Dr. Old Bill

EmmaJava, if there were such a thing as President of Academic Reform, and you were running, I would vote for you. Brava!

I like Heliogabus' advice quite a bit. If you have a free ride, and if you enjoy all of the things that you would be going to school for (regardless of career outcomes), then do it for THAT reason. The worst case scenario is that you'll come out of it with a Master's degree in a field with somewhat limited options. Working in the arts or many administrative non-profit organizations are two significant options for someone with a Master's in English. There's not HUGE money potential in those fields, but you can usually make a solid livable wage in most cities in those fields. There are other complementary fields for an English M.A. as well, of course, but non-profit and arts organizations seem to be the most hand-in-glove fit. Either way, I think the essence of your question ("does simply having an MA/PhD make me considerably more competitive for jobs outside of academia?") has an answer that lies somewhere between possibly and probably, with a large chunk of "it depends" thrown in the mix as well. It's worth remembering that schools have clearly read your materials and been impressed by them -- enough to pay you to attend. That's no small honor, especially given that this is a gradually shrinking industry. It is possible that once you start a program, you'll realize that it IS everything you wanted when you first applied a few months ago. Or you might realize that it's not something with long-term appeal. I can't help but think that coming out of it with an advanced degree can't hurt you...it just might not help you, depending on what it is you ultimately decide you want to do.

To each their own! And I mean that sincerely. I can 100% understand why this wouldn't be a snub-worthy policy for some people. I will only say this: Penn State has been doing this for a few years. If you take a look at the results board from 2014, you will see some seriously disturbing comments about how applicants were treated. For my own part, last year I was informed on April 16th -- again, even though I know this stuff is impersonal, I couldn't help but shake my head at the timing. Imagine if I wasn't someone as keyed into the trends and didn't know what I know thanks to GradCafe. I might have been holding off on other offers until the April 15th deadline, completely unsure about my chances at Penn State. There is a VERY strong chance that there would have been a ripple effect -- other programs would be affected adversely because I was holding off on a decision, and that would have affected other hopeful students at other programs... This is the legitimate potential fallout of Penn State's haphazard notification policy.

I respectfully disagree. The way I see it, applicants sink at least one hundred dollars on average to each program, then have to go through months of anxiety waiting for acceptances and rejections. Even though that money is a tiny drop in a very large bucket to the school, it's usually quite significant to the applicant. Even beyond the money, think of the time and effort spent researching schools, personalizing SOPs, and just generally drinking a program's Kool-aid. For a program to take all of that and not even have the courtesy to say "no" in a timely fashion is downright cruel -- impersonal, to be sure, but cruel nonetheless. For me, that's enough to turn me completely off of a program.

I swear...Penn State has a great program etc., but they're going to start losing a sizable number of potential repeat applicants with this policy, if they haven't already. Penn State is a program I would consider a second time were it not for this same lack of response last application season. It's reprehensible, really, and there's NO good reason for it. They've been doing it for a few years now, and I'd love to see whether there's a correlation between this policy and a perceptible drop in applications...

I guess I'm lucky, because I get to have face-to-face ProfLorax interaction on a somewhat regular basis, but I'm sad for the board because you are so damn wonderful! Still, good luck with the dissertation. From what I know about it, it will be a doozy, and academics will be talking about it for centuries to come...

Aaaah! So happy for you, BooksCoffeeBeards! Like @mk-8, I've been keeping my fingers crossed for you all this time. I've heard some really good things about ASU...and if you happen to love sunshine or golf, it should be paradise for you. Congrats!

Most definitely. As I mentioned, I'll apply to around a dozen, if not more. I met with one of the early modernist professors in my program yesterday to talk about Ph.D. programs, and he made a few good suggestions about where to apply (and told me he'd write me a LOR), so my list is definitely growing.

"@sarabethke is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Her work is widely available to those who know where to find it. Her current interests have the potential to change the study of literature as we know it, but will only be revealed when the time is right."

