artist_lily

Last minute thought: would you mind saying something about how you've been spending the time in between application rounds? And better yet, how you find the incredible stamina to keep going? I'm starting to form Backup Plans C, D, and E, and would love to hear about your experience making in through the "in-between" times. This would be great advice as I start thinking of how to spend the next year before application season rolls around again.

Lady L, I can't thank you enough for the kind words you've summoned from your own experience. It is so nice to see that even though such an experience seems, at first glance, insurmountable, it is, in fact, possible to emotionally withstand such a situation and even to come out the better for it. It's also wonderful to hear how understanding your letter writers were. I hope that I am lucky enough to have the same experience as you. Really, though, thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience; just hearing your story made me instantly feel better about how I might manage to cope with the rejection, without feeling as if I've let down not only myself, but all those around me. Many, many cosmic good vibes to you in this third round -- I do hope that you get in everywhere you apply... with full funding!

It's like you've read my mind; thanks so much for putting into such perfect words (and for making me realize I'm not alone). Because I couldn't manage to go about this process in secret (I'm living abroad and needed my parents to help put application materials together), I feel as if it's not just me who's going to be cosmically disappointed when I don't get accepted anywhere; it's going to be my whole damn family. Not to mention that because I've asked for a letter of recommendation from the chair of the English department at the high school I used to teach at, it'll be that whole community there, too, who realizes I suck. Plus, of course, the many friends and current European colleagues who had to be told about the process so as to avoid making them think I had, over the past year, come down with a severe psychological ailment, and last but certainly not least, the professors who have cheerfully written letter after letter on my behalf, only to be told come this spring, that the undergrad they expended so much time and effort trying to help, is, alas, without even one measly grad school acceptance -- not even to one of the four mediocre but passable programs she applied to. The bottom line: so many people's best (abstract) wishes and best (tangible) efforts are riding on this, that to be denied from every program won't be a rejection I suffer in silence, but a humiliation and shaming I'm forced to endure in public, among the very people I most respect and whom I would most want to be proud of me. It really is the shame of shames. *Steps off soapbox* Now, that feels better... sort of.

I'm a little bit concerned about how harshly critical the posters above me (with the exception of the one directly above me) have been of the OP. I realize that this is crunch time, and everyone's looking out for him- or herself, but to suggest that the OP's way out of his league seems to me a bit callous. I'm particularly dismayed by the poster who questioned whether the OP realized he was up against people who grew up in China and then mastered yet another foreign language -- certainly, that's a terrific advantage, but I hardly think that's the norm, and even if it were, the way that this poster presents it (as if he's THE person to beat in admissions) is, in my opinion, a bit classless. Just take a deep breath, everyone -- we'll all get in somewhere, and I really see no need to disparage others because we're feeling nervous about our own chances.

Glee... I've only watched the first episode so far, but it's definitely proven a form of escapism that will come in the handy over the next couple of months. (I've still got 13 episodes to catch up on before the show comes back in April.) Chick-lit... since with my certainty of getting into ANY graduate English program rapidly diminishing, I'd rather not torture myself by reading anything that would count as "real" literature and thus reminding myself of all the opportunities to study such books that I won't, in fact, have.

I have no publications, nothing even close to a publication, and it seems that's a must for would-be English PhDs. When I gave my adviser the list of schools, she asked my GPA. When I told her, I could hear her jaw drop over the phone (and not in a good way). After sending my SOP to about 80% of the schools I'm applying to, I've realized that it's terribly verbose in the last paragraph and could have been much better had I devoted a few minutes to breaking those sentences up correctly. Here's to $2000 worth of rejection letters! (What an investment... )

Hahaha, can I just say how much I LOVE this response? I laughed out loud when I read it because that is exactly what I'm going to do, too. Heck, I've been crying enough already; I might as well cry over something GOOD for once! Good luck to you, Sparky, and to all others waiting on those fated letters ;-)