Dr. Old Bill

Yep! I would (will?) be thrilled to get into any of the programs I applied to. Any and all. But I can't deny that some programs have a little more going for them than others in the echelon of options for me. Madison is by all accounts a great city (particularly great for the arts), the English program is very highly regarded, there are a few great POI matches for me personally (*cough* Bearden *cough cough* Calhoun)... Yes, it's hard not to get my hopes up!

I wouldn't worry too much about it, Hesse. There are often little anomalies like that. It's worth remembering that admissions committees are often different from year to year (sometimes different faculty members, sometimes a new DGS, sometimes a few different grad students sitting in on the committee etc.), so any number of variables can change ideal acceptance dates (in both directions). I'm naturally tempted (as I think most of us are) to read into things a little too much, but the only thing that is certain about this process is that acceptances WILL be sent out by all programs eventually. However, for all the meta-analysis and prognosticating we like to perform here on GC, there's simply no way to definitively know when that will be. I have to say though, I really thought I'd be a nervous wreck at this point in the month. I'm consciously patting myself on the back for my relative calm so far. We'll see if that shatters after my first rejection...

I'm kind of hoping for UW-Madison, personally. It's totally irrational to be hoping for an answer on January 16th, but...I just can't help it! Madison is traditionally the earliest acceptor of the places I applied to, and it's very high on my list, so...

Not to get anyone's hopes up, but Fridays seemed to be the most common acceptance day last year, so...

Man, I leave my lair for a few hours to attend a play in D.C., and suddenly everything blows up! Congratulations Unraed and Hypervodka! Fantastic news! Such exciting times here on GC... ETA: Gah, we need more upvote capacity!

Yeah, it's always tough when you and your spouse are in different phases of your career. Since this path is a career "reboot" for me, so to speak, I'm well behind my wife in that regard, who is firmly established in her field. Not so locally entrenched that she can't or won't move...but enough that it's not going to be an easy process either way. It all comes down to (as with most "couple" things...) consistently open communication. I'm always running my thoughts on these matters by my wife...perhaps too often, really. But it's vital to have a good sense of what each other is thinking about matters as large as these.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time on The Chronicle during the break (both the articles site and the forums), and the sentiment is much the same there as well. It'll be interesting to see more numbers come in. On a slightly related / slightly unrelated note, politics aside, I'm curious whether Obama's plan to make community college free for millions of Americans (if it manages to go through) will lead to more jobs. Obviously most of those jobs would be at the community college level, but there would be a trickle down effect as well...in theory. And I imagine its effects would start to be seen right around the time we're collecting our lovely Ph.D. certificates. Just a little thought-nugget to offset the gloom.

Yeah, I think upvotes might be...down. (*snicker*) Seriously though, I should have a few, but when I tried to use one earlier...no luck.

THIS. To a T. I'm much the same way. I thank and show appreciation a lot. It's just in my nature. I often worry, however, that people will occasionally interpret it as obsequiousness or assume that I have an ulterior motive...and given that "ulterior motive" is probably at the top of the list of Traits Wyatt's Torch HatesTM, I always try to make it clear that it's just thankfulness and appreciation pure and simple.

...or DO they?

900 words is a good ballpark figure for an SOP in general, but to be on the safe side, you should contact the DGS (unless you're right up against the deadline, in which case...send it off!).

I think I'm going to make it a personal crusade of mine to get you all the upvotes you deserve after the many years of great advice you've provided to GC!

I don't necessarily disagree, but...a "gift" shouldn't be an expectation anyhow, should it? I didn't get my two main LOR writers gifts because I felt I had to, but rather because I wanted to. They were -- quite literally -- tokens of my appreciation. It's the same for the folks who took the time to look over my SOP for me last summer. They offered to do it, and I certainly didn't have to give them a gift...but I felt a $5 eCard from Starbucks or Amazon was just a nice little token of appreciation. I know that gift-giving can be seen as quasi-political, which is why I waited until after the various tasks (LOR written or SOP reviewed) were done before I sent a little "thank you" gift. There's literally nothing more I could have gained from those people if I was of a political bent (though anyone who knows me would find such an idea hysterical...I'm probably the least "political" person around).

I gave one of my recommenders a couple bottles of whiskey. I gave another a nice leather journal with handcrafted paper (not my own handiwork, mind you). A third, I didn't give anything...but primarily because he's now emeritus, and also because I gave him a personal retirement gift last spring. I have a couple other LOR writers who wrote for a few of my applications. One I didn't give anything, but mainly because I have another class with him this semester, and don't want anyone to get the wrong impression. Another wrote three LORs, but he's currently a visiting assistant professor at another SLAC, and we didn't really have the kind of relationship to make a gift feel appropriate. I gave the gifts after all of my letters were officially uploaded. I figure the gifts were for them doing the letter writing and not for my acceptance(s)... ETA: Cross-posted with 1Q84.