Alright. Based on what you've said, I think it would be wise to let UIC know that you have a competitive offer on the table from BU, who has offered you a scholarship etc. You might be able to use this as leverage into any assistantship options they may have. While the one-year aspect of BU's program gives me pause (and the notion of a gap year gives you pause as well), it's worth remembering that if a second year at UIC is going to cost you a lot of money, it might make more sense to take the gap year to make some money and broaden your scholarship on your own time -- perhaps take the GRE subject test, maintain strong ties with BU faculty etc.... The other advantage to the one-year program is that if you realize that graduate study isn't for you, or you don't do as well as you need to, you'll still come out of it with an advanced degree in a single year, and can focus on alt-ac options etc. if need be. The long and the short of it is that if UIC can find you partial funding for your whole time there, that's probably a great option. But if that's not the case (and it sounds like it's not), then getting the $5000 scholarship from BU, and getting through the program in a year might be ideal...with the caveat that you likely won't want to / won't be able to apply to Ph.D. programs until the year afterward (necessitating a "gap year" for you). Good luck either way!

It sounds like there are some definite pros and cons to each. Does either program have a mechanism for assistantships or teaching options? Basically, are there any avenues for funding that aren't provided up front? For cost reasons, BU sounds like the more logical choice, but if you are planning on pursuing a Ph.D. immediately afterward, bear in mind that by the time you send off Ph.D. application materials in a year, you might not have enough graduate experience (and might not have made enough potential LOR connections) to appeal to an adcom. In other words, you would have one graduate semester on your transcript, whereas most applicants (coming from M.A.) will have three. This might not be an issue for you, but it's worth pointing out. If you're not planning on going straight to a Ph.D. (or even going the Ph.D. route at all), BU strikes me as the winner. Great reputation, scholarship money, a one-year commitment etc. -- all of these things, plus your gut instinct sound pretty compelling.

Well, I'll just say that in my first cycle, I applied to seventeen programs. Some were certainly stretches, and in retrospect I probably could have made better choices...but by that same token, I might not have applied to the program I'm in now had I reduced my list. If you can justify the financial aspect to yourself, and think you can make a strong case for why you are a good fit for a particular program (and why they are a good fit for you), then I say the more the merrier. But there are so many variables (usually personalized) that it is hard to give you general advice on the number of programs you should apply to. I have it in my mind to apply to twelve this fall, but if I come across more, and I can justify the expense, I'll apply to more. I don't think I would apply to fewer than twelve, however, simply because the application process is so darn competitive, and a few proverbial coin tosses can make or break your application season.

Incidentally, I was just looking at UCLA's Graduate English program (I completely neglected it last time around, and can't recall why, since I love L.A.), and came across this blurb: So I suppose there's a positive and a negative there -- positive that they don't need the A.A. transcript, but negative that they want official copies only... I guess the big, obvious bow around this whole thread is that each program has different expectations and requirements. I'll just assume everywhere wants my A.A. transcript unless otherwise stated.

You're not wrong. Not in the least. But in fairness, this board has recently had a few posters who were essentially "trolls" who brought up similar topics in an unproductive, confrontational manner. The OP clearly isn't doing that in fact, but an unknown person dipping a toe into the roiling whirlpools at that end of our little pond was bound to evoke some suspicion. I also agree that this board needs some more experienced end-of-Ph.D. / post-Ph.D. voices.

