Dr. Old Bill

I'm not necessarily countering what the coordinator told you, but it's an awfully odd statement given that Mich already sent out a bunch of acceptances last week, and no rejections. I'd call that a very mild form of "leaving students hanging." That's not a knock on them -- as I've contended many times, I think adcoms deserve a ton of latitude. I just don't particularly understand her comments.

Oh sure, let's while away the afternoon posting gifs of the saddest movie scenes we know. *busily looks for Count Almasy carrying Katherine's body out of the cave...*

A bunch of years ago I wrote a villanelle that begins with the lines: How often I have sat alone And waited for the phone to ring, But only heard the dial tone. It's feeling awfully prophetic right about now...

I'm SO glad that crossed your mind as well!

Pink! ...no blue! Aaaaahhh... Upon seeing that Penn acceptance, the Gorge of Eternal Peril is looking pretty enticing right about now...

Seriously! Me too. They're pretty much the last bastion for me before I start some serious planning. Welcome back! Yeah, I'm guessing they're done. It's possible that there's an invisible waitlist, but I suspect that their definitive "we want you" offers have gone out. I'm thinking the same is true of Yale, despite the presence of only two acceptances for them as well. (Also, I wish some of the acceptances on the results board would be a bit more descriptive... It's Yale! You're allowed to gush a bit!)

I have a strange feeling that his is the last face a lot of people saw before they died.

Thanks. It's been awhile since I've had a nightmare...

Prunes all the way.

...back when many GCers were twelve years old... (Sorry, wrong thread. )

Not to cherry-pick from your post, but I just thought I'd answer this one item with a resounding NO! It's not a bad thing at all! I'm actually rather annoyed at your mentors on your behalf. You can't underestimate the value of a support system, and making a decision that is even partially based on personal factors is perfectly valid. In this case, you've got two amazing programs vying for your attendance, so there's really no reason why the personal elements shouldn't be a crucial factor for you. I also second what everyone else has said, though @Warelin in particular is wise to point out that your interests can (and likely will) change a bit. So while it's important to go to a program for the people, just bear in mind that you also want to attend a program that will allow you some flexibility.

As an undergraduate, I made a "master syllabus" for each semester -- I would take all five or so syllabi and create a single spreadsheet with all of the dates of the semester, listing required readings, assignments, exam dates etc. It was invaluable. I haven't done this at the graduate level, as I've never had to take more than three courses in a semester (which is a little more manageable in terms of juggling syllabi), but it is a viable option for people who like to have everything essential in one place. The spreadsheet takes awhile to create (maybe a couple of hours), but it saves a ton of time and anxiety over the subsequent fifteen weeks... I'd be happy to send anyone a sample copy if this sounds like an approach that could work for you.

With the exception of a few late outliers, this should be the last big week of acceptances this cycle... Good luck, folks.

I'm a very slow reader as well, and can only read for about an hour at a time without a break. It's doable! You just need to be able to plan around your limitations (which becomes a case of time management once again).

Yeah, this really can't be overstated. You have the mandatory reading for the course, which can be reduced a bit if you feel you're swamped (I'd say I've done 95% of the reading I've been assigned as a grad student, but every once in awhile you're simply overloaded and something has to give / be skimmed etc.), but then there's all the reading that you need to do when you're researching a paper. As an undergraduate I used to have a "source-per-page" rule, meaning that if I was writing an eight-page paper, I should have at least eight sources. You can safely double that as a graduate student in English. And while reading during research is arguably a different kind of reading (more like a strange combination of skimming and close-reading), it's very time consuming. And -- don't forget -- it's in addition to your mandatory class reading. This is where time management becomes essential, and I truly believe that it's a woefully underdiscussed competency. I'm personally very lucky to have a strong sense of time management and organization -- if I didn't, I really wouldn't have excelled in academia. Being able to assess the amount of reading you have in a given week, and cross-reference that with how fast you personally can get through the material (factoring in your reading speed and mental health breaks etc.) goes a long way. Sometimes I'll have the readings for a Wednesday class done on the previous Saturday, because the readings for a Thursday class are going to be more time-consuming and will require a lot more attention etc. There are so many of these little nuances you'll eventually discover...and they're one of the many elements of the adjustment between college and graduate school. I'm glad you started this thread, though, as I'm realizing how little this stuff actually gets discussed...

