Dr. Old Bill

Woot woot! The spirit of Boethius must have responded. I would wait a few hours until you're over the "hysterical" portion of the acceptance joy, and then send a quick email expressing your gratitude for the acceptance, and that you will let him/her know whether you are planning to accept as soon as possible. Congrats!

Not actively, but I read and studied The Consolation of Philosophy in a Milton course, and even though I'm not religious, I think about it quite often. It's such a marvelous text, and the lessons within truly transcend personal faiths. It's one of the few books that manage to be humbling, enlightening, and encouraging all at the same time.

Just chiming in to echo what others have said. I can understand taking out some loan money for an M.A., but if it were me, I would make sure that a.) it was an in-state institution, and b.) you can do the M.A. in one year. Until I received the M.A. offer from UMD, I was strongly considering doing a one-year M.A. program at a mid-range in-state university, since the cost wouldn't have been too high ($10k), and I could have completed it in a year while gaining experience along the way. Perspectives on debt differ from person to person, but the law of diminishing returns comes into play here. Is spending $60k on an M.A. from a "better" institution going to put you that much farther ahead than spending $10k or so on an M.A. from a middle-of-the-road institution? Or, for that matter, is an M.A. at all worth more than a year in the workforce while reassessing the strengths and focuses of your application? Only you can make this call, of course.

*raises hand* CarolineKS is spot-on, of course. I was getting downright miserable until I got the M.A. acceptance at UMD. Even though I applied to seventeen (!) Ph.D. programs, and had a LOT of confidence that I would get in somewhere (for good reason, I think), it looks as though I will be shut out. Yet as the days go by, I find myself more and more at peace with that fact, even though I'm older than most folks here (and thereby have a narrower window to get a doctorate, establish myself etc.) I could easily sit around and mope about it, but instead I'm going to dedicate myself to the unexpected pursuit of an M.A. and work on any areas that might have been weaknesses in my application. In other words (Caroline's words), I'm going to focus in and try again. I should also point out that before acceptances and rejections started filing in, I had convinced myself that this would be my "one shot" at getting a Ph.D. I now realize how myopic and narrow-minded that was. It's more of a blow to the ego than anything. I find, when I really examine what I'm upset about, that I'm more disappointed in how self-assured I was about it all, and how I just assumed that my overall package was strong enough to get me into at least one program. In my heart of hearts, I expected to have options. This past month or so has given me a rather Boethian lesson...one that I (unlike Boethius) hope to have the chance to fully learn from and apply to my own future endeavors.

Professor GodKing Amazing at OMG College was one of my POIs. True story.

Another reason why I would have loved a Ph.D. offer from UMD: lots of teaching! P.S.: Nice name change, ProfLorax. And all this time I thought you were just Pro-Florax!

Really not sure this is the right forum to delve into issues like this, to be honest. It's a door that just doesn't need to be opened. We all have our views, after all.

You have a point... I'm actually in remarkably good spirits, considering my abysmal fortunes with getting into any of my chosen Ph.D. programs. I'm just glad I have a very strong backup plan now, with the UMD M.A. acceptance. It's impossible to describe how much that helps one's psyche, even in the face of rampant rejection...

Don't tempt me. Seriously. That sucker will wind up being seventeen stanzas of sixteen lines each if I do. MUST. NOT. ATTEMPT...

AAAAH!!! Congratulations, Emily! I knew you'd get in somewhere with that awesome SOP of yours! That's a huge acceptance -- absolutely huge. Don't play it down at all...you should be VERY proud. Hell I'M very proud FOR you! Good luck with the other apps, but knowing you've got Brandeis nailed down should be a huge boon to you moving forward.

You know what? I've never written a sestina. I know I could...but I just haven't. Maybe this application season will give me cause write one with the end-words of sorrow, despair, failure, rejection, disappointment, and academia.

Holy hell! Congrats!!!

1/2 an upvote for the picture, 1/2 for calling them "purritos."

GAH! I just got a WUStL rejection as well. Seriously, this is the third time that rejections have come in pairs for me. Sheesh. Sorry Hesse. It was one of my "faint hope" schools as well.

It's all good! I just received official notification that I was rejected at Princeton. The conversion of implication continues!

Honestly, this needs to be repeated here more and more. It's my biggest regret, not taking the GRE again. It IS a horrid, non-indicative waste of four hours, $200, and millions of brain cells, but I think it matters more than we'd like to believe. I have nothing to back this up but instinct...instinct, and consistent attention to the scores of accepted students. Like it or not, it matters.

