Sparky

If language proficiency is an issue, that could explain the Comp Lit interviews. (Adcoms are notoriously, and rightly, skeptical of unsubstantiated claims of language knowledge in SOPs). My school does on-campus interviews in several humanities depts, including English, largely as a recruiting tool. Our location is, well, crappy, but apparently getting people onto campus prior to final decisions changes a *lot* in terms of people's excitement level at spending 5+ years here. Better than a prospective student weekend in March, I gather. IIRC Yale's stated reason for attempting to mandate graduate interviews was to increase PhD completion rate, but I have a hard time seeing how that's predictable in advance, especially for humanities programs, where less depends on the advisor/lab-student relationship. As I understand it, schools that hold on-campus interviews generally either pay for the trip or provide reimbursement for travel expenditures.

...And set it in a different city...in a different year... All my love to both, mind you, but still... On PKD, I think Minority Report and Scanner Darkly work far better as movies than novellas, but I'm not sure I would put either on my list of all-time greatest adaptations. My vote goes to The Great Escape. Also, Shawkshank Redemption (if we are considering short stories as well as novel-length works). Both cases of phenomenal source material turned into outstanding movies. Oh! And The Princess Bride. Also in the category of "movies that are VASTLY different than their source material," but again, both are excellent in their own ways.

Do you have funding? (If you don't--don't go.) Many funding packages specifically prohibit students from holding outside jobs as well. If you get caught, you could lose said funding (including tuition remission). As far as feasibility goes--I am not in soc, so maybe it is different, but the first semester of any graduate program is hard. (I had a master's before I started PhD work. It was still the hardest semester of my entire education). If there are no legal barriers, you might at least want to wait a semester and see if you think you have time for both. You could also contact current students in the program and find out if working full-time is a thing that any of them do.

Heh. My first purchased CDs were Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen, and the Forrest Gump soundtrack. I was not born in the right decade.

Um. Your decision timelline? It's February 12th. Can you think of a *faster* way to say to stressed-out professors, "I am the center of the universe and why haven't you fit your schedule to suit my needs"? That is NOT the impression you want to give to potential advisors and dissertation committee members. (Much less the department secretary, a.k.a. your greatest ally and best friend as a PhD student). This is something you can raise at, like, the end of March. Until then? ETA: I'm sure we can all think of exceptions in which an earlier decision is not just stress-reducing but legitimately essential. But as a *general* guideline, the LAST thing one wants to do is think one is exceptional when ze is not--or more to the point, to give profs the idea that one thinks so highly of oneself. Apologies for the awkward avoidance of the generic "you"--I really don't want this to come off as criticism of any particular person, even by accident.

At that point, it can only hurt you. Don't.

I think the negative reactions are to posts where people have said something that some others have interpreted as "I have X Dream School and Y Dream School, oh how ever am I going to pick, woe is me, can I have advice." My suggestion is that everyone's emotions are on edge (whether a good edge or a bad edge) and people are going to misread all sorts of stuff through no one's fault but human emotional excitability--and that angsting about making decisions is a good use of the Decisions, Decisions forum.

No. The post points out that it is helpful to make connections with future [potential] advisors. Certainly it can be useful if you have well-connected profs at your MA or BA school, but that was not the issue here. TMP earned those admissions with a badass SOP, a killer writing sample, and FAR more guts and perseverance than I possess. As far as "seeming to gloat" goes...Perhaps those of you with multiple acceptances could employ the Decisions, Decisions board? Maybe start a 'history' thread there if you want collective advice and angst...I don't know, just a thought.

Two three things to consider, y'all: 1. I had one funded acceptance. ONE. A pile of rejections, and one as-good-as rejection (unfunded PhD? in the humanities? sure, and I'll take the Brooklyn Bridge as well). One was all I got, but it was all I needed. 2. On publishing in the interim: okay, maybe, possibly, but be damn sure it's a paper you are going to be proud of in 7-10 years when you are on the job market. You do NOT want crap out there, your academic "naked baby photos," if you will. (And allow me to offer my humble case: I thought I had a brilliant paper, and indeed I was told by PhD-teaching profs that it was publishable; three years later, I can already tell you that having this particular paper in the publication universe would keep me up at night crying in shame. I'm not saying you're me; I'm just encouraging you to think very carefully whether you could turn out to be me). 3.

