bhr

Here's the thing, I don't think we need to say "that's all for literature."  In fact, I think literature (and more importantly, literary criticism), linguistics, ect. still have a valuable place in the academy. I just think that, even if that's what you want to teach, it's worth asking "how can I make this work relevant and visible in professional, technical and academic writing?" 

Maybe that work is through web authorship and remix and asking students to create websites and tumblrs about their reading work. Maybe it takes the form of videos, or infographics, or presentations and the use of visual rhetoric. Maybe it's publishing a student literary magazine that's more than just a series of poems and short stories. There are a lot of things you can teach through traditional English education, but the comments I've seen, time and time again, is that English PhDs believe that that work is somehow beneath them, or inappropriate for them. Just like people who think that teaching FYC is somehow a lesser thing (even though it, potentially, has far more impact on a student). For a decade or more, as C/R (and, more importantly for me, Computers and Writing) has fought for recognition, the question has been how to make the work in those fields visible in traditional English programs. As administrative demands shift more money to lines in C/R and away from traditional English, isn't it worth asking the same questions about English?

Look, VM can dismiss my point of view again because I'm an MA, but I'm also not blind to the reality of the situation. We have a model built out of an era where only the children of privilege went to college, and have maintained it through the GI Bill and the post-Korean war enrollment boom (when many students were still not paying for college) and for another 60 years. Eventually the arms race in buildings and technology and amenities (among other things) priced college out of an affordable range for self-financed students, and now finally students are asking about return on their investment. That's a good thing. It means, as they understand that they are investing in themselves, that we get students who are more motivated, more engaged, ect. Maybe we need to consider other models and forms of assessment for hiring educators. If students are choosing not to go into Arts and Letters, is that their fault? The government's fault? or is it our (collective) fault for not creating meaningful value in the work we (collectively) are doing?

Want an example of how that can work? Look at how art programs have launched UX and Design majors. Or GIS work coming out of anthropology or human geography. We don't need to bemoan (and I'm not sure if you really are doing this) that your students are taking English as a double major or minor to support what they see as career major, but instead should figure out how to turn our work into something they see value in.

You are an absolute fool if you don't have a paragraph in your SoP saying just this.

I wish, just once, that VM would be intellectually honest in these threads. I know I mentioned this in the other one, but she's putting forward a picture of the academy that just isn't true. First, the breakdown is not 75/25 Adjunct/TT, as she claims, it's 75/25 NTT/TT. That matters, as there are, as I've said before, quite a lot of NTT jobs that pay well and offer career and research support. Maybe the conversation we should be having isn't that all NTT jobs are life-sucking, soul-killing pits of despair, but, rather, on how people who want to teach still can while not having a PhD. The problem is that people like VM measure success purely on having a 2/2 TT line, but, in reality, that isn't the only successful outcome for a graduate student. The truth is, happily, that you can have a fine career in a lot of forms, and instead of maligning those positions, we should ask questions like how do we support the conversion of part time adjuncts to full time staff, how best to prepare graduates for applying for those jobs.

Maybe I come at this a little differently than most people on here. I spent more than a decade working outside of the academy, making anywhere from minimum wage to six figures, depending on the year. I understand that "elite" jobs are only a small part of the total picture.
 
I also know more than a few people who are quite happy in NTT lines. I can name a dozen schools, off the top of my head, that offer +$50k starting salaries for instructors, not including summer teaching money. That's competitive, by the way, with the starting salary for humanities TT lines at most state schools, including the University of Maryland, Virginia and Wisconsin system, at least. Yes, those positions are teaching, rather than research focused, but they are still supported jobs in the academy.

The problem isn't just that there are too many people going to grad school, and it's not that WPAs are evil monsters sucking out the souls of English PhDs, but it's that the people coming out are prepared to take jobs and teach courses that simply don't exist anymore. The fact is (and studies consistently back this up), students aren't interested in English degrees anymore. The reason C/R and Tech Comm have grown while Lit/English programs have suffered isn't that they are more compliant with administrative demands, but that they are producing people who can teach the courses that are in demand.

