hinesaj

I don't have any exact stats, but I do have a conversation with the DGS. They placed most of last year's class, across a wide variety of universities. Traditionally Vanderbilt has been sort of a factory for producing professors for many of the big schools in the Southeast--think of all of the large public u's down there, LSU, UGA, etc--but that has changed in the past few years. The program has changed dramatically within the last decade. Seemed pretty clear in the conversation that I had that Vanderbilt is working very hard to "improve" its standing, and become one of THE places to go for English.

I wanted to quickly throw my hat into this discussion. This year was my first, and thankfully, only time taking part in this process of pure randomness. I applied to 10 schools, and, somewhat unintentionally, all of them were top-tier programs. I was rejected from 8, accepted to one with an additional 'honors' fellowship, and still haven't heard from UVA (seems like most others have heard from them? what's the deal...but i guess that's neither here nor there). Towards application deadline time when I realized that I was truly shooting for the top, I started to panic. I thought I should add some schools that I thought I would have a better chance of getting in, but as I tried to do some last minute research, I recognized that doing so would be silly for two reasons. One, as several have already stated, there are no 'safeties' in graduate admissions. As Woolfie mentioned Ohio State and Penn State both received a huge number of applications--while those are still exceptional programs, I would venture to say that pretty much any school in the "top 75" would yield similar numbers of applicants. Perhaps because of this, I remembered a sort of promise that I had made to myself, I should not apply anywhere that I would not be floored to attend. I didn't want to choose a school that I wouldn't have been pleased for the simple fact that they were the only one that admitted me--a very definite possibility in this climate. The thing about top tier schools, or this whole process, is that all you really need is one acceptance. Just one. Why waste the time to apply to others just to accrue acceptances that you wouldn't be satisfied with? I am incredibly fortunate that I got my "one," as I know many others don't. This process is random. Many say it. Few truly believe it. Why does it seem that I'm a top applicant at one program, when I didn't even make the waitlist at 9 similar places? Its incredibly difficult to say, other than I don't know. I want to share an anecdote with everyone, that I've probably shared before, that may give you a window into the process. I went to Penn for undergrad (graduated last year) and one of my mentors there was on the Admissions Committee. Before I continue, a quick non-sequitur. I know a lot of people on this board are very angry at Penn because of the incredibly small incoming class size for this year. I doubt that they intentionally hid this information from applicants, and if they did so meant to do it maliciously. Funding is a complicated game, and the department may have hoped to receive a greater allocation of funds than they actually did. And in fact, the insider line was that they only had enough money for 5 slots, and they only expected to admit 5--instead, they admitted 6 and have a short waitlist. Obviously not the size of the usual cohort, but still pushing their funds as far as they can to bring as many students as they possibly can to the program. Not only does Penn's department have some of the best scholars in the country, it also has some of the nicest faculty around who truly care about the well-being of their students, and those who hope to be their students--at least, in my experience. Please try to cut them a small amount of slack. (Full disclosure: I applied and was rejected this year.) Anyhow, my mentor had told me that the process started by shaving the applicant pool down to about 100-200 candidates. They did look at every application, but I imagine there was some sort of statistical criteria that helped them do this. From that point the pool was narrowed again, after the AdCom read the entirety of all of these applications. At this point, the number is more around 50-75 applicants. According to my mentor, those 50-75 applicants are all incredibly capable of succeeding in the program, which, more or less, is a careful way of saying that they all would be admitted if the conditions were right--i.e., a world of no money, no limits on enrollment etc... But, we do not live in that world. So how do they choose from those students? One student had written in his/her statement about a rather obscure play that she was interested in that a faculty member had just been doing work on. He/she was in. What if that student had applied a year earlier before that faculty member was doing work on that particular play? He/She may have not been accepted. Even at the best programs in the country, admissions decisions are arbitrary (to a point...) at best. This incredibly long post has all been to say that you should most certainly apply to a top school if it fits for you. You may not get in, but you shouldn't sell yourself short just because the odds are stacked so heavily against you. Be mindful of the acceptance rates when applying, but find the programs that you would die to go to, and apply to those, regardless of the ranking.

I, too, was told by the DGS that they're aiming for 6-8 (more towards 8). She said that because of the climate this year, they may actually have a couple more than 8, though at most about 10. That says to me they admitted 10 people, maybe one or two more. I don't know if they're done making offers--I will say that visit weekend is a little over a week away, if that gives you any sort of indication. Continued good luck to you!

I went to Penn for undergrad and am close with a couple faculty members there. The department is both front-loaded and back-loaded period wise, in other words, incredibly strong early modernists, and incredibly strong modernist faculty. There a few stellar people in between, but for the most part the department sort of lacks any large Victorian cohort. There was a lot of talk of changing that when I was there, by bringing in both new faculty and grad students in that particular field. Of course this is sort of a catch 22 because if there are not a ton of victorian professors why would incoming victorianists want to study at Penn and vice versa. If I had to venture a guess I think they'd try for a few more 18th/19th Century folks than any others--the program seems strong on both ends, and is by no means weak in that area, just lacking the number of resources and people as the others.