Yes, history generally gets their responses going earlier than religion/theology. Several of the top religion PhD programs (includes ones with very good HC/HB) have already sent out interview notifications or have even held their interview weekends already, but most of the others haven't sent anything out. Stuff will start happening. My year it was the last two weeks in February into the first week in March, but stuff in history happened later my year, too.

Not getting a fully-funded spot in a top master's program on your first try is SO NOT failing at life. It's not even failing at grad school admissions! If you want this that badly, you cry, hang out with your good friends Ben and Jerry for a week, then find ways to improve your application (mostly SOP) for next year and try again. (I know, easy to say from the other side. Hush.) Dude, there are entire mobs of people who consider being in graduate school to be failing at life. In my more cynical moments, I tend to agree with them. You are an amazing, strong, lovely person and will continue to be so regardless of the outcome of this or any app cycle. As regards your more specific questions: 1. If Yale comes back with no money, you go to them with "I have 80% funding from Princeton but I really like YDS. I'm wondering what you could do to help" or some such. I think this generally has more success on the PhD level, but it doesn't hurt to ask. 2. My understanding is that Notre Dame isn't even *thinking* about the MTS applications yet.

1. It *totally* depends on the school and program. Some depts do competitive interviews, as you described; some are just looking to make sure the people they're already planning to accept know how to brush their teeth. However, it is a "competitive interview" the other way around, too--the school is giving YOU a chance to interview IT as well. It's awkward--it's *really* awkward sometimes--but it works, somehow. Pay attention to what's going on in the dept and on campus. Is this somewhere you see yourself living? Thriving? Do you click with the grad student cohort? 2. Be ONLY positive. Don't engage in any backstabbing or nastiness. Even if it's fake smiles. Be enthusiastic. You have already proven yourself to the adcomm academically; you wouldn't be at the interview if you hadn't! What they are most likely looking for is (1) confirmation that you really do know what your app says you know, so be ready to answer some questions about your research interests, and (2) future colleagues. Think of this as them auditioning people for the role of "being around me for the next X years." You want to seem like someone who will be, if not always a joy, at least not a *heartache* to have around. If you are worried, "out loud", on the Internet, about possibly being rude and arrogant, my *suspicion*--and I have nothing to back this up, just a hunch--is that you have a tendency to sell yourself short to others. Don't let yourself do that. It's very possible (again, just a hunch) that your idea of 'rude' and 'arrogant' is really just 'has an opinion about [method].' At my interview, there were enough targeted questions (i.e. aimed directly at individual people) even during group interview situations that even the people who talked incessantly didn't drown the rest of us out. If the program is your top choice, say so. I don't advocate lying--what if you get in elsewhere and decide to go there instead? you don't want to burn any bridges in the professional world before you even get started!--but if it *is* your #1 school, it can only help you to let them know. And look--yes, it's awkward, yes, it's stressful, yes, you have to be "on" the entire time and that can be a challenge for some of us. But you can also mess up collassally and still get in--I did. You know the ONE piece of advice for ANY interview situation that never, ever changes? Don't be late. Yeah, um, I was 10 minutes late for the very first activity. I am now in my second year of that program.

This is the first year ND's English dept has done interviews. They've been adding to the list of "humanities departments that do interviews" slowly but steadily; I guess English was just next up. Last year was the first for Literature (Comp Lit by any other name). I don't know if they're only interviewing some subfields; I would *guess* not based on the pattern, but that is just a guess.

Maybe: don't ask why you were rejected. Ask how you might improve your application for next time. That leaves the door open in case it really was just a matter of, 'have your POI not draw the short straw.'