What does that mean in relation to the "Ponzi Scheme"? Well, it means that VM is right. Programs do mislead and inadequately prepare their students for the realities of the job market. You simply can't, in good conscience, be producing a student who studies the themes of industrialization in Milton every year when there aren't jobs that will hire them. English PhDs need to make sure that their graduates are well-situated in comp theory and (the dreaded) best practices, have teaching experience in PW or FYW courses, and understand how to apply to the jobs that really exist. More students should be pushed into MAs and MFAs, since that is what many of the jobs are looking for. Students should be being prepared to teach online, hybrid and community college courses. Programs should be making sure that all students are graduating debt free (or close to it), since jobs are paying well enough to live, but not well enough to dig out of debt.

So, here is where I depart from the crowd, and say that you don't need another offer to negotiate.
Once you've selected the program you want to attend (or your top choice, if all things are equal), you write the DGS/your contact some version of the following letter:
 
Dr. XYZ,
I am honored/thrilled/excited to have been accepted into your incoming cohort. I believe that YOUR PROGRAM NAME is a place where I can thrive over the coming years. In order to put myself in the best position to succeed at YOUR PROGRAM, I was hoping that you would offer the following:
1. Item you must have
2. Item you would really like.
3. Item you could live without easily.
(Brief explanation about why these things help).
If you are able to offer these thing, I am ready to commit to YOUR PROGRAM NAME, and start getting ready to move to TOWN.
Your Name
u
Some programs have the ability to negotiate, and some don't. No one is going to be offended unless it comes off that you are trying to leverage them to get a better offer elsewhere.
 
Some financial things to ask for: Tech funds (laptop, camera, etc), guaranteed summer funding, extra travel funding, bridge funding (between your current program and the PhD), dissertation completion fellowship.
Non-financial things: Guarantee of certain teaching assignments, Office/classroom choice. Affiliations. Conferences (A friend, for example, requested the ability to bid to host a niche conference, knowing that it would give her an opportunity to network with senior scholars).

I know I'm late on this, but I can't sleep and decided to look at some threads.
The answer is good lord, yes. In fact, I would specifically ask your advisor if you can tag around with them at some point ("oh, I'm going to panel X, would you like to have coffee before and then go?"). I followed my advisor around like we were on our honeymoon at my first conference, which meant I got to meet a ton of people I wouldn't have otherwise been able to. Now I'm established enough (1st year PhD, but have met folks a few times and connect with them on social media) that I set up my own coffees with big names. There's a prof that wrote one of my favorite texts that I now have breakfast with whenever we go to the same conference (and basically let her introduce me to everyone).

At big field conferences there are often a lot of private/semi-private parties taking place in the evening. I've gotten two panels put together from folks I met over drinks in a hotel room.
A good advisor will do this sort of thing for you. My department chair once said that she will introduce us to anyone we want, but we better not shy away when the opportunities come up.

So, here is where I depart from the crowd, and say that you don't need another offer to negotiate.
Once you've selected the program you want to attend (or your top choice, if all things are equal), you write the DGS/your contact some version of the following letter:
 
Dr. XYZ,
I am honored/thrilled/excited to have been accepted into your incoming cohort. I believe that YOUR PROGRAM NAME is a place where I can thrive over the coming years. In order to put myself in the best position to succeed at YOUR PROGRAM, I was hoping that you would offer the following:
1. Item you must have
2. Item you would really like.
3. Item you could live without easily.
(Brief explanation about why these things help).
If you are able to offer these thing, I am ready to commit to YOUR PROGRAM NAME, and start getting ready to move to TOWN.
Your Name
u
Some programs have the ability to negotiate, and some don't. No one is going to be offended unless it comes off that you are trying to leverage them to get a better offer elsewhere.
 
Some financial things to ask for: Tech funds (laptop, camera, etc), guaranteed summer funding, extra travel funding, bridge funding (between your current program and the PhD), dissertation completion fellowship.
Non-financial things: Guarantee of certain teaching assignments, Office/classroom choice. Affiliations. Conferences (A friend, for example, requested the ability to bid to host a niche conference, knowing that it would give her an opportunity to network with senior scholars).