No no no no no no no. It didn't come across as argumentative, radical, OR accusatory, I assure you. I was just musing aloud (not literally, of course) about the lay of the land in that regard. Ultimately I agree that there needs to be a fundamental shift in how the industry works for the humanities, at least. I'm looking quite forward to Hypervodka's ultimate spreadsheet, because I get the sense that acceptances are down this year...which was predicted, of course. But with some places taking a measly FOUR new grad students, it starts becoming a zero-sum game for a large number of applicants. Frankly, I'm surprised as many people applied this time around as actually did...which only lends more credence to your perspective than my own. What this underscores is that more transparency in the admissions process would change the landscape somewhat...perhaps dramatically. Then again, I suspect that if that were to happen, it would be to various programs' detriment, rather than to their benefit. P.S.: Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're part of a team!

I don't know, MM...is there really that expectation now? I'm not being argumentative -- I just don't know if that's really the case. I know that I personally haven't held that expectation at any point in the process. I'm sure there are some special snowflakes out there who do have that expectation, but unless I'm being woefully naive (always possible), I think most people going down this road are aware of the perils of the industry. The ideal for many remains the ever-elusive TT job at an R1, but anyone who spends any time at all reading any of the industry publications like The Chronicle knows that even CC jobs aren't sure bets...and that adjuncting often a poverty line proposition.

Yeah, I don't think there's any one thing that makes or breaks an application. I don't think there's any five things. It's such a hard thing to figure out, really. For my own part, I'll be getting my B.A. in May from a very prestigious college, wherein I have a very high GPA, and some great LOR writers...all at said high prestige institution. It hasn't helped me, really (assuming that "helping" means a Ph.D. acceptance). Once the application season winds down, I'm sure those of us Ph.D. shut-outs will convene to figure out what to do next. I know Pol4is just put up a thread yesterday in that vein, and more will surely follow. I don't anticipate any groundbreaking or enlightening points to come up, however. Until graduate admissions become a transparent process, all we'll be able to do is tweak our apps and get as much feedback from as many sources as possible, and perhaps contact as many POIs as we can to establish mutual interest and "fit." beyond that, I'm trusting in Hannalore's alchemy.

Well put, Morristr! Have another coffee. In fact, I think I'm finally going to go and brush the snow off my car so that I can head out and grab an Americano. Maybe when I return, I will have as interesting and insightful things to say.

If you're really in a bind, just dress like your area of study.

I had not one, but TWO pints of ice cream this past weekend. I've been eating healthily since last summer, but I took the weekend off...and I feel NO guilt for it whatsoever. Sorry for the rejection to Johns Hopkins though. The only reason I didn't apply there was because of the smallness of the program. One of my LOR writers went there too, but even so, I figured that it would be too hard of a nut to crack (and yes, I recognize the absurdity of that statement given all the other "nuts" I thought I could crack...)

Gah. That's a tough call, Pol4is. You and I are essentially in the exact same boat in a lot of ways, right down to about the same amount of UG debt (in fact, I might have you "beat" by 10k or so, but I've been too chicken to actually look at it for awhile... ). In any event, I think the first thing to do is find out about any possible funding options they may have. From what I gather, UMD is relatively unique about the number of tuition-reducing TAships and GAships they make available, but it's worth asking the DGS at UVA -- as well as other grad students there -- whether or not it is possible to get a gig that offsets some of the tuition cost. Another possibility is to check out the M.A. deadlines for any of your local universities. An unfunded M.A. is often a lot more palatable when it's in-state...and you do come out of it with an M.A. which (in theory) makes you more employable, even if you don't wind up continuing down the Ph.D. route. That's one of the main reasons why I opted to tentatively accept the UMD offer -- even if I'm destined for a lifetime of Ph.D. program shutouts, most of what I've read suggests that an M.A. will make you far more appealing on the job market in general. While you will no doubt take another kick or two at the Ph.D. can, there's some solace in knowing that you'll have a professional degree if those plans fall through... The real question is how much more cache an M.A. from UVA has over an M.A. from University of South-Central South Carolina (I'm hoping I just made that name up) when it comes to Ph.D. applications. I assume it will have some, but $70k worth? Hmm... It's a tough decision that only you can make. My gut instinct, however, is that while getting an M.A. will probably make you a better candidate, spending that much money on a higher quality M.A. is still not going to make you a shoo-in, and could ultimately leave you in the lurch with a fancy UVA Master's in one hand, and a bill for $140000 in the other. ETA: It's also worth pointing out that where you get your M.A. matters far, far less to an employer than it does in academia. I'm just putting that out there for if you ultimately don't get the "golden ticket" of the Ph.D. path and have to find a different job...