Well, there is UChicago's notorious "one-third tuition remission" MAPSS/MAPH offer. In general (there are probably a couple of *actual* exceptions), these are, well, "cash cow" MA programs. The point is to make money off people who totally fell in love when looking for PhD programs and can't see themselves anywhere else. This is not to say that some people don't go to those master's programs, have a great time, learn a lot, and position themselves well for a future app cycle. But...the programs typically exist to make money.

Be sure to read the comments as well--there's a bit more there.

This one.

Interviews/not-interviews are almost *totally* dependent on the program, not on individual professors. I can think of a few examples of depts I know where some subfields do interviews and others don't, but that's as particular as it gets. Interviews also don't mean a student hadn't contacted their POI previously. I had e-mailed mine and spoken to him on the phone; the dept interviews its finalists, so interview it was. Perhaps your programs/subfields simply don't conduct interviews. Not all that many humanities depts do.

You will be asked to the point of exhaustion if you have any questions about the program/school/city. Asking questions about the area is a great way to get people talking once you've exhausted the usual 'and what is the coursework like/what is the average class size/what's the emphasis on class discussion' program questions. Be enthusiastic! Show them that you love what you do and that you're committed to it. If you're interviewing at your top-choice school, it can't hurt to tell them so (I don't advocate lying--you don't want to burn bridges if you get in there but choose to go elsewhere). You've proven yourself academically. They think you're a good fit for the program. You wouldn't be at the interview otherwise. This is your chance to show them that you will make a good colleague--that you will be awesome to have around for the next 5+ years, that you will represent your dept well in the professional-social world. As for what people wear...well, it's a little different for those of you interviewing at Emory, b/c I'm sure the climate will be vastly different from my interview weekend (a snowy part of the Midwest, in February. not good). I would say the uniform was nice khakis or dark pants and sweaters of some sort. I wore nice black jeans and a v-neck sweater over a plain T-shirt all three days. (I, um, had to go buy winter dress clothes specifically for the interview, and Gap was having a nice sale on those sweaters). The guys were pretty much in button-down shirts and maybe sweaters; I think last year some of the interviewees had blazers but I don't recall any my year. Most of the women had a little more variety in their wardrobe than I did. You will probably be walking a lot at least one day (campus/library tour), so be *sure* you take nice but comfortable shoes that you can walk in. This is not the time for five-inch stilettos or Heelys. There will most likely be a couple of 'social' events, some involving faculty for which you will want to maintain the business casual thing, and probably some sort of mixer w/just grad students where you can show a little more personal flair if you want. As far as questions goes, I think I had to tell the story of how I got interested in [time period] and [research interest] about eight hundred times. One prof wanted to know what work of secondary scholarship we wished we had written (and the kind of work we saw ourselves doing). You may have the opportunity to sit in on classes. Take up as many of these as you can! Usually the classes they suggest, they suggest because the profs are fantastic. You might even learn something really cool. (...Yes, I am a nerd.) One of the bloggers from my app year (coyabean) gave a pretty detailed report of her interview at Emory (not for any of the specific departments any of you have mentioned, but still). It might be worth trying to dig that up. Good luck, everyone!

Interesting. My school has a long tradition of on-campus interviews, but apparently its major benefit here has in yield rates. (Our location is a sticking point--Yale may be in New Haven, but it's still Civilization.) Then again, very few people here drop out prior to the ABD stage, so maybe the aforementioned effect is at work, too. My own interview was much more, well, pleasant than schadenfreude describes--they (program chair, POIs) were much more concerned with making sure they pick future colleagues than with testing academic prowess. That is not to say it was not super-duper awkward and nervewracking, of course. Being rejected on the basis of an application feels horrible, but at least it is a rejection of you as a scholar. Being rejected ("waitlisted"...haha) after an interview feels like a rejection of you as a person.