Am I the only one a bit concerned about OPs comments irt dating and emotional maturity. It sounds like he (?) is targeting younger students in a way that just doesn't feel healthy to me, and is something that could be highly problematic for a graduate student and future academic. I understand that being a virgin/sexually inexperienced (?) is difficult, but targeting partners who are significantly younger than you because of that is bad.
OP, are you +/- 24? If you are older, you have no business being in places with people who are under 21, and doing so puts you at a lot of risks, both professionally and legally. It's one thing if those groups form over shared interests outside the university (say, a church young adult group or a local gaming club) but if you are just showing up to undergraduate events and clubs, I think you really need to reevaluate your personal decision making process.
While my current cohort is mostly 32+, myself included, my MA group included a couple of students directly out of undergrad. I get along with the younger folks just fine, because we are at the same place in our lives (academically) which makes it easier to connect. While I have good relationships with some of the undergrads I've mentored/supervised/taught, I can't imagine a situation where I would want to participate in their social lives.
OP, try attending graduate events at your university. The people who attend those tend to be younger and unmarried, and will be more likely to share your life stage.

Am I the only one a bit concerned about OPs comments irt dating and emotional maturity. It sounds like he (?) is targeting younger students in a way that just doesn't feel healthy to me, and is something that could be highly problematic for a graduate student and future academic. I understand that being a virgin/sexually inexperienced (?) is difficult, but targeting partners who are significantly younger than you because of that is bad.
OP, are you +/- 24? If you are older, you have no business being in places with people who are under 21, and doing so puts you at a lot of risks, both professionally and legally. It's one thing if those groups form over shared interests outside the university (say, a church young adult group or a local gaming club) but if you are just showing up to undergraduate events and clubs, I think you really need to reevaluate your personal decision making process.
While my current cohort is mostly 32+, myself included, my MA group included a couple of students directly out of undergrad. I get along with the younger folks just fine, because we are at the same place in our lives (academically) which makes it easier to connect. While I have good relationships with some of the undergrads I've mentored/supervised/taught, I can't imagine a situation where I would want to participate in their social lives.
OP, try attending graduate events at your university. The people who attend those tend to be younger and unmarried, and will be more likely to share your life stage.

It's usually used for a professor who is cross-listed from their primary department. So an ethics professor may be listed as faculty in Philosophy, but have a courtesy appointment in biomed because they specialize in biomedical ethics.
 
ETA: It's going to depend on the program how invested they are in their departments.

I will caution you not to eliminate programs based on posted stipends, or to count on specific numbers. At my program, our minimum is guaranteed by union contract, but you can jump up into tier 2 or tier 3 based on experience, receive fellowships for additional funds, get guaranteed summer funding, or pick up an extra quarter-time assistantship or nine hours a week in the WC or elsewhere on campus. You can also negotiate extra funds.
 
One thing to ask is what work comes with that stipend. $15k at Purdue means a 2/2 load, while a similar stipend is 1/1 at MSU or OSU. That controls how much work goes into that money, and what freedom you have to make more money.

Rhet/Comp person here. There are lots of questions here so I'm going to answer a few I know answers to and direct you to some ways to find out if rhet/comp is right for you.
 
