soxpuppet
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Posts posted by soxpuppet
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As a Fellow UCI English undergraduate degree-holder whose life and work continues to be influenced by several of the professors you mentioned above, I applaud everything you say here. I wrote an irritated post a few days ago and (thankfully for all) deleted it. I feel obligated to add, however, that as well as the usual cast of beloved Irvine English professors I am tempted to babble on about, I have to put in a quick word of appreciation for my undergraduate classmates. I only wish it were decorous to name my many classmates who are currently thriving in or weighing multiple offers from "top 20" English PhD programs. What I can say is that I would not be in graduate school today were it not for the intellectual community I found thriving among Irvine undergraduates bridging a variety of Humanities disciplines.
Before I transferred to UCI, I was myself a community college student. And I continue to appreciate the friendships I formed with bright students and inspiring teachers in that environment as well.
Also, hurrah for Humanities Honors!
True, perhaps not all the English undergrads at UCI are geniuses, but neither are all the English undergrads at any other given university. That's a really harsh generalization you're making, and as the bearer of an English undergrad degree from UCI, I find it particularly unjust and uncalled for. The PhD English program at UCI is nationally recognized as one of the top programs in the country, especially for Literary Theory & Criticism. In fact it's ranked number one for Lit Crit, far above Yale and Harvard, by US News and World Reports, should that mean anything to you (and I don't blame you if it doesn't): http://grad-schools....ticism-rankings.
The graduate program's quality inevitably trickles down to the undergrad program. I can testify to that by the quality of my TA's and my close interaction with the top English professors at UCI, who always taught undergrad classes in addition to graduate seminars. My classes were small, personable and engaging, conducted in more of a seminar fashion than in the style of a typical lecture, which is rare for large universities. I was fortunate to have close relationships with my professors through not only classes, but independent studies, advising, my Honors thesis and so on. I felt absolutely privileged and truthfully, surprised, to meet such incredible researchers and writers at UCI as an undergrad. Just to mention a few names, Richard Kroll, Victoria Silver, Andrzej Warminski, Richard Godden, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Michael Clark... absolutely brilliant (check out of their publications if you don't believe me). In the Humanities Honors program I met students who I am 100% sure could compete with English students at Harvard, or as you say, community college students. I would never doubt the intellectual capabilities of a student who chose community college for whatever personal reason, the way you're dismissing the whole of the English undergrad population at UCI because what, you encountered a few not so “bright” ones? Many Humanities Honors students at UCI had exceptional high school records and turned down other prestigious universities to attend UCI because of scholarships, funding, location and other personal reasons.
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Hopefully most of you know this already, but just in case: http://houseoffame.blogspot.com/
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I'm sorry, crimsonsneakers. :&
I hear there's no night life whatsoever in Irvine, so at least you won't have to deal with that.
This, at least is true (but there is nightlife enough in proximate cities). Regardless, sorry to hear about the rejection, and good luck to everyone still waiting!
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What's going on with Rutgers? Any insider information? Since getting rejected from Wisconsin, they've been bumped up to my top choice. I'm assuming though that the competition is probably very stiff this year, like all the other schools.
Rutgers is pretty consistent, and pretty transparent
. Last year notifications started going out Friday, February 19th (no idea if they all happened that night). On the department website, on the events calendar, you can find this gem, all nice and public: http://english.rutgers.edu/events/details/330-final-graduate-admissions-committee-meeting.html so, looks to be on track! In my experience last year, it was a phone call, and, unique among my acceptances, went to my home phone, not the cell. Normal cohort size in recent years has been 10-15 students.Hope that helps, and good luck to all!
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Is this it for Berkeley acceptances? I read they accept ~40 people, so I'm wondering if just fellowship nominees got responses and there's still hope for regular admits...
Congratulations to those of you you have been admitted!
From what I have been told, Berkeley doesn't actually admit any more students than your average large English department. Like many features of the Berkeley English website, the "40-45" admits they cite is likely a little out of date. I believe that last year they contacted non-fellowship admits the day after calling fellowship nominees - so there was a delay, but it was a fairly negligible one. Practices can sometimes change though!
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So I've been out here lurking for a while (and, like everyone, hitting refresh too many times), but I just received an e-mail from Graham Hammill letting me know I'm on their PhD. wait-list. (That was me on the results page.) Over 250 applicants for 13 spots, apparently; the wait-listing came with an unofficial (details to come, apparently) acceptance into their M.A. program.
