Dr. Old Bill

Oh. Hey. I'm a goat too! An older goat, but a goat just the same... How about that.

I recognize that we have a fairly small GC cohort this year, but in light of the impending acceptances / relocations etc., I'm curious about those of you with significant others and how you plan to navigate the necessary upheaval. Personally, before I even started looking at grad schools, I had a long, frank discussion with my wife about the possibility of moving. In fact, there were many conversations before I started doing any serious research on programs. She currently has a good job and a stable career...though in something of a "niche" field (non-profit arts administration). She's also happy with the city in which she works. Because of the relative narrowness of her field and job prospects, there's a better than 50/50 chance that we'll have to spend at least some of the time I'm in grad school apart. And while this is certainly quite unfortunate, we're also largely "okay" with that. This won't be the first time we've had to spend a large chunk of our relationship living apart, and we know that we can do it. The ideal would be to live together, of course, but fortunately we have both taken the "best in the long run" perspective on the situation. Having said all of that, assuming I get at least one acceptance, we'll immediately start looking for work in whatever area that particular grad school is in. If I wind up getting more than one, then we'll invariably do the same thing for each program. The quality of program I attend will be the biggest factor, of course, but finding places with good opportunities in her field will also be a consideration. I know that not many of you are married, but the same sort of conversation is probably necessary with any significant other. I'd love to hear other perspectives / plans etc.

First of all...congrats! Second of all...I've been thinking about this, in the unlikely event that I were to get called for an interview by any of my prospective schools. What I would do is bone up on the ins and outs of the faculty members of the field you are interested in. Get a solid understanding of their publications and their perspectives, if possible. The more familiar you are with the kind of work they are doing, the more it will demonstrate that you have a vested interest in the field AND Emory in particular. The usual "take this with a grain of salt" caveat applies, of course, and maybe some former Emory interviewees will be able to chime in here to give a better first-hand account. But I have to imagine that "fit" and "demonstrated knowledge of field" have to be two of the bigger checklist items in an interview like this. Good luck!

My pleasure! I definitely know the feeling. On my Cornell app, the GRE scores show as "pending." I contacted their admin personnel about it a couple of months ago, and they corrected it. Then I checked again last month, and it showed up as pending yet again, and I contacted them once more. They assured me that everything was fine on their end, so it must just be a software glitch on the student interface side of things. Hopefully this TOEFL issue will be of the similar variety for you.

I would contact the department ASAP. I just checked my application, and there's nothing in the field you mention -- everything looks complete.

I recall reading about this in past GC threads. While anything posted here is inherently informal (i.e., "grain of salt" territory), the consensus seemed to be that it does NOT seem to matter if you did or did not contact a POI prior to application. And my hunch is the same, really. There are a few POIs I contacted, but only one of them led to an in-depth conversation, whereas a couple of others were of the "yes, you sound like you might be a good fit" variety. When you think about how many applications the adcomms look at, and how many members are likely on each adcomm, you can start to get a sense of how tough it would be for one POI recognizing your name to matter a whole lot in the long run. If you did have a great rapport with a POI, that might give you a slight bump in your chances, but probably not enough to fret about not having contacted that person. ETA: cross-posted with Bat.

Terrifying...but exciting! But terrifying... But...exciting!

I don't know, per se, but it stands to reason, given that all of the application deadlines have now passed. Materials will likely be distributed to the various adcomm members for them to look over, rate, review etc. In other words, the process is now an active one -- our applications aren't just sitting, waiting to be read...they're now almost certainly being looked at. It's pretty exciting, really.

So...today is the day where we can assume* that pretty much every adcomm will start looking at our applications. I'm still more excited than nervous at this point, but give it a couple of weeks, and I might just be in a perpetual state of anxiety-induced nausea. *Edited to reflect that I don't really know this!

Turns out that only two of the schools I applied to allow for post-application fall semester grade reporting: Yale and Princeton. Rutgers sort of allows for it, basically having an "other" field to upload additional materials. If anyone comes across any others, please be sure to post.

I'm resolved to get into grad school. I just hope some adcomms are resolved to let me in.

Oh yeah. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" was my first entree into O'Connor, and I think about it often as well. An addendum to my earlier post: turns out my parents-in-law bought me The Lyric Theory Reader for Christmas. It's been on my Amazon wish list for nearly half a year. Edited by two POIs at programs I applied to no less. What a gift! I've already poked my nose into that, so Piers and Dr. Jekyll might have to wait.

Managed to read some Flannery O'Connor on the plane last week, and quite enjoyed a few stories ("Everything That Rises Must Converge" in particular...). Got back home from Vancouver a couple of days ago, and my wife and I made a semi-impromptu drive up to Buffalo today to visit my in-laws (who are fantastic). I brought A Defense of Poetry, as well as a copy of Piers the Ploughman and Dr. Jekyll... as possible reading candidates. Though I aim to raid their attic, which is full of boxes of good books too...so we'll see! I'm so glad I married into a highly literate family...

Holy moly! Congratulations, Proflorax! It puts our various fretting-over-acceptance threads in perspective, doesn't it?

Hey folks, I just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year...a year that, for some (or most) of us, will be full of radical changes, new directions, and happy relocations. While I personally vacillate between excitement and dread over the prospects of the next few months, New Year's Day has always been my favorite holiday: there's something about the first day of a brand new year that fills me with hope and optimism. And for this year in particular, that is amplified! May 2015 bring all of you happiness and good things!

Thanks, TakerUK. Excellent perspective there. Worth more than $.02, I assure you.