What do Rhet/Comp folks do? Well it depends on what type of program you're in. Some rhet/comp folks focus more on traditional aspects of rhetoric (think the classics, aristotle, theory, writing, and communication), other programs are more interdisciplinary and their departments may overlap with other programs at their university (Womens studies departments, English lit, digital humanities, ect), some simply have their own specializations (MSU for example has strong Cultural Rhetorics and Digital Humanities tracks). Mostly though some common themes you'll find in rhet/comp lit is writing (surprise!), community, stories, literacy, persuasion (through rhetorical devices), and communication.
Is a Rhet/Comp PhD always focused only on college writing and literacy issues like WPA and writing center work? If I am interested in studying propaganda, advertising, and political rhetoric, is a Rhet/Comp PhD right for me? See above- of course not! If you are interested in WPA or FYW then you will find it much easier to find programs (and faculty) that fit your interests. Most rhet/comp people who end up as adjuncts or in early faculty positions do serve as college writing instructors. However, many serve as WPA, program directors, or in positions in other fields (digital humanities, Arts & Sciences programs, or within smaller sister departments within their research interests- think a rhet/comp degree holder whose thesis was on indigenous methods of storytelling may serve in an Indigenous Studies programs). For your second response: there are many programs that would have faculty studying propogand and political rhetoric (especially in light of the recent election! search CFPs for special election issues and you'll be pleasantly surprised), but your interests would also fit within a communication program or a media studies programs (it just depends on where you think you fit best based on region, finances, and faculty).
Do I really have a better chance of finding tenure-line work with a Rhet/Comp degree than with a Lit degree? This is tricky, so I will leave this to lit people to discuss the job market in their field, but I will say Rhet/Comp (just like many humanities programs) can provide training in areas that will help you get a degree (such as professional writing, website design, coding, technical writing, ect). I have seen many of the people from my program leave with jobs in hand and our department has only grown. I realize though that this is not the case everywhere. Jobs are hard to find in any field right now, so if tenure-track is your goal, ask programs about their graduate's record in receiving these positions.
Am I more likely to find a standard classroom teaching gig as a Rhet/Comp, or am I more likely to work in administrative roles like WPA or writing center director? This will depend on your research, focus, and GA position. If you don't want to be a WPA no one will make you. I will say though just in terms of job availability there will always be less WPA positions than teaching positions. Most universities have 1-3 admins in a writing center whereas they may have 20-30 teach positions for "standard classroom teaching" (note: I'm talking about FYW, rhetoric/comp, and potentially English class positions since let's face it most Rhet/Comp people end up in an English department not in a stand alone Rhet/Comp department).
What are some specializations or subfields in Rhet/Comp that are especially popular right now? What are some subfields that I might not know about (given that I clearly know very little to begin with)? Just to name a few that I know of from my department's subfields: pedagogy, literacy, teaching, visual rhetoric, digital rhetorics, cultural rhetorics, disability studies, indigenous studies, chicano/a studies, trauma studies, queer theory, environmental studies, African American studies, multi-modal composition, accessibility, professional writing, rhetorical theory/historiography, and technical writing (these are literally just some of what people in my department study- find a department that is flexible and enthusiastic and they will help you find spaces for your work)
 
And, what other aspects of Rhet/Comp am I clearly trampling over in my ignorance in this post? This is not your ignorance, but a lot of people think rhet/comp is just writing, or just like the field of English because we are so often housed in English programs. However, Rhet/Comp is a very growing and changing field. There is also a great divide in the field between more traditional programs and more "progressive" programs. Where you do your MA/PhD will greatly influence what you will read, how you will be trained, and the programs you will be able to more easily network with. Rhet/Comp is a lot more diverse and nuanced that just writing, but writing is at the heart of what we do. If you want to focus more on literature, history, or a particular time period literature may be a better fit for you, if you want to focus more on theories of communication then communication may be better for you. It just depends on your resources, desires, and focus. I highly recommend searching through a department's website and looking at what their graduate students are focusing on. Their research interests will show you what is more popular/available in their department and you will often see common themes. Taking a brief look through their list of courses is also a good start. I chose Rhet/Comp because I always enjoyed theory and persuasion over literary analysis, as an undergraduate I had the opportunity to take rhetoric classes that really made me think about my position, power, and motives (in fact we talked quite a lot about propoganda and power). Overall I found a place in the field that was open to me really exploring my identity, power, and position and overall challenges me to write (and discuss other's writing) from a place that questions those priveleges. However, rhet/comp isn't the only place you can do that work and our field is smaller than lit. Our field is growing because we are able to secure some funding through digital humanities programs, Writing Centers, and First Year Writing pedagogy/labs (something some more traditional programs/english programs may not be able to). 
 
