ArthChauc

Hey, Kamisha. No idea who it is. Sounds like some sad person with too much free time and not enough sense. I don't have any enemies in my program and my profile is really vague--in fact, the only people who know in real life that I use this are my program best friend and my fiancé. Must be just a random misogynist. Also, your classmate sounds like a jerk. I'm sorry that happened to you. How did you find out who it was?

(Sidenote: does anyone else think it's funny that you are limited to how many upvotes you can give per day? I laughed when the box popped up and read "you have reached your quota for positive votes for the day". In my mind it was like, "Alright, Arth--that's enough positivity, go back to your melancholic self".)

I'm not going to devote my time or energy to responding to whatever that was above. Disagreeing is one thing, ignorance and blind hatred is another. I feel really sorry for you that something that was not directed at you upset you so much. As I think we're all aware (and I'm speaking about myself at this point), tone is hard to convey over the internet. I hope it's very clear to everyone that I don't have any particular issue with anyone on this board. My "dude" and "bro" comments were sarcastic. Also, I hope Toe (the fact that that's a shortening for your username is funny) knows that my own feelings about rankings have nothing to do with me trying to tell people that everyone should think the way that I do--I'm only giving my opinion from my own personal experience. I think you might have missed it, but I complimented Toe (ugh) saying that I thought (he? she?) probably had a good overall packet that lead to acceptance. I don't even know what to write at this point, haha. I read the post and just started laughing. I think this thread has provided a lot of good discussion and back-and-forth over a topic that's widely debated and has many different viewpoints. I don't believe one of them (including my own) to be the "right" one, but I think they all provide insight toward the process of choosing schools to apply to and choosing schools to attend. For that reason, I think the thread should remain up. If I, as a female, wasted my time responding to every instance of misogyny and ignorance I face daily I wouldn't have time to breathe. I guess this just goes to show that being a grad school applicant doesn't necessarily make you intelligent...or even a decent person.

Haha, my alma mater is the main rival of M*chigan. I know the rivalry feels.

Critique of other posters aside, I truly agree with this.

Thanks bro and of course congratulations dude. Also, I'm a female. All I know is that I'm glad that I have professors that care about me who are writing for me. I have also, as of last night, been admitted to a top program (in the twenties, I've discovered), so let's not assume that just because I advocate for people ignoring rankings and finding a good fit for them that that must somehow mean that I have no interest in any other programs. Obviously, my sentiments don't apply to someone who ardently believe in rankings because, well, I'm responding to the post at large and not trying to sway someone with a strong opinion. Also, do you really think one person's letter did the job for you? I'm sure you had a strong packet as a whole.

Wow, way to choose a general comment I made and make it into the thesis of all that I wrote. "...and it scares me"? Seriously? I feel like I'm being scolded by a parent. Is that you, ima? Were did I say that prestige doesn't matter? I merely made the argument that you can go to a less prestigious university and still do well and that there is nothing wrong with going to a program that's "less prestigious" than another if you think it fits your needs best as a student. THAT was the thesis of my argument, nothing more.

I read some of the responses to this post and laughed out loud. I wish I had enough time to blog about how ridiculous some people are in academia, but alas thesis writing and worrying about myself take too much time. People talking about how anything ranked 50+ is a waste of time...seriously? I have friends who graduated from an 100+ Ph.D program who are now tenure track at North Carolina, Syracuse, and UT Austin. Did I mention that they were on the market for less than two years? If you have faculty that are chastising you for schools that interest you, it sounds like you need to work with people who are more in tune with your academic aspirations. If one of my professors acted like that about a school that I was interested in for nothing other than the ranking I would have run the opposite direction--that person clearly cares less about what you want as a student than they do about something as arbitrary as a number next to a school. Also, don't think for a second that rankings always speak for the quality of a graduate program or the strength of staff--this is apparent in that New Mexico, Loyola-Chicago, and St. Louis are all EXCELLENT schools and are ranked in the 70-100 spots per US News and World report. Hell, Baylor is ranked 121 and anyone who's even read through their faculty knows that's far from the truth--I know this because there are Baylor applicants all over the Lit/RhetComp boards and they clearly get that. At the end of the day you have to do what's good for you. If that's a Ph.D, do it. I don't know where this entitled bullshit way of thinking has come from, but I'm certainly glad I'm not part of it. It's very clear how people on these boards look at universities/scholars that don't fit into their desired demographic and it's not at all attractive to me. I go to a small MA program and our faculty is made largely from Minnesota, UVA, and other top 20ish programs and churn out graduates who are regularly placed at fantastic tenure track and visiting programs. I think people like to say "rankings matter" and then ignore all of the times that they don't make a difference. You can be a lame duck in a top twenty program, but see how far the name of that Ph.D takes you vs. working your ass off at a lesser known program and getting your name out there. At the end of the day--if you want to be tenure track--the most important things that matter are the work that you do and who you know in the business. I know we like to pretend that we're above networking in the academe, but that's just untrue. /endrant

Just received my first acceptance! It's no Berkeley or Duke but it's definitely comforting and an extremely strong offer--full medical/dental/vision and 16k a year!