Just replying here to vent my frustration with my independent study. I actually wound up getting an A in the class I was a little worried about, but got an A- for my independent study. The parameters of the study were to write a 20-page paper, and I wound up writing a 27-page paper, which I revised extensively, based on my advisor's recommendations. This morning he sent me an email telling me first of all that I did an excellent job of encompassing so much in 27 pages...then oddly enough goes on to say there was more I could have covered. It's truly a contradiction. He also pointed out a dimension that neither of us explored during our meetings that I could / should have explored. As a result, I got an A-. VERY frustrating. I've sent him back a very polite email, telling him that I could revise further since grades aren't technically due in until January 2nd, so we'll see what he says. I'm not too hopeful, however. What this means is that I will probably not be able to send in my fall grades. I was really hoping I could, but an A- in an independent study is probably enough to raise a few eyebrows. Given the amount of research I put into it, I'm annoyed, but I also have to recognize that there's an element of "them's the breaks" involved. Sigh.

This has nothing to do with anything, but... welcome back, Felibus! GC really missed you!

It's really a "YMMV" question, as 1Q84 pretty much points out. In theory, an independent study allows you to do the kind of research on a subject that interests you in a very specialized way. It forces you to be accountable for getting stuff done in a timely fashion, as there's really only one person who you are working with, and depending on his/her level of involvement (it can vary widely), you may be "mailing it in" for much of the semester, or you might have stringent weekly (or bi-weekly) expectations. I had an independent study this past semester after discovering a professor I knew (but had never had a class with) had a vested interest in the poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson. I'm a big Robinson fan myself, and so when I saw a few books on EAR in the professor's office one day, I struck up a conversation that led to him offering to do an independent study with me. I met with him once per week throughout the fall, and while he was fairly casual about "assignments" etc., it sprung up sort of organically that I should write three or four pages for him per week...with the result being that near the end of semester, I had the bulk of my final paper (intended to be a minimum of 20 pages, but ultimately wound up being 25) written. Now, this is all well and good, and I'm fine with the paper I wrote...but the problem is that sometimes your own view of the project will diverge from the professor's view. I had intended to approach the I.S. from a prosodic standpoint, and spend a lot of time comparing EAR to other poets of the era. The professor is decidedly not a prosodist, and he didn't find a comparative analysis interesting. As a result, my paper wound up being sort of middle of the road. It's well-written and cohesive, but I don't think it's publishable, as it wound up being more of a thematic and prosodic analysis. I have no regrets for doing the independent study, but I'm not sure if it was a valuable experience. I recognize that this seems like it's skirting your main point, but it's not -- the course is not necessary, but if you can link it back to your main focus of study (which is admittedly more important for Ph.D. applicants than M.A. applicants), then sure...it will show that you have managed to successfully work on your own to produce a long, academic document, and like 1Q84 says, it will hopefully create a strong, personal, academic bond with your professor, who can then talk at length in a LOR about your aptitude etc. But more important than even this, successfully navigating an independent study might show you whether or not graduate study is right for you, as much as the other way around. For the record, most programs I applied to won't be able to see that I've taken an independent study, as it won't be on my transcript until next month. Despite this, I don't think it's going to affect my applications one way or another, yet it might have helped in some small way had I taken it in my junior year and needed a different strong LOR-writer...or if the study itself dovetailed perfectly with my research interests, as opposed to partially. Edited to add: I have no info to back this up, but I suspect research seminars will carry nearly as much weight as an independent study. Class sizes are usually smaller, and the professor usually gets to know you better than in a lecture format. Two of my LOR writers were from research seminars, and I'm certain that had I needed another, I could have had a different professor write a positive LOR based on a research seminar this past semester.

Wow, that's interesting to hear. Other than a few bad apples and cranky posts, most of the old threads I've read here seem fairly equanimous. I actually don't understand the obsessing about the results board...it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Then again, check in with me in five weeks or so, and we'll see if I'm singing the same tune...

Really? I don't know about this. Do tell!

Congrats, Bat! (I have a feeling I'm going to be saying that a lot in the coming weeks. )

Oh, I'm probably responsible for the rumor. I've been talking about it on here for months now. It IS just a hunch, and I've made that very clear each time I've mentioned it. I first noticed it a few months ago when the number of active GC users seemed a heck of a lot lower than in years prior. I would venture to guess that there are maybe only 25-30 of us posting in this forum regularly, versus closer to 100 last year (and similar numbers for years prior). This is not scientific in the least -- just an observation. Add to that the strange decision by Rutgers to extend their deadline by a week, and there's still nothing scientific about the assumption, but is potentially a sign that they are holding out for more applicants before they close it off. These two things could just be complete coincidences. There's really no way of knowing until several months from now, when application statistics are released. But given the recent doom and gloom over the outlook on humanities Ph.D.s, and other general factors, I have a gut feeling that there are fewer applicants overall. For what it's worth, this doesn't mean that anyone with a mediocre application is more likely to get in. There are countless GC threads from years past that indicate how adcomms "could have" accepted 50 candidates, but "were forced" to choose just 20. Having a lighter field might just mean that they "could have" accepted 40 candidates, but still "are forced" to choose...just 20. But hope is a powerful stimulant. A little dose of it can help get you through the inherent doldrums of the waiting period.

Yeah, I can't help but think it's a slight positive for our cohort specifically. I'm not sure if it will have any broader ramifications (if it's true) in five or six years when we're ready to hit the job market, but using my situation as an example, if just ten fewer people applied to each program that I applied to, then that's basically an aggregate of 170 competitors I don't need to worry about. It might not be much, but it's something after all. Even if it gets me on to a couple of waitlists that would have otherwise been rejections, it's still a better chance at winning the proverbial golden ticket. Not to rain on the parade too much, but the supposed "fewer numbers" are just speculation at this point, based solely on ephemeral data that could be explained away by pure circumstance. Yet I do get the unqualitative feeling that it's true. Here's hoping...