No apology necessary, really -- I jumped down your throat right away, since there have been a few threads over the past couple of years that have had the "you're stupid if you go to grad school" rhetoric, and have spiraled out of control, gotten nasty and personal etc. It seemed at the outset that you might have been trolling or wanting to go down that same road, but the quality and tenor of your responses have shown that that's truly not the case, so it is really I who should apologize. Well put, Wendy. I'm one of those folks who had a lot of life and work experience before entering academia, whether that was pizza delivery (mid-teens) retail (late teens), music production (early-to-mid twenties), administrative assistance (mid-to-late twenties), arts administration (early thirties), or even cryonics (don't even ask)...I did a lot of things, and most of my creative and academic interests were relegated to the realm of pure avocation. For a very long time I never thought I could go down the academic road (I was a mediocre high school student in Canada, and Canadian colleges and universities are a different breed). Only after I immigrated to the U.S., and my wife encouraged me to start down this path did I realize that it was even a viable option for someone at this stage. Suffice it to say, going down this path has given me a "new lease on life," to use the old cliche, and while the so-called dream of getting a TT position at the end of it all is extremely elusive, that's really not why I'm doing it. I would be happy doing any number of things that a Ph.D. (or frankly, even just an M.A.) can afford me. But the process itself (getting paid to teach, study, research, and write), not to mention obtaining the admittedly pretentious "laurels" of an advanced degree, fill me with a sense of accomplishment that I never had in my teens or twenties. And to me, that is worth a lot more than a lofty position at an R1 institution.

Aha! Yes, you have put your finger on part of my question -- my B.A. transcript includes all of the transfer courses as well...just no grades. I'll probably err on the side of caution and send my A.A. transcripts everywhere anyhow (though I wonder how an A.A. from a community college would be perceived by an adcom...hmm...), but it's an interesting question, since the B.A. transcript verifies the courses etc.

Thanks everyone! As I recall, my A.A. institution charged/charges $12 per transcript, while my B.A. institution charged/charges $15. Not sure about my M.A. institution, but if it's in the same ballpark, then that's $40 per application for the programs that won't accept scanned copies.

Despite my initial qualms about this thread (and I apologize to the OP for my exasperated utterances), it is good to see some great thinking on this topic, other than the usual "you're making a terrible mistake" rhetoric that continually emerged on other similar threads in recent memory. I get the sense that certain people who have made it through to having a Ph.D. in hand and then have difficulty finding work might have started out too close to the "ideal" side on the {ideal----------reality} spectrum. Six or seven years ago, that was par for the course, since the economic downturn had only just begun, and there was a wealth of optimism thanks to the election of an education-friendly president. Idealism is a wonderful thing, in a lot of respects -- it brings with it a kind of euphoria combined with ambition that can make external factors appear less important than they actually are. In the years since that time, however, the state of the humanities has gotten much, much worse, with the practicality of STEM and related fields garnering much wider appeal. This is nothing new to us, however...and that's my point. In the past several years, it is very clear that the worm has turned. It is impossible to ignore. As a result, people who are just now going down the Ph.D. path can be expected to be both idealistic and realistic. What annoys me about threads like these is that they seem to presuppose that people who are currently starting down this road possess the same over-idealism that might have prompted a surplus of Ph.D. applicants in the 2000s. I really don't think that's the case. I'm sure there are still many who believe that they can be among the rare few who obtain that vaunted-yet-elusive TT position, but I suspect the majority of people on this forum, at the very least, understand that the job market is brutal. I know that I pretty much take that as a given when posting and interacting with folks here. The bottom line is that we all have our own, individualized reasons for pursuing an M.A. or a Ph.D. in a seemingly "impractical" field. I don't think it's fair to solicit those reasons for the sake of giving judgment and advice unless you really get to know each person's life circumstances. Likewise, I don't think it's fair to make any sweeping assumptions about anyone who is posting on these forums. It might not be a categorically excellent path to be on, but we're all on it...which should tell you something.

Why? Seriously...if you just acknowledged that you're making the same thread, why make it at all? My reasons for going down this road should not concern you. I'm pretty sure most folks here read The Chronicle and various state-of-the-industry publications, and are told by many that we should not pursue this course. Clearly those of us posting here are, and I doubt many minds will be changed by an anonymous, dissenting voice on an Internet forum. I just can't read a post like this without getting a strong whiff of ulterior motive.

