rainy_day

Congrats, Artful, on hearing good news early on! Hoping I can stop compulsively checking my phone...

I think it is safe to assume calls and emails are received between the hours of 9am and 5pm. We may be compulsively checking our email for results, but faculty has a life, and by 5pm they are going home to have dinner!

I believe this whole process tells us much about ourselves. For example, I am neurotic and an utter control freak, and find this excruciatingly more painful specifically because it is out of my control.

No one really knows until they send out acceptances, which none of these schools have done yet.

This was very kind of you!!! It most certainly would have induced a number of heart attacks, I fear.

How did you come across this info? This sounds infinitely less fun! But I guess I would only need to buy a nice shirt. I could be naked from the waist down for Skype!

Last night I had a phone call and message from an unknown number. My heart started beating out of my chest! Turns out it was a wrong number, but now I have not been able to stop compulsively checking my email since. This week last year Stanford notified for interviews. Aghhh. Anyone else already irrationally, compulsively checking for news?

I don't think anyone would see it as a weakness, but the weight given to it as a strength will vary from program to program. I think many would value the experience, see it as displaying "commitment to the field," which I imagine becomes important when deciding between two equally qualified ppl for one spot, etc.

Congrats, bespeckled!! Well done. There is no way it could hurt to update your application, so I think you certainly should!

Oh, this is a great idea! I have this, and I found it so very helpful. Each theorist is introduced with a little bio that summarizes the main arguments of their main theoretical work. It really helps to provide some solid footing before tackling some of the more complicated stuff.

I also love Of Grammatology. So much. "Structure, Sign, & Play" is also a good place to start with Derrida; it's significantly shorter, for one, and a bit more accessible, imo. Judith Butler's On Bodies is great; the final chapter is an especially good essay. Jasbir Puar, who's at Rutgers, wrote Terrorist Assemblages, and it was one of the greatest things I've ever read. Definitely some of the best theory to come out in recent years (not that I'm familiar with all new theory; the book is just that amazing).

Memorable applications moments include: I signed up to retake the GRE and then panicked, convincing myself I had wasted my money, would do even worse this time, and should just skip the whole thing. I called my best friend 2 hours before the test to confirm this plan with her, and she talked me into taking the test. I showered, rode my bike at top speed to the testing center, and wound up with a nearly perfect verbal score. Huzzah. There's a lesson for self doubt.

I'm honestly just trying my best to forget that I applied. (Obviously I am not doing a very successful job at that, considering how many times a day I read grad cafe.) My semester started yesterday, so I'm just trying to throw myself into the mountains of work that have already appeared. Even though I'm trying to minimize the time spent thinking about applications, I've basically been an insomniac for the past 3 weeks. I'm not even worrying about applications, per say, in those sleepless nights. I'm just worrying in general, essentially about anything that pops into my head, but the root of the anxiety is definitely this weird limbo state. Rip the bandaid off, indeed! May you all get into your top choice with full funding!

I nice leather messenger bag that is big enough to carry my books, notebooks, water bottle, lunch, etc. all of which inevitably have jammed in my backpack, which is old and doesn't make me feel very professional on teaching days.

Sounds like good news to me.

I thought I was feeling really chill about the whole thing...but for about 10 days now (immediately following the submission of my second to last application) I have been unable to fall asleep and I've been having really weird dreams, neither of which are normally ever a problem for me. I realized today that this general sense of unease I'm carrying around must be anxiety about applications. Basically, I've convinced myself that I'm fine, and all the while my subconscious/body is busy freaking out. Ugh.

I tend to think I'll make it to the top 20% at some of my schools....and then fail to make the 4% acceptance at any of them.

This thread confuses me because everything about facebook is conceited, by its nature. Posting about my weekend plans or my "likes" etc..all that is telling the world about me, me, me. So why should posting good news be somehow beyond the pale? That being said, if your employers don't know that you're applying, I would highly recommend keeping it under wraps. I posted my MA admit, and though it was filtered, I missed someone and word still got out. It caused quite a bit of stress in my life.

If you get into a school and are invited to an accepted students weekend, do programs (especially humanities) do anything to help defray the cost of travel or help you find a place to stay?

Yes! In this awful process of applications, who wouldnt want to read nice things about themselves?

You have a great icon for lamenting. Also for smiting, should you need to smite any schools that send rejection letters. (I'm operating under the assumption that your icon is, obviously, lego God.)

bdon, we have very similar music/work habits! I have to be somewhere where there is action going on around me. I think it has more to do with the presence of other people than the noise, though, because I almost always pop on my big noise cancelling headphones. If I'm at home, I just flit about on the internet or do the dishes or take a nap. Seeing all the other people around me working is very motivating! (They might actually just be on facebook, but I don't know that.) I listen to mostly indie stuff (Some favorites this finals season: The National, The xx, Girls, Broken Bella, Bon Iver, Passion Pit, Freelance Whales). I can't listen to anything *new* when I'm trying to write, because I will just listen to it, instead of write!

You probably won't get lots of responses to this question. The thing about these applications is, even if you get in, no one knows "what they were/are looking for." For anyone who could post their great gpa and gre score who was accepted to UTAustin, someone else can post about the time they failed soph yr of college and got in. It's all arbitrary as hell. Any school has a top 20% of applicants that are all about the same in strength and quality, but most accept about 5%. So what do you do with that? The best you can. Research UTAustin and write a strong fit portion of your sop, a strong sop in general (have ppl read it!), and go over that writing sample like a mo'fo. And then hit submit and wait for the inevitably (somewhat arbitrary) decision that comes down. Good luck.

I feel okay most days that I'll get in *somewhere.*. Got knows I'm applying to enough schools. The mortal terror for me is (and plz rd the most in your most dramatic voice): which one?! did I pick the right places?! do I risk getting accepted someplace miserable?! Omg, I failed at research and my life will be miserable forever.