sillyrabbit

Great news regarding Columbia! Awesome!

Awesome! Those are great schools for your focus. Are you going to visiting weekend at Minnesota?

InSchoolForever, if you don't mind me asking...(I noticed you and I applied to the exact same 5 American Studies programs ) What school did you get an acceptance and waitlist? Which program out of the 5 is your top choice? Any POIs you are particularly excited to hear back from?

I'll join the UCLA rejects...although I feel a bit weird posting this in the acceptances thread. I guess creating a rejections thread would be too depressing...

To my fellow MTL hopeful, best of luck! Also, congratulations to all the acceptances today! Wonderful news!

Did anyone else apply to NYU American Studies?

I might have actually said these exact words today

Ahhh!!! Congratz! *waits hopefully for good news from UCLA*

That's great to hear, kateosee. I'm very interested in his work, and I am glad that he is wonderful to work with. Here's a question for the group. Does anyone know what are considered (with a huge grain of salt) the "top tier" American Studies/Cultural Studies programs? I've applied to English programs, where the prestige/strength of certain programs are "decently" clear. But, for American Studies programs, I feel like this is murkier. Obviously, rankings aren't everything, and taken at face value, can be a completely wrong way of approaching grad school admissions. However, I do think that they can be helpful to generally compare the strength of programs, with breathing room of course. I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on this. Yeah, kind of a weird question to ask after apps have been submitted, but I figured I ask...if only just to start conversation in this thread

Congratulations! Just goes to show that news can come at any time of day/night. Wonderful!

I agree...hmmmm.....

Anyone want to claim the UCDavis - Cultural Studies acceptance on the results board?

I actually debated applying to both English and AmCult at UMich, but in the end just decided on one. It was a close call, but I chose English because I felt the fit (both for faculty and current grad students) was slightly stronger. I listed a few POIs but was primarily interested in working with Victor Mendoza in the English department. Are you currently at Michigan for undergrad?

Probably wayyyy too often

Unfortunately no...I don't know much about those other programs

Just saw this (sorry - I've been paying attention/responding mostly to the Lit. forum)...yes, this was me. It was definitely earlier than expected, but I am super excited at the prospect of attending.

Thanks for all your responses, all! Very informative...if even as just food for thought after applications have been submitted.

That's awesome!! I'm dying to know which one it is! Either way, it's great news.

Congratz to the additional Berkeley admits and the other admits yesterday! This cohort is so talented...! I'm assuming if we haven't heard from Berkeley by now, it is probably a rejection? Also, I'd just like to add to the sentiment about how overwhelmingly positive this forum is...I've been on my share of anonymous online forums, and I've seen what monsters can lurk in those...but not here! Cheers to the wonderful camaraderie!

Ahhh Congratz!! This is so great!

Also a Duke reject... so much red on the results board!

Looks like the duke rejections are coming in...

Great news, Katla!

Great to hear that there is another MTL hopeful! I think there were only 3 (including me) in these forums ...now there's 4! I imagine the literature programs you applied to are also very comfortable (and supportive) of interdisciplinary work...would you mind me asking what programs these are?

Throughout the application process, I've probably thought about the "fit" question a lot. Of course, most of the PhD programs that I applied to are great fits for me. I take this to mean that I can see myself working closely, based on my preliminary research, with at least 3 professors (stating this in my SoP). In general, I see these school's intellectual priorities aligning with mine. I also applied to a *few* schools that were somewhat wildcards. Overall, these wildcard schools are very highly ranked, and I've heard great things about the programs as a whole. But, they don't explicitly have a ton of faculty who have been researching in my fields of interest for a long time. There are a few recent hires in these programs that suggest that they are looking to expand into my areas of interest, so I thought, hey, perhaps they are looking to expand/strengthen these areas (and *perhaps* take a few grad students to boost...) I'm wondering if anyone else thought along these lines during the application process. Could a few recent faculty hires indicate a potential good fit, in the eyes of the admission council, based on where the program would like to see itself evolving in the next 5-10 years? Any insight? P.S. I guess this would have been a great question to ask POIs/DGSs/current grad students BEFORE I applied...but alas...I did not. :/ We'll find out soon enough anyway!