Has anyone else heard anything?
Anyway, I guess I've got mixed feelings -- but it's certainly better than the days when I still thought I wanted to be a Classicist and went 0-for-everything.
Congratulations on your admission/wait list offer! Buffalo these days is tending toward a policy of privileging PhD applicants who already hold an MA, who have a sufficiently focused project to complete the program within the timeframe they are guaranteed funding. Another school might look at your application in terms of its potential rather than its articulation of a clear focus, and admit you straight away to their PhD program - it's all a matter of what each program is looking for. From what I understand, although progression from Buffalo's MA to PhD track can sometimes be competitive for those not admitted to the PhD program from the get-go, many of their MA students subsequently gain admission to top programs. For those of you looking at the program for their early modernist resources, they definitely seem committed to growing their department in that direction. And both Graham Hammill and Carla Mazzio are super amazing
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Does anyone know how often, if ever, programs notify acceptances/rejections over the weekends? The answer to this question will likely have a direct impact on how much of my thesis I get done this weekend.
I think it's pretty darn rare, though not, apparently, impossible, especially for programs that notify by email. From what I can remember, last year I had 0/7 weekend admissions notifications. May have had some weekend rejection emails, but I don't remember, and I really don't think so. One admissions call was definitely a Friday night though!
Good luck with the waiting, and I hope you are able to get some work done! This sure is a hard time of year for that!
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Awesome - many congratulations!
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Quick note - the admission notice on the results page for this year is not a fluke or a fake. A friend of mine (who I don't think uses this site) was admitted yesterday as well! Congratulations both to her, to the results page poster, and to any other Berkeley Comparative Literature admits!
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All the anecdotal evidence in my possession suggests that this would not be grounds for unannounced disqualification. If they need the transcripts to make their decision, they will most likely let you know. Certainly, they can make a decision to admit you with an unofficial transcript only - technically, they should only need the official one to actually register you in the program, etc. Only thing I can think of is perhaps it might be necessary for consideration for special fellowships, but again, I can't imagine that they would not contact you if there were any reason they needed to have the official documents now. I get the sense that programs ask for official transcripts not so much because they fear fraud but also because if a student is accepted, the school requires official transcripts for enrollment purposes.
In this case, certainly, you're better off letting them tell you what they need than risking coming across as, as you say, "annoying."
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The term "rolling admissions" is a problematic one, because in general academic use, it indicates that applications are reviewed year-round, with several possible start dates for a program
You are right - I was looking for "in waves" and came up with the wrong term. My apologies.
Except in one case where the department was doing an (unfortunate) overhaul on how it handled acceptances, I was contacted before most of the other accepted applicants when I had won a larger fellowship.
This was also true for me as well - my point, just to clarify, is that 1) my admissions with uncommon fellowships didn't necessarily happen in mid January (one was either LATE February or early March), 2) I can think of examples both from my personal experience and from the experiences of my friends where the main body of admitted students was contacted a day or two after the fellowship nominees (this is not necessarily universal, but it is pretty common for all admissions notices to go out the same week), and 3) not all late January admits are admitted in late January for the reason that they are prestigious fellowship winners.
My larger point was simply that it is a very unhealthy attitude to start placing yourselves and others in such hierarchies of worth (only the "TIP TOP candidates," suggesting that fellowship awards require astronomical GPA and GRE numbers, etc.) even before, as far as I know, ANY PhD program has sent out an actual admission for English lit. And it's unhealthy to do that anyway. Yes, some schools will start notifying soon. The schools that notify early will start notifying soon; the schools that interview will start notifying interviewees soon (or already have); and a few qualified, lucky applicants who are good fits at schools that don't notify especially late may receive notice of admission with fellowship nomination soon.
Amazing, qualified applicants who are a great fit at schools who notify later may not receive that awesome fellowship notification until even after the mid February rush.
Yes, there are traceable patterns in the admissions timeline, but they are delicate, ephemeral, and subject to myriad contingencies. It is even more difficult to identify trends in notification patterns based on this timeline that will brand your hierarchical worth as a candidate over and above (or below) other admitted students.
The TIP TOP candidates are the ones that get into solid programs that support their interests, no matter when that happens. That's all I'm saying.
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I hate to say it, but I think the only people who are going to be contacted in the last week of January are the TIP TOP candidates.