Anyone know anything about when we might hear from Brown? Judging from last year seems they notified last week in February--just wondering if anyone has any insider information...

I, too, independently have heard of the five offers at Penn. From what I've heard, it will be five offers, not five slots.

Early this morning I received an unofficial acceptance from Kathryn Schwarz. She indicated that official letters will be going out later next week (Wednesday or Thursday--they don't have direct control over the release). Best of luck to you!

I know this is not necessarily in the spirit of this thread, but don't give up total hope on UVA. A few had mentioned in the UVA thread, and rightly so I think, that the best marker of a program done with sending out offers are waitlist spots. Of course, UVA may not have a waitlist, but we've only seen two acceptances (and heard of a third) and NO waitlist activity. Limbo, what a place.

Judging from the results last year, Vanderbilt seems to make decisions all on the same day. It seems like a lot of people on this board applied to Vanderbilt, so I think we would have seen more than one admit. I wouldn't give up hope yet. At least I hope we shouldn't have to...

I know an acquaintance who was admitted to Berkeley in late January, if that helps add to the mystique at all.

Really hard to say. From what I remember from looking through the results search, Chicago seems to move in a couple waves, but that could always change. From what we know on the board, which is all I know, is that they haven't rejected anyone yet, nor have they notified any waitlisters. Does that mean they may admit more? I don't know. I would assume that until we see rejections, its pretty safe to say that a program may still admit additional applicants. Different schools handle admissions in different ways, so while its discouraging to see offers made, I wouldn't lose total hope until you get an actual rejection.

I think this depends on the schools/programs of course, but on several of my ApplyYourself applications it explicitly states that even after materials are received and collected your application status may still say "incomplete." I don't know much about the ApplyYourself software, but I imagine that some schools may use it as a way to access the materials from remote computers, and as such they probably upload material that they've received in the mail. Others probably just print the full PDF application form that you see before submitting and put it in your file and just add your mailed materials to that file, never updating the website. If you are missing something, the program will email/call letting you know that they haven't received a piece of your application. This happened to me, so this is something that actually happens. If you haven't heard from them, don't worry!

I don't know about the exact size of the cohort at UVA the way Pamphilia would, but a good indicator would be how many students are in last year's admissions class. Because of the current economic situation, funding for this year is going to be heavily based on last year's class size, which unfortunately for us, UVA doesn't post their graduate students on their website (at least I couldn't find it, while quickly doing a little research for this post.) We can already see this at Penn, who underestimated their yield for last year, and because of this, can only admit 5 students this year. I imagine they'll accept in rounds with a large wait list. In other words, they'll probably initially accept five students, and if they get any rejections, will fill that slot with a wait-list student, so that they don't end up with the same problem they did last year. I would predict, and this is really just a gut feeling and not based on any conversation with anyone of any significance, that most schools will be using that same model for acceptance this year, because they simply can't afford for too many admits to matriculate. If inextrovert's friend was in last year's cohort, which sounds like a class that is a little larger than usual, I'd expect that somewhere between 8 and 12 sounds about right, though probably leaning on the bottom half of that range. What does that mean for us eagerly waiting? Well, hard to say since most departments haven't made decisions yet, but I get the feeling we will see very small groups admitted (probably just enough to fill a class size--i.e. assuming a 100% yield) in the next few weeks. Because of this, there will be large waitlists, and they will be doing a lot of waiting. When one student turns down an offer, another will receive their offer and the process will continue until all the allotted spots are filled. This leads to a very long drawn out decisions season, but after thinking about it for awhile, it seems like this is what we should expect. Though this is all total speculation, and I'm just trying to think this through. The idle, waiting mind...

I wouldn't be so quick to assume that choosing where you'd like to be location wise is a poor criteria for 'fit' when seeking a graduate school. When I told my mentor that I was applying to graduate school, his first response was something along the lines of, "What part of the country do you want to live in? City or not?" We then sort of culled through all of the options related to my particular field based on that. You don't want to end up at University of MiddleofNowhere if you love living in a major city; you'll be living there for 5-7 years and your displeasure with your adopted home will effect your work and ability to study. Columbia, of course, is not the only school in New York. I'd be curious to see what the numbers are for NYU, Fordham, and the like, and how they compare to Columbia. I will say, though, that location is probably not something I'd mention in a Statement of Purpose (I'd love to go to Columbia, because I WANT TO LIVE IN NYC!!!!), but is still an important consideration.

I went to Penn undergrad and know that last year they did not have an interview weekend for English, nor did they conduct any interviews. They did have a weekend for accepted students, but if I recall it wasn't until mid-March/early-April. The late February notification to accepted students sounds about right, also.