Today is clearly "don't take my own advice" day. I think everybody's Boulder application changed (re: the financial tab)--mine did as well and Colorado is definitely a reach school for me. I can hardly think that all of us would be accepted--maybe I misinterpreted and that's not what everyone was saying before. Congrats to the acceptances so far and fingers crossed for Boulder applicants! Edit: Reread the thread re: Boulder applications. I did misinterpret. My apologies.

A few things: Congrats to the UChicago acceptance! That's an amazing school with incredible scholars and I'm jealous--I didn't even bother applying there, I'm not of that caliber, unfortunately. #selfaware To anyone with nerves that drive them up a wall: this website, from my experience, does not help. I have stayed off of it since my two rejections last week (sadface) and I have to say that my mood as well as my productivity greatly increased. When I say my productivity, I don't mean because I have lent the time I previously spent on this site to my work, but that I am no longer feeling cripplingly nervous for hours a day. I feel awesome. I pulled an 800 calorie workout this evening and wrote five pages of my thesis this morning. Boom. I totally get that this site is good for venting/mutually freaking out, and I love that. I think you all are incredibly intelligent, articulate, and capable scholars and there's nothing inherently wrong with all of us articulating our application woes/triumphs with one another...but from my brief hiatus, I will say that my mood has greatly improved and my fiancé can now actually stand talking to me on the phone (accomplishment in itself). Please don't read this as bashing GradCafe/GC users. I'm merely making a suggestion for those anxious types like me. Let's see if I can stick with my own advice. As always, good luck!

Congrats to everyone on the acceptances! Today was a horrible day for me (as mentioned it before, but two rejections--and they were my first two decisions to report) but I'm currently drinking a beer, watching Gossip Girl, and lounging in flannel. Needless to say, we will all survive!

St. Louis. I had a feeling both of them were coming, though. One of the benefits of GradCafe--the blow is softened. I knew not to get my hopes up when I received an email from Nebraska this morning because of the results board--it was actually more bearable this way. Two down, ten to go. That number is shockingly small.

Oh cool, and another rejection!

Just got my first rejection. Ugh. So long, Nebraska.

This isn't really on topic, but I have word that people who haven't heard back from Nebraska yet will be hearing back today. My guess is that rejections are going out.

Yeah, I live in northwest Ohio and we have had -10 days (without windchill) for the last month or so--we got ten inches of snow just last night so this snow day is well deserved. But no, we don't cancel either. In fact, I walked to class last Monday when the windchill was -25 and I had the very well desire to just lay face first in the snow and wait for death. But I made it to class. My students were irritated.

Just checked the results board with the keyword "English". Looking pretty grim over there. Yikes. Also, I have a snow day today! No teaching freshman rugrats or meeting with my thesis advisor!

I'm jealous of everyone who's even heard a peep from departments--I haven't heard hardly ANYTHING. One school emailed me today to say that my application had left the graduate college and gone to the department for evaluation...great. That school has never started accepting/rejecting earlier than March, so looks like I'm still set to be in the dark.

They did--I think they were one of the places that required two each? Maybe not. But yes, I sent official transcripts and my application is "complete".

Same here. For a lot of the applications, it seemed like that was what the statement of purpose was supposed to be doing--in fact, a few of them actually said to mention people.

Ha, the email basically says that they have no idea when they will know whether you're in your not--they even give in example of offering someone an assistantship on the national deadline. As they put so eloquently: "To put this all another way: we can't predict when we'll be able to contact you, but you can be sure that we'll do so as soon as circumstances allow". Read: "Everybody calm the fuck down." They also reminded us that there is no active wait list.

Capitalism *is* selfish...if it wasn't selfish, it wouldn't be capitalism. You can't have one without the other and you need to ignore any pejorative context that you might be perceiving with that word. Where am I applying any "moral values" to the system? It just seems like you're throwing labels at me in order to bolster your argument. Why don't you provide an example of a business that works for social change? TOMS shoes doesn't count. It's like you're saying that we should use the system that creates problems to fix the problems...which is just like breaking something with your left hand and fixing it with your right. It doesn't change the fact that the system itself is what breaks, even if it can occasionally rectify that which is broken.

Any Purdue applicants around? Just wondering if I was alone in getting the "your application file is being reviewed" email from the department? Also a large section about how rolling admissions works, seemed like a polite way to say "please don't call us".

I don't think rankings are a good way to decide whether attending a school is "suicide" or not. I mean, if you want to get really pretentious about it and say that there are schools that are "beneath" you, go for it. The fact of the matter is, rankings are total bullshit and fit is what matters. If you work with awesome scholars who have done amazing things in the field that you study, who cares if the university is number 7 or number 25. I'm currently an MA at a school that isn't top 20 and my thesis advisor is extremely well known and has published prolifically in my field--in fact, she was awarded at a private ceremony at MLA just a few weeks ago. I can't imagine choosing a school or not applying to a school because I didn't like they way they were ranked--I chose the schools I applied to based on who I thought I could work with, where I wanted to be, and whether or not I thought the university would be the kind of place that I could see myself. Ranking is fine and good, but it only matters to the people who are ranked high--it reminds me of all the girls who thought they were cool in high school because they were "popular", but really the rest of us didn't give a shit. Bottom line: go where you can grow as a scholar, ignore the rankings. Your application is already in, you already decided that you were interested in that university...why would you let a number next to the university name make a difference?