Canterbury, you say? I'm sure you'll have lots of TALES to tell! (Seriously though...congrats again! Thrilled for you!)

Holy moly, Lyonessrampant...that's a fantastic list! I'm out of upvotes for the day, sadly, but I'll be returning to this many times. Hugely helpful!

Sweet!! Major kudos to you!

Great advice as always, Proflorax! As an older student with a wife and no kids, the "baby" question is always relevant. We have no specific plans in that regard at this point, but if I do get accepted somewhere, I will be sure to add this to my list of questions. Speaking of "list of questions," what is the general post-acceptance process? Maybe this is the wrong thread to ask such a thing, but...do you typically email a bunch of questions to the DGS? Do you prepare a list of questions to discuss in person? I'm a little curious (and cart-before-horsing, I might add...)

Technically speaking, no two of my SOPs were exactly alike...even beyond the "fit" material. I'm notoriously revisionistic when it comes to pretty much all of my writing at the best of times, and the same was true for my SOPs. Since my first SOP was submitted in mid-August, and my last in mid-November, each incarnation underwent some (arguably minor) changes in various places. I did, of course, have completely different paragraphs for talking about the specific program I was applying to. In some cases, a full half of my SOP was dedicated to talking about fit. More often than not, however, 2/3 of it remained relatively constant for each SOP, with the other 1/3 mostly different. I never really thought of it as a "fit paragraph" in those terms...it just felt like a natural progression from talking about my past studies and my interests to talking about how that pertains to each program. I did legitimately mean every word of those "fit paragraphs," however. As I'm sure was the case for most folks here, I spent several months doing research on various programs and POIs so that I had a reasonably firm grasp on all of the pertinent aspects. In most instances, I was able to name two or three POIs and reference parts of their work that interested me. When I could only name one, I only named one. When I could easily name six, I talked about three in detail, then touched on the work of the other three in a single sentence. It's impossible to say at this point whether or not the degree of customization will prove to be a benefit to my applications, of course (I sure hope it doesn't come across as being obsequious, as I certainly don't mean it that way), but it felt right for me write them in that manner. My one regret (mentioned as a bemused aside by one of my LOR writers after the fact) is that I used the word "scholastic" in my SOP, when I probably should have used "scholarly." Apparently "scholastic" can have a negative connotation...something I was completely unaware of when I wrote my statement. Whoops.

Since someone just posted an acceptance at Urbana, it's high time to bump this thread!

That's my hope as well, really. I'd be mostly okay with only getting one acceptance, provided I get it early, I think. The longer I have to wait, the more frazzled my nerves will inherently be. Right now I'm feeling confident / positive / optimistic about things...but if I have nothing concrete in one month's time, I'm sure my confidence will be shaken quite a bit.

Ah! Good luck to you! I've learned from a very reliable source that Irvine is actively striving to grow its poetics department. I had been on the fence about applying there until I discovered that, but I definitely want to go somewhere where poetics isn't a waning field. So fingers crossed for both of us! By the way, if you haven't yet done so, you should check out The Lyric Theory Reader, co-edited by Virginia Jackson (with Yopie Prins of UMich). I haven't made my way through much of it yet, but what I have read of it is quite fantastic...and encouraging.

I would sacrifice a lot to live in the L.A. area again. I love California in general...whether it's San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, or Los Angeles (I lived in Riverside and Rancho Cucamonga for awhile too). However, as much as I wanted to apply to a bunch of L.A. schools, the "fit" wasn't there for most of them, and that, combined with my wife's general disinclination to move to California, prompted me to apply only to UC-Irvine, thanks to its strong poetics department, and a couple of excellent POIs in particular. But yes...even though I've acclimated well to the East Coast, I'm a West Coaster at heart, and will endeavor to subtly sell my wife on the wonderfulness of California for years to come...

A bit of a dissenting view, but... I would be doing two things right now: first of all, I'd be contacting another professor familiar with my work, and essentially begging him/her to write a quick LOR if at all possible, after explaining the situation. I would also be contacting the DGS at each school I applied to to explain the situation and find out first-hand how problematic it will be. If your application is just one of a couple of hundred, and it's incomplete, it may very well get the short shrift. Think about how many complete applications they'll be looking at...and assuming there are plenty of viable candidates among those applicants, they'll likely be looking more for reasons to dismiss certain candidates. Making a personal connection with the DGS and/or admin staff at each school (assuming you are ultra polite) might help to even the playing field a little bit -- a good impression on the DGS over something like this might prompt him/her to say "Oh, I heard from bgt28, and he explained why a LOR is missing." This is probably better than being a semi-anonymous "incomplete." The usual caveat applies: I don't know any of this. It's just my hunch, and is what I would do in your situation. P.S.: I hope this doesn't come across as too negative -- I'm just trying to think of it from an adcomm perspective. If there are a bunch of fairly equal candidates, it's easier to whittle down the field through technicalities than through one-to-one comparisons. Good luck either way!

Great minds...