PS: Online writing is a very hot topic right now so there is space for that interest as well.

I know I'm late on this, but I can't sleep and decided to look at some threads.
The answer is good lord, yes. In fact, I would specifically ask your advisor if you can tag around with them at some point ("oh, I'm going to panel X, would you like to have coffee before and then go?"). I followed my advisor around like we were on our honeymoon at my first conference, which meant I got to meet a ton of people I wouldn't have otherwise been able to. Now I'm established enough (1st year PhD, but have met folks a few times and connect with them on social media) that I set up my own coffees with big names. There's a prof that wrote one of my favorite texts that I now have breakfast with whenever we go to the same conference (and basically let her introduce me to everyone).

At big field conferences there are often a lot of private/semi-private parties taking place in the evening. I've gotten two panels put together from folks I met over drinks in a hotel room.
A good advisor will do this sort of thing for you. My department chair once said that she will introduce us to anyone we want, but we better not shy away when the opportunities come up.

I don't get the outrage. If you pay for a service, don't you expect to get what you purchased?
Same reason why there are websites that review mail drug orders or prostitution or whatever illegal/unethical behavior people engage in where the market can't really provide consistent means of recognizing reputation.
As for people doing this...well you have to recognize that a large portion of people go to college because they "have to" to succeed in whatever endeavor they want. When there's people who don't want to be there and/or don't care/want to study then of course this type of thing is going to exist.

You don't think a political science department has a right to decide what sort of political approaches/beliefs their students have? What if they want to ensure a balance between conservative and progressive students? Or a department can't choose not to admit a student who insults professors? What if a student said "homosexuality is illegal and immoral and I hate all gay people" in an interview, and the department has multiple gay students and professors? What if the student has a swastika tattoo and is interviewing to work with a Jewish PI/Advisor? Can an instructor limit the topics of a paper to a specific area? Can they make students write about an opinion they don't share, or read a book by a faculty member they disagree with? Can they stop a student from sharing pictures of aborted fetuses during class? 
What if the student refuses to be quiet when asked? Is this protected free speech? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYDL2I6Vdi8
 
Is this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLPMFJSKd3c
Guess what, departments can even use factors like race, religion, gender, and sexuality as an admission criteria (under some circumstances). If my department, for example, wants to make sure that 50% of all admissions this year are WoC, because they believe that that group has been underrepresented in the department/field in the past, the courts have generally held that to be legal.
I'm right, you are either a troll or an idiot.
 

I'm biased, but I wouldn't put any school on that list above Michigan State or Ohio State. I also have not heard anything bad from multiple friends at Purdue, but anecdotal evidence isn't much. Also keep in mind that UM, as good as Sweetland is, isn't a R/C or English program
I would suggest the same thing I do with everyone: look at the major conferences and see what programs are being represented. Where did people go/where are they now? Same with journals. Writing centers and WPA jobs are a bit harder to judge based on who is current in those positions, as often those people weren't originally hired for that role, but it's still worth looking at the job listings and seeing who filled them come September.

@Bumblebea Thanks for your input on which terms to use to define myself. Those were helpful. How does something like this sound: "post-1945 Americanist studying Southern modernist aesthetics, Southern identity, and male sexuality/masculinity in Southern literature."
Your response to my question about studying issues of race, however, was not helpful, and I could use further input there. I'm not planning to "ignore" race. I did not say that in this thread. I said I am not interested in focusing as exclusively on the issues listed as many contemporary established scholars do.
In no way do I intend to (nor do I think my post states that I intend to) act as though race has no scholarly bearing or impact on American culture. I'm simply not interested in writing on it exstinsively because I do not believe I have anything useful to add to the conversation in that area.
My main question should have read something more like what other lines of inquiry are of interest in american lit studies?

Congrats. I was there for HASTAC last summer and it's a pretty campus with some interesting work going on. I would have died if I had to live there year round, though, as it's hotter than the devil's taint.