This isn't necessarily true. Except for a few schools that notify fellowship recipients a day or so earlier than their other admits, and the rare schools that do rolling admits (UVA, UNC Chapel Hill, others?) the norm is to notify everyone at once. If they do snail mail notifications, which is rare, the spacing might look odd, but the letters are probably all sent at once. Most of the time, if you get in in January, or the first week of February, it just means you got into a school that notifies early, and it's nothing to do with being a higher pick than other people who got into the same school.
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According to the Grad Cafe results forum, last year Wisconsin sent out their first acceptances on Jan 29, and Northwestern on Feb 1. If they follow a similar schedule this year, that means we might hear back in about 10 days' time. That's really really soon -- I don't know whether to be excited or scared. Honestly, how do they get through hundreds of applications in such a short time?
I have no idea about Wisconsin, but Northwestern had a relatively early application due date (December 1?). Honestly, most schools don't do anything more than collect and organize applications before everyone reconvenes for the first week of Spring semester - which is to say, most admissions committees probably started their real work this week. (For all those schools with December 15th deadlines, here's what happens. Your applications arrive. Maybe they're collected and sorted, checked for completion. The professors give final exams, grade papers and then go home for the holidays. The professors to go MLA. The professors plan their courses, then come back to teach and look at applications in mid January.) If you consider that a huge portion of acceptances go out during an incredibly hectic week or two in mid February, that indicates that most programs really only take about a month in terms of active evaluation and decision making.
Merely speculating here, but with Northwestern there are a couple of possibilities as to why they are able to get back to applicants so quickly. 1) since the deadline was earlier, perhaps applications were actually looked at before winter break? 2) since they are on the quarter system, their Winter term started January 3, which means the Ad Com could have convened even 2 weeks ago (hmm, profs on the quarter system -except the UCs in SoCal this year - probably aren't so thrilled about the changes with MLA). Either way, it's possible to imagine a scenario where they have pretty much a full month, which is about on par with what other schools seem to do.
Obviously, some programs take considerably longer. Don't hold your breath for Cornell, Indiana-Bloomington, for instance.
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Interviews for English are rare; in-person interviews a la Emory and NYU are rarer. Stanford and Northwestern have done phone interviews in the past, but Northwestern at least did not interview last year. Different adcom chairs, different strokes.
Yes, I believe (but could be wrong) that Stanford did not interview last year either; in fact, I don't think it has been a regular policy for their English department - more like a tactic they tried out, and I don't think it lasted more than a year or two. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
As to Emory - congratulations to those of you who got interviews!
Unfortunately for those still waiting, I would feel pretty safe assuming they contacted all interview selections roughly simultaneously, especially with the interview date so close. I don't believe Emory admits an especially large cohort, and certainly not everyone posts on this site - for comparison, if you look at last year's results, only two people posted interview notifications, which is pretty comparable to this year. In fact, NO ONE last year ultimately posted an Emory acceptance.
Fortunately for those still waiting, the schools that tend to notify early (if I remember correctly, Emory, Northwestern, Duke, SUNY Buffalo, others I'm not remembering) aren't good "indicators" of the overall success you will have with other schools. I was rejected by Northwestern pretty early last year, and went on to have what I felt was a successful run. So chins up everyone!
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I'll second Woolfie - the English dpt. site will contain the most accurate info on almost every occasion. That said, DO contact them; they should know about this discrepancy. Pretty much no committee is going to actually look at applications until the start of the Spring semester (ie, around January 15th), so I see no reason they would have an excuse not to accept your application, even if they do happen to prefer the Dec 15 date for some reason. Good luck!
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So Miami University of Ohio requires a 2-3 page SoP (which they are calling a personal statement, so I hope SoP is what they really mean). This is the first time I've had my SoP be too SHORT instead of too long. Here I have been trying to crunch all this information into 200-500 word requirements and now my 1000 words is not enough! Do you think that a SoP that is just over a page and a half single spaced should suffice for this? I really don't want to just add a bunch of stuff to make it longer, I've worked on this SoP for the entire year trying to perfect it. I don't think I could handle that.
Did they specify single-spaced somewhere? Cause if you double space a 1.5 page document (which is a pretty legit move), you'll be at the UPPER limit for what they're requesting. I think there's been debate here as to whether single or double-spacing is more appropriate generally for the SoP; my thought has always been that it's not cut and dry unless the application specifies. Most people I think single-space to give themselves more room, but you certainly don't have to....
