allplaideverything

Also, this: http://www.minorcompositions.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/undercommons-web.pdf

Personally, I'm here for the Fonzie scheme.

I've been reading it as more of a discourse community thing than a "will they want to live here" thing, personally (though I could certainly be wrong.) By way of analogy: at the Catholic college where I started my undergrad career, when I told my old professors where I'd been accepted, they all perked up at the mention of Fordham, even though it's arguably the least prestigious school on my list (and not even all those profs are Catholic). They just operate in a community where they hear more about that school. Alternatively, all my friends who do Black Studies perked up when I mentioned Riverside because Fred Moten is there. So, analogically, I feel like job placement can often be regional: while Washington University in St. Louis certainly enjoys a national reputation as a great school, folks in the Midwest probably just hear about it and talk about it more than, say, folks in the Southeast. And while I never knew anything about the University of Wyoming personally, I learned a couple years ago that a bunch of their MFA grads had landed jobs at other schools nearby--conceivably because the school is more known out there.

I think where you get your PhD can strengthen your job prospects at regional schools (a CUNY grad might have a better chance at SUNY or NYC schools, for example), but I don't think it matters where you did your MA after you get your PhD.

I've emailed POIs and administrators to let them know. I called my POI at Syracuse, because we'd had more contact, and I'll almost certainly call my folks at either Riverside or Davis, but typically email is fine.

I agree with the folks saying to be open during your MA. Of course you'll want a proposed specialization for your SOP, but you needn't be an expert already when applying to PhDs. Have fun, take interesting classes, and the rest will sort itself out.

Turned down: Oregon, Syracuse, Fordham (just a couple days ago) Still choosing between: UC Davis, UC Riverside, and USC (Creative Writing track)

As an undergrad at the U, a couple of my best classes were taught by PhD students! Those American and British surveys!

Hey ToldAgain! Congrats on these two options--they're both great schools, and both will help you a lot as you prepare to go on to the PhD. So, try not to worry! You'll be great either way! That said, things you should be (and I'm sure already are) thinking about: 1. Teaching. As a grad student, teaching 2 courses in a semester gives lots of people a hard time. It's not impossible, and if you're good at time management, it's really not too much harder than only teaching 1. Still, some folks hate teaching 2, and if the teaching loads are significantly different at these schools, that might be a good tiebreaker. 2. How are the terminal MA students treated & supported? I feel like I remember hearing that Mizzou's terminal MA students feel a little under-supported, like they're the bottom of the totem pole (which is maybe magnified by the perception that the Lit PhDs already feel less supported than the Creative Writing PhDs), but I could be wrong about that. I don't know about UK. See if you can get in touch with current MA students and ask how they feel about their position in the program? 3. Sports, obvi. Go where you will be supported and where you'll have the time and resources to grow as a thinker. It's also only 2 years (right?), so even if you wind up at a less-than-ideal spot, it'll still prepare you for the PhD and you'll be out of there soon enough.

How are y'all going about deciding "where you can do the best work"? What's more beneficial as a PhD student--substantial time away from teaching to spend in archives & the office, or being surrounded by supportive, inspiring people?

Ah, Wind, what happened at the visit?

Hey, I just wanted to check back into this thread and report success! The private school I'm considering offered me a very generous package, and