This is WAY off base stateside. Most leases start in August, but the best places tend to start disappearing in February. Hell, the big rental company in my college town had a line outside for their new building back in November when they first opened the rentals for it for next year. If you don't have a place lucked down by the end of the school year you are going to be hurting for options in a "college town".
These are the things you ask people in the program. Many places will have a buddy or group of students who will help in the process. I just randomly started FB messenging one of the current students who friended me when I first accepted, and she helped me (and has gone on to become one of my best friends and a mentor).

Idea: Ask applicants who are on the verge of receiving responses or who have just finished their applications (so they're at their most informed but not yet tainted by the responses) to write up a list of their top XX schools they'd like to go to, and rank it in order as if they had free rein to go wherever they wanted. It's not scientific and parameters will vary wildly, but applicants spend a lot of time researching places and fit and writing specific samples so they know departments well and will consider all sorts of things for their choices (fit, prestige, placement, city, funding). With enough responses you should get a fairly good idea of which programs are (perceived by the people trying to get in as) the best, and if respondents state their field you can distinguish between subfields.
Sure, they generally won't really know about what it's like to be a graduate at those departments, but that problems exists in the current methodology too. At least you avoid personal bias and can expect the respondents to know what they're talking about.
If everyone's in agreement, go on and do this.

Not really, no. I don't know where you are getting your stats, but they have placed numerous grad in TT positions over past the past two years. And while CUNY does have some excellent faculty members, the quality of work of those at Harvard is pretty undeniable, at least in terms of pedigree. It's really not about frequency of publication; it's about the quality of journals and academic presses. Likewise, while Rhet-Comp and Digital Humanities are "hot," that doesn't necessarily translate to rankings. In particular, Rhet-Comp is not even always considered to be part of these rankings, which are focused on Literary Studies. Moreover, while Harvard isn't great re. Digital Humanities, people like Leah Price, Philip Fisher, and Deidre Lynch are at the forefront of other "hot" fields like Book History and Affect, so I don't think your characterization of the department as outmoded is totally fair. 

I get where you're coming from—I wouldn't want to attend Harvard, at least not for my subfield. It doesn't have the same sort of dynamism or sheen as some of the other programs in the top 10, and some of the prominent faculty members are close to retirement. That being said, they will always be able to make good hires, the faculty will always have publications with a golden pedigree, and no matter how conservative the department seems, they will still have grad students who go on to do amazing work. Think of people like Namwali Serpell and Sianne Ngai, Jared Hickman, Holger Syme, etc... No arguments against CUNY being a great program, but it really doesn't have the same profile as Harvard. 

So, here is where I depart from the crowd, and say that you don't need another offer to negotiate.
Once you've selected the program you want to attend (or your top choice, if all things are equal), you write the DGS/your contact some version of the following letter:
 
Dr. XYZ,
I am honored/thrilled/excited to have been accepted into your incoming cohort. I believe that YOUR PROGRAM NAME is a place where I can thrive over the coming years. In order to put myself in the best position to succeed at YOUR PROGRAM, I was hoping that you would offer the following:
1. Item you must have
2. Item you would really like.
3. Item you could live without easily.
(Brief explanation about why these things help).
If you are able to offer these thing, I am ready to commit to YOUR PROGRAM NAME, and start getting ready to move to TOWN.
Your Name
u
Some programs have the ability to negotiate, and some don't. No one is going to be offended unless it comes off that you are trying to leverage them to get a better offer elsewhere.
 
Some financial things to ask for: Tech funds (laptop, camera, etc), guaranteed summer funding, extra travel funding, bridge funding (between your current program and the PhD), dissertation completion fellowship.
Non-financial things: Guarantee of certain teaching assignments, Office/classroom choice. Affiliations. Conferences (A friend, for example, requested the ability to bid to host a niche conference, knowing that it would give her an opportunity to network with senior scholars).