Of course! If it helps, try to think about it from an adcom's perspective. You have, say, 300 applications. 100 of those will get nixed for various reasons -- mistakes, obvious misfits etc. Another 100 will just not be overly competitive. 50 will be good, and worth considering, but the eras are oversaturated, the chosen POIs are on leave or have too many students etc. Then you're left with 50 quality applicants, and you have to really get down to brass tacks -- what makes each one a great fit for the program? Is there a "vibe" that they give off, for good or ill? Is their writing sample readable to those without specialized interest in the subgenre / field? And whether an adcom will admit to it or not, there will surely be a bit of informal balancing of races, ages, and genders. So you can chop that list down to 20-25. Out of those, there may be a few who are shoo-ins: perfect fit, their POIs are free and keenly interested in their research, their GPA and GRE scores are extremely high, their recommendations are glowing... There will be a few of these people, which means that there are maybe four or five guaranteed slots you need to decide on, and another ten or so waitlist spots. At this point, it's just splitting hairs -- the adcom will convene or have an email exchange, and one member might say "I like X's research interests, but she hasn't had any teaching experience." Another might respond "That's true, and Joanne was telling me the other day that we might be a bit low on 101 teachers next year..." And there you have it -- this student gets relegated to the waitlist for a remarkably banal reason that is almost completely beyond her control. I can't guarantee that this is exactly how every (or any) adcom works, but having served on selection committees in other capacities, I can tell you that when it gets down to picking between two similar quantities, the deciding factor can be surprisingly subjective, and arguably unfair. But someone has to get the guaranteed spot, after all. Rolling dice might actually be more fair when it comes to the final decisions. So take that to heart -- if you're waitlisted, you've made it farther than 90% or so of the other applicants, and chances are that the decision to waitlist you rather than accept you outright was relatively arbitrary.

Welcome! To your first point, being admitted off a waitlist and being admitted straight-up might as well be the same thing, for all intents and purposes. There is a wealth of apocryphal commentary in the history of this forum that suggests that adcoms have way more candidates who pass muster than they are able to take. That's why there is so much mystery around exactly how particular students are chosen -- it feels like a crapshoot sometimes, because some very minor, arbitrary things can cause an applicant to be shifted into the "yes" pile instead of the "no" pile...and vice versa. If you are waitlisted, you are someone who the department will gladly fund without reservation. You just didn't happen to make the certain-yes pile for some reason that you really can't be concerned about. Again, don't forget that they are willing and able to fund you, and would were it not for necessary limits on how many people they can give pure acceptances to. So take some solace in that knowledge. At last year's day for admitted students at UMD, there was a Ph.D. applicant in attendance who was waitlisted. She was one of the most interesting people I met during that day, and her research interests sounded very...well...interesting. Fortunately she did indeed make it in off the waitlist, and she has been a wonderful grad student here in her first year. This leads me to your second comment / concern. I have yet to see any dichotomy between students who got in off the waitlist and those who were accepted outright. In fact, unless you yourself tell people, there is really no way that anyone would even know that you weren't accepted outright. Likewise, there is very little distinction made between M.A. students and Ph.D. students. I'm not overly social, but most of the social events that are available don't distinguish between Ph.D. students and M.A. students, just as there wouldn't be any way to distinguish between a waitlister and a straight acceptance. There are probably different variations of this tendency in different programs, but speaking as someone at a top tier institution (or pretty close to it, at least), I doubt there will be much judgment (if any) over such a thing.

Between applications from @hello_kitty and @'Cat'erburyTales, I wonder if the university will be changing its name to PURRdue. Get it? Purr? Kitty? Cat? No? *crickets* I'll see myself out.

Huzzah! And likewise, EM (or Em? Or Emp? Or Marm? Hmm...) I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to the process, but I definitely feel like I know what I'm doing a bit better. That might still have zero bearing on what certain adcoms decide, but as the old AlAnon adage goes, you need to be able to accept the things you cannot change and change the things you can... (I've never been an alcoholic, by the way...but it's a nifty adage!)

Thanks Villain Elle (and thanks EmmaJava for your earlier post as well). I seem to remember in the last cycle that most of the programs I applied to wanted official copies sent up front -- not scans. I might be misremembering, and I hope that is the case. Fortunately I should have a scan of my A.A. kicking around already, so that could save me a bit of money.