Phil's list reflects my own experience, especially Seriously, I think most of the questions we were asked at my interview weekend were "Do you have any questions about...?" I would also add--be enthusiastic! You've already proven yourself academically to them; you wouldn't be interviewed if you hadn't. The interview weekend (or phone call--YUCK*) is to make your case that you are worth having around as a colleague for the next 4+ years, and that you will not be an embarrassment to your program in the professional-social world. Be professional, but show them that you love what you do. * I'm *terrified* of phone calls. E-mail is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

My mom got her PhD when I was in high school. (Granted, she went straight through BA-PhD, but still.) As for the difficulty of publishing, I'm no expert, but I would say possibly to probably it would be harder. It's less about having a PhD than having institutional affiliation, whether a thinktank or university. If you get a job at a place like that (or even if you were in law school or whatever) and had access to journal databases, archives etc, it would be much easier to actually, y'know, do history. It would also help with connections with publishers. But if you're thinking popular press, I'm sure all of us have a few choice examples of both really great and really horrid history or "history" books that were written by people w/o advanced degrees.f I'm a medievalist, and at Kalamazoo (our big conference) every year a pretty large number of papers are presented by "Independent Scholars." You can still be involved, though it would be a greater expense on your part. ('Course, you'd likely be making more money. ) fuzzylogician's advice to check out Versatile PhDs and the network of blogs about nonacademic careers for PhDs is also excellent. As for maximizing your still-small chances at a univ. job: go to a top program in your subfield to study with a top scholar in your subfield, publish, get to know Important People, publish, write a knockout dissertation, and sacrifice a few small animals to a deity of your choice.

Hm. A previous cycle, and my *app* didn't get switched, but when I contacted one of my POIs he suggested I apply to a particular interdisciplinary program at his school instead of to the straight-up history dept. (It is a program highly respected in academia). I listened. End result: here I am!And more importantly, I love it.

If it helps*, I posted during my app year at, like, 1 AM one morning. Nine hours later I came home from a class to a voicemail inviting me to an interview for what is now my program. There is, in other words, a certain power in expressions of hopeless on TGC, I believe. * I believe the link will make clear what I mean with the ambiguous "it."

Ah, hold the popcorn--it actually wasn't a bad class in sweeping cinematic terms, just worthless for the purposes of actually knowing Latin. The prof for that class was the tutor who helped me pass the Latin translation exam for that program. She's fantastic, no slam on her, but rather on the scheduling of my MA school that tries to shoehorn an 8-week class into six weeks. If your appetite for popcorn is stoked, however, I can talk a little about what it was like to go from "knowing Latin" according to the standards of my MA school, to the Latin class I took (had to take) the first semester of my PhD. Different school, different standards...OH MY GOSH they are different standards. We can begin, perhaps, with the fact that I handed in an almost completely blank midterm? Seriously, I've never before or since been in a class where every single answer I gave for just about the entire semester was wrong. (The prof asked a question about the comparative ablative that I knew and no one else did--probably because I had read the chapter on uses of the ablative in yet another intro textbook the night before. Yes, I remember this very clearly, because it was the only time I got something right). (ETA: I agree with the standards of PhD school for anyone working with source materials in Latin. MA school's standards are looser because a large number of people going through that program do not, actually, have to know Latin. #$^&@ Americanists.) My passing the class was due in part to the eternal patience of the prof, but mostly to the fact that I spent an absolutely insane amount of time translating (or "translating") every word of every assignment, without ever looking up a published English translation to check. In contrast to what I always say on TGC, I actually *do* believe that you can teach yourself Latin, especially with occasional access to a tutor or just someone to ask about the sticky bit. I'm just highly, highly skeptical that people are willing--or capable--of putting in the required effort and sheer time outside a structured situation like a class or tutoring. And in conclusion for those in TV land who have yet to learn Latin: please, please don't try to do what I did and go from "hey, I can translate this one text that I have already translated with someone else's help and that I specifically chose because there is no easier author" to a class that dumps Tertullian on you the second week and requires dictionaryless translation for the final. Your sanity will take upwards of a year to recover.