The number of people who ignore guidelines like this one far more blatantly would astound you.
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Most strong programs, as far as I am aware, still guarantee 5 years of funding. But they can't always guarantee what that funding will look like each year. What TAs are paid can vary based on a lot of factors, factors that are not always (not usually?) within a department's control.
It's really difficult to figure out this stuff in advance. Don't freak out about funding until February/March, when you are weighing acceptances. In the mean time, find schools where you are a strong fit, polish your application, and you will have a much stronger chance of getting a fellowship, or a strong funding package from a school you didn't expect it from.
So to change the question a bit: would many of you even attend programs without guaranteed funding for 5 years? It seems like an obvious answer, no, but not everyone will get into Ivies or tip top programs who can definitely give you 20K a year. I'm thinking of schools like UMass, where it seems to be a year by year process and it's not even the Eng department or grad school that determines funding, but the writing center and need for instructors. Theoretically, this could work out, but then again maybe not.
- rising_star, Pamphilia and kaykaykay
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Hm, I don't know what you've heard about Davis specifically, but I would be wary about putting ANY of the UC's at the top of a list of programs that fund well. Make sure you look into that more closely.
Also, there are multiple aspects to consider when you talk about funding. Some programs distribute funding unevenly, so that certain students may get generous fellowship packages, while others are funded far more moderately, or incompletely, or not at all.
In addition to this, even recent history can be misleading in certain cases. A state's budget crisis could negatively impact a public school with a strong funding record, while something like a grant from the Mellon foundation could supplement a program that had been known to struggle with funding. Internal administrative changes could alter a program's funding policy as well.
With that said, I'm going to refrain from further speculation with respect to specific schools. Generally speaking, however, private universities and ivies *tend to* give consistently strong packages (and will reduce cohort size before they reduce funding - though that is true of many other schools as well), and I would advise that you look closely at the security of funding packages offered by public universities where the state they belong to is embroiled in particular financial difficulties.
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I wouldn't rest on the idea that BA holders are possibly judged less harshly in terms of focus, though. Especially if you only have a bachelor's, showing that you've given significant thought to a particular and narrow project should put you in good standing with a lot of PhD program admissions committees.
That's true. I should specify - it's more the case that if you hold an MA and don't articulate a narrow focus, you pretty much have no chance, while that's not necessarily the case for someone who only has a BA.
ALSO: Taking a year or more "off" - whether working, at an MA/MFA, whatever - is almost always a good idea, for all the reasons that have been mentioned and more.
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Do you mind sharing which schools they were? No problem if you don't, this being the Internet and all.
I'll send you a private message.
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It really depends on the school. I was accepted to one school that told me I was only one of two students accepted to the PhD program who didn't already have an MA. At the school I chose to attend, there are no MA holders in my cohort (though there are a few MFAs). The one thing that seems pretty common across the board is that admissions committees DO have different standards for MA as opposed to only BA holders - with an MA in hand you're expected to have a far more clearly defined project, and a much stronger sense of your field. Very roughly, with a BA, adcoms are looking for promise and preparation. With an MA, they want to see a lot more polish on top of that.
It might be useful for you to try to figure out which schools are more likely to prefer BA-holders, and which will prefer you to already have an MA. One reason certain schools prefer students with MAs is because they feel those students are better prepared to finish on time (ie, their interests are confirmed and they're not as likely to switch fields), which can be important for those programs that aren't able to offer much if any funding beyond the 5th year (I was told this by a member of an admissions committee, but I don't know how universal the sentiment is). As such, a student with an MA can *sometimes* be seen as a safer bet.
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Really? Weird. I still haven't encountered this as common but I've seen single spaced weekly response papers. Oh well. Then I stand corrected.
I think it must vary a lot. Anyway it seems to vary to the point that people will specify when they really care.
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I single-spaced mine and did fine. Lots of people I know did. It seems to be common, but not mandated, for such things as SoPs, personal statements, fellowship proposals, abstracts, etc. - even weekly response papers in my seminars now. Basically, unless otherwise specified, I've found single-spacing to be acceptable for anything that'll turn out to be about 2 pages or less.
Embarrassing, awkward times!
in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
Posted
Ha! If that was at "my" school, I can GUARANTEE they loved you for it!