I would venture to guess that it varies too much to even give you a rough estimate. Different programs, different professors, different eras, different focuses...all of these things are going to determine how much reading you'll have to do. My current graduate Shakespeare course (just a general course -- no specific theme etc.) has a play and five or six critical essays in an average week, which feels appropriate for the class. Last week there was no play but around a dozen critical essays and historical pamphlets from the 16th century, which was a lot of reading. A Modernist fiction course I took last semester usually had a novel and a few short stories (or sometimes poems), plus a couple of critical essays per week. A comp-rhet course had around ten or so essays per week (plus a heavy writing load). All of this is to say that it really does vary. Maybe 300 - 400 pages per course per week is a general average, but YMMV.

I think that's a really intriguing approach! Similar questions have crossed my mind, but I've never really explored them -- I truly hope you get a chance to do so in an academic context. I took a research seminar as an undergraduate titled "Marginal Shakespeare." All of the plays we read were ostensibly on the fringes of the Shakespeare canon, and (again ostensibly) don't warrant as much academic study. Some of the professor's selections made sense -- The Two Noble Kinsmen, Timon of Athens, Pericles etc. all seem to be less recognizable than most. Then again, I thought Measure for Measure, Cymbeline, and Troilus and Cressida were all unusual choices...especially when she could have chosen King John or even my beloved Coriolanus. The question of "marginality" has stuck with me since then, and I'd love to hear more about your research in that area at some point.

Wait, I thought the Academy Awards were next Sunday...

I've heard this too, and it makes a lot of sense. There's usually a kind of confidence that age and experience bring -- a kind of confidence that you only get by living through stuff. When you know that you can make it through things like death, divorce, layoffs, financial hardships, and any number of bad things that come your way, you learn that you have the strength to deal with the more "academic" problems. I complain about my age a lot, but there's also a large part of me that is grateful for having all of the benefits age and experience have wrought. Yep! To some degree you have to walk the walk in academia -- be professional, be cultured, have decorum etc. -- but unless you truly want it to (which is a valid choice), you can't let it define who you are. You can love heavy metal, hockey, and horror movies (this is a totally, completely, utterly fictional example, of course ) and still produce excellent scholarship and be a model academic, after all.

Really? A 5.0 AW is excellent, and a 165 V is very, very good. I recognize that you have to retake it because ETS is a horrible, money-grubbing, pointless institution your scores are expiring, but if you can achieve those same figures next time, you should be more than happy.

I still get ID'ed literally every time I buy alcohol. It was even more pronounced when I was visiting Canada over Christmas break, and got ID'ed there too. I used to find it funny, and still find it somewhat amusing, but looking at least a decade younger than one actually is does get old after awhile (no pun intended). The worst part is when I get an appraising look from an undergraduate. It's flattering for all of two seconds, before I realize that I'm at least fifteen years older than her...and then I feel like a dirty old man. The converse is true as well: I can't "check out" an undergrad without having the words you could be her father! run through my head. Sigh.

Yeah, Penn really excites me. I just hope our little GC cadre of early modernists don't cancel each other out there. Then again, I do hope that if I don't get one of those coveted acceptances, that it goes to one of you fine folks! By the way, I've tossed you a PM. Don't worry, it's not a ransom note...

Two more cents: I'd probably let go of NYU, but I'm less certain about that one because it's a larger program and their decisions only just went out. That being said, if others have already been accepted and waitlisted, it's probably a no-go as well, so temper your expectations...

I think you can safely let go of JHU. They're a small program to begin with, and given the number of acceptances they sent out a couple of weeks ago, it's highly unlikely that they'll be sending any more. Just my two cents, of course, but sometimes holding on to faint hope is more psychologically damaging than just assuming a rejection!

Congratulations!! I'mma gonna go ahead and cross it off my list... Penn has also been my top choice! Maybe if we're lucky they'll take a couple of early modernists this time around?