So, here is where I depart from the crowd, and say that you don't need another offer to negotiate.
Once you've selected the program you want to attend (or your top choice, if all things are equal), you write the DGS/your contact some version of the following letter:
 
Dr. XYZ,
I am honored/thrilled/excited to have been accepted into your incoming cohort. I believe that YOUR PROGRAM NAME is a place where I can thrive over the coming years. In order to put myself in the best position to succeed at YOUR PROGRAM, I was hoping that you would offer the following:
1. Item you must have
2. Item you would really like.
3. Item you could live without easily.
(Brief explanation about why these things help).
If you are able to offer these thing, I am ready to commit to YOUR PROGRAM NAME, and start getting ready to move to TOWN.
Your Name
u
Some programs have the ability to negotiate, and some don't. No one is going to be offended unless it comes off that you are trying to leverage them to get a better offer elsewhere.
 
Some financial things to ask for: Tech funds (laptop, camera, etc), guaranteed summer funding, extra travel funding, bridge funding (between your current program and the PhD), dissertation completion fellowship.
Non-financial things: Guarantee of certain teaching assignments, Office/classroom choice. Affiliations. Conferences (A friend, for example, requested the ability to bid to host a niche conference, knowing that it would give her an opportunity to network with senior scholars).

Just be ready to commit if they say yes to all/most of it. The mistake people make is trying to pit two programs against each other, like these programs don't chat.
 
FWIW, I got about $25k in extra funding over four years by asking for a bunch of small things ($2500 a year extra, bridge funding, relocation, tech budget, extra travel, book budget), plus guaranteed summer funding for four years

So, here is where I depart from the crowd, and say that you don't need another offer to negotiate.
Once you've selected the program you want to attend (or your top choice, if all things are equal), you write the DGS/your contact some version of the following letter:
 
Dr. XYZ,
I am honored/thrilled/excited to have been accepted into your incoming cohort. I believe that YOUR PROGRAM NAME is a place where I can thrive over the coming years. In order to put myself in the best position to succeed at YOUR PROGRAM, I was hoping that you would offer the following:
1. Item you must have
2. Item you would really like.
3. Item you could live without easily.
(Brief explanation about why these things help).
If you are able to offer these thing, I am ready to commit to YOUR PROGRAM NAME, and start getting ready to move to TOWN.
Your Name
u
Some programs have the ability to negotiate, and some don't. No one is going to be offended unless it comes off that you are trying to leverage them to get a better offer elsewhere.
 
Some financial things to ask for: Tech funds (laptop, camera, etc), guaranteed summer funding, extra travel funding, bridge funding (between your current program and the PhD), dissertation completion fellowship.
Non-financial things: Guarantee of certain teaching assignments, Office/classroom choice. Affiliations. Conferences (A friend, for example, requested the ability to bid to host a niche conference, knowing that it would give her an opportunity to network with senior scholars).

So, here is where I depart from the crowd, and say that you don't need another offer to negotiate.
Once you've selected the program you want to attend (or your top choice, if all things are equal), you write the DGS/your contact some version of the following letter:
 
Dr. XYZ,
I am honored/thrilled/excited to have been accepted into your incoming cohort. I believe that YOUR PROGRAM NAME is a place where I can thrive over the coming years. In order to put myself in the best position to succeed at YOUR PROGRAM, I was hoping that you would offer the following:
1. Item you must have
2. Item you would really like.
3. Item you could live without easily.
(Brief explanation about why these things help).
If you are able to offer these thing, I am ready to commit to YOUR PROGRAM NAME, and start getting ready to move to TOWN.
Your Name
u
Some programs have the ability to negotiate, and some don't. No one is going to be offended unless it comes off that you are trying to leverage them to get a better offer elsewhere.
 
Some financial things to ask for: Tech funds (laptop, camera, etc), guaranteed summer funding, extra travel funding, bridge funding (between your current program and the PhD), dissertation completion fellowship.
Non-financial things: Guarantee of certain teaching assignments, Office/classroom choice. Affiliations. Conferences (A friend, for example, requested the ability to bid to host a niche conference, knowing that it would give her an opportunity to network with senior scholars).