BillyPilgrim

Did anyone else apply to Stanford's program?? I'm switching disciplines and its interdisciplinary program is very appealing to me, but it appears to be under-represented on the forum here.

Indiana University's Comparative Literature program has a translation certificate that you can earn in addition to an MA or PhD. The certificate involves a translation workshop and seminar plus ~16 units of additional classes. There are two quite distinguished, award-winning faculty members in the IU program. Check out their website.

I called and got some info. 40-50 applications still remain for 10-15 spots

Am I the only one w/o a decision?

Congratulations. Are you accepting the offer?

I still have not heard. I called Thursday to inquire and the secretary told that no decision had yet been made on my file. I applied last year as well and got my rejection March 28th. So is there really no funding for those entering at the MA level? I though they awarded a few TAships to some grad students entering with their lone BA

If you call the graduate office they will let you know your decision, if indeed one has been made on your app. My status never changed so I just called and they told me of my rejections.

Last year they sporadically emailed both acceptances and rejections from this time last year until the end of March. I received my rejection March 28th or something like that. It's a painful, drawn-out process, but it is what it is.

If you don't mind my asking, what was the funding they offered? I'm getting a bit gitty as this is one of the few schools for which I still have a glimmer of hope. Congrats on your other acceptances. Where are they from and what is your area of interest?

Lots of rejections on the results page, but mine is unchanged. Anyone else in the same boat?

I thought I was a perfect fit for Rutgers. Anyone else seem to feel that no matter how great your fit, your SOP and your writing sample, sometimes the dice just aren't rolled in your favor. With these schools accepting 5% of applicants it almost seems like winning the lottery. Either that or my SoP and writing sample (which I worked heavily on and had other people read and comment and say they were good) really are just missing something, that elusive something that some students have and some don't. Anyways, congrats to all the admits. Rutgers is an English PhD student's wet dream. Enjoy it for the rest of us!

I called earlier this week just to see if I could get a time frame for notifications and I was told decisions will be mailed in "a few weeks." Do with that what you will.

Anyone want to claim the second acceptance?

You know, I thought that might be the case as I applied to ND last year as well. A few weeks ago I checked last year's app and encountered that tricky date change on the letter as well.

Is that rejection on the results board bogus? I'm beginning to think it is.

I don't know about this rejection-by-alphabetical-order theory that seems to have developed in the Duke thread. My last name is "D" and my ND online application has not been updated either. On the results page we have one acceptance via phone and one rejection via website. Has anyone else checked the website for rejection? Mine hasn't changed since I submitted my app.

anyone else puzzled by the ND listings on the results page? anyone care to clarify?

I applied to the lit program and received the same email. Decisions will be made by the 14th. This is the email: Dear _______________ Thank you for your application to the graduate programs in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We received a great number of applications to our various areas of study this year, and all are currently under the various admissions committees' careful review. You are no doubt anxious to have some word about your application status. We hope to convey this information to you and the other applicants in the very near future. In the meantime, we do ask for your patience. You will be hearing from us. If you have not heard by February 14 and/or you do not see your status changed on the My UW Portal (you should have received information about this portal in an email from the Graduate School shortly after you submitted your electronic application), please feel free to contact me directly. Best regards, Robyn Shanahan Graduate Coordinator Department of English University of Wisconsin-Madison

Last year the material received status never changed. Really no cause for alarm.

I think there are a few reasons. First, Comp Lit allows the opportunity to study multiple languages in depthly. I know most English programs -and so I am assuming national language programs as well- require reading knowledge of an additional one or two language(s), but in Comp Lit that number is raised to three and I imagine requires a more thorough study than the English - or nat lang - degree would expect. This is probably why CL degress on average take a few years longer to complete - the expectation of foreign language understanding is quite high. The decision to choose between a CL or language degree also depends on the specific program. If Uni X's French dept has a faculty member in your line of research, you should apply there as opposed to that school's CL dept, even though you may want a CL degree of have an undergrad degree in CL. If you look at faculty's CVs, you will notice there is a lot of cross over. Professor Y may have a his PhD in Spanish but is a memeber of the CL dept. CL departments, generally speaking, seem to hire PhDs from many different fields. Judith Butler, for example, is a PhD in philosophy but was a member of the CL and Rhetoric dept at Berkeley. I think the actual subject title of one's degree (French PhD, CompLit PhD, Religion PhD) is irrelevant when compared to the degree holder's publications, research, etc.... There is no hard line separating the disciplines.

