the past, but the funding has increased.

As one of the many, many rejectees I can confirm that from the context of the email it was clear that they were talking about the entire grad school

It's mostly just a term invented by the UK media. Not something you'd really hear people there saying (I did my BA at Oxford)

Haha, which is exactly what someone else just said. Whoops

No, the two schools are completely separate. 'Oxbridge' is just people being coy about specifying which one they went to, like when they say 'BA Ivy'.

I think that figure refers to the grad school in general rather than the English program...

Have you asked Cornell if they would cover some of your travel expenses? I know some places do that...

Yeah I'm planning on being there, how about you?

Actually, at least in my case, the English department at Brown got in touch pretty soon after I'd received the letter from the grad school, and seemed to be under the impression that they were breaking the news to me. So I think the notification was maybe actually meant to come from the department. There's been a lot of contact from the department since too, so it's actually all felt pretty personalized, template acceptance letter notwithstanding

I asked CUNY about funding before I applied, and they told me all incoming students this year would get the same 25k stipend. (I haven't heard from them either, incidentally)

Thanks, and congrats to you too! Maybe see you in Ithaca...

Holy shit, I got accepted to Brown and Cornell today. This is the best Valentine's day ever...

Haha, thanks. Pretty accurate...

It was a standard email saying to check the website, then a template letter from the Dean. Nothing from the English faculty yet, so no insider clues I'm afraid

Me too! I'm still in shock...

I was wait-listed for English. I don't know anything about Comp Lit, but in the case of English they seem to have contacted people with offers by phone, then emailed people on the wait-list a couple of days later.

Thanks, and best of luck to you both too. I'm afraid I'm just as in the dark as you are about what kind of students are considered a good 'fit' for the program, but I guess it has something to do with the sort of academic interests you talk about in the SOP, and how they match up with those of the faculty and the students who are already there. I don't have any languages or academic publications, so perhaps that stuff is less important.

I got a wait list email from NYU a couple of hours ago. Don't know if everyone was notified at the same time or not, but it wasn't particularly personalised, so I'm guessing that maybe they were. I don't know how many people were on the list, but they said it's short. They also said they'd received hundreds of applicants, so no doubt it was a total lottery. Hope that helps.

It says on the UPenn website that they don't do interviews

Me neither, it just says on the website that it was extended from 1st Dec to the 6th. No idea if that has any baring on notifications at all - and I guess there's actually no reason to suppose that they would notify on exactly the same day every year in any case.

Anyone heard anything from NYU? Looks like they'd already started notifying by now the last couple of years. It says on their webpage that they extended the application deadline by few days, I wonder if that means notifications will come out a bit later? (This is all complete speculation)

Well I did far worse than that on the quant, but cleared the 310 mark because I did well on the verbal. But I get the impression that if places have a combined cut-off figure at all it's mainly for the purposes of competitive university-wide fellowships/justifying admits to central funding bodies, rather than something the dept itself would particularly care about when identifying their best candidates. The only place I specifically asked about whether my low quant score would be a hindrance told me that they wouldn't even look at it...

Pretty sure the 310 figure is a combined score for verbal and quant - ie it would be impossible in the old system, not the new one. That's certainly the case at SUNY Buffalo, the only other place I've seen that posts a minimum for fellowships (313)

I had the same situation, it wasn't an issue at all. Just send them an email explaining. They only really need the official one if they're admitting you

They're hardly going to count the words. I'm sending 30 pages, which as you say is considerably more than 7,500 words. I think if they were that pernickety about length they would be more specific (like NYU, which says 10-12 pages, and not to send more than 12).