Do you think we're facing the same odds this year? or worse? better? how do we know?

I've had a few strange dreams as well. Last night I dreamt that a friend introduced me to a mediator between grad school applicants and the grad schools. He informed me with 100% certainty that I was rejected from every school I applied to. After some despair I became skeptical. After inquiring about how he had access to all his information he acknowledged that he only had a list of addresses that the grad school has sent mail to and since my name wasn't on the list he concluded I was rejected. I told him schools communicate via email as well and he admitted to be a fraud. phew. And this guy looked like pre-boxing-career Mickey Rourke. A few nights ago in my dream my mother informed me that mail was sent to her house for me and she opened it. Delighted, she announced that I got into in northwestern and U of Oregon. I was exicted of course, then very confused becuase I didn't apply to Oregon. I then convined myself that maybe I unknowingly applied to Oregon or just forgot. This led to much happiness across the land.

This is my second round. Last year I applied to several Comp Lit programs and two English. I was rejected form the two Eng, but of the CL, I received one unfunded offer and one acceptance, but from my last choice school and by the time I received it I had already become comfortable with reapplying this year. After more research before applying this year I found that my interests were more suited for English programs, so now I am applying to 9 English programs and reapplying to the comp lit program where I was offered the MA admission (I deferred enrollment to reapply for PhD funding/fellowships). I improved my GRE scores this time around. Still not great for my programs, but good enough. My writing sample and my SOP I know are much better than they were. That gives me more confidence than I had last year, but there is still that afore-mentioned wavering between confidence and despair. I take comfort in the fact that there will be many first-time applicants this year whose applications will be of the same quality as mine was last year and seeing as though I know I have improved my app, I have a better chance of standing out. Since not taking the offers from last year, I have been managing a UPS store. Not a great job (I feel lucky to just have a job), but good enough and I have been able to save enough money so that if I end up having to take an unfunded MA offer, I will have enough dough to last for a year or so. I am curious to know how other second-timers handled their letter of recommendations. Did you ask your profs to write another one? Reuse the same one? I have a letter service with my undergrad uni, so I just had them send the exact copy from last year. I hope the fact that they were written last year does not negatively affect how they are read by the adcoms. Thoughts?

My area of interest concerns the interplay of relgious and nonreligious texts, specifically how the Bible (the English translations and how it was interprested) has shaped fiction and nonreligious literature. I have sort of broken this down to two different time periods and have applied to schools that fall into one or the other. For applying my interest to Milton/Early Modern period, I have applied to: Wisconsin Northwestern UIC WUSTL And Early American/Puritanism: Brandeis Rutgers Brown Notre Dame

Last year I applied to numerous Comp Lit programs (NYU, Berkeley, Stanford, WUSTL, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Indiana, UConn) and received mostly rejections. I was accepted into Indiana but without funding and by the time I received my UConn acceptance, I had already become comfortable with the idea of reapplying the following year. In doing more research this year I found out that English programs were actually more suited for my area of research (the interplay of religious and nonreligious texts). I guess last year I just assumed I should apply to Comp Lit programs because my BA is in Comp Lit. This year I have reapplied to Indiana Comp Lit to be considered for fellowships but have also applied to 8 English programs (I don't want to pollute the comp lit exclusivity here, so I will list these in the English forum). The language issue might have been a contributing factor to my rejections last year. I only had a very poor understanding of Italian and a somewhat competent grasp of French, but that only comes from taking upper div French classes my last year of undergrad. For comp lit, I think the competition is really fierce when it comes to language prep....I don't think the departments want to fund students for more years than they have to for them to meet their language reqs. On the flip side, my mediocre language skills might be a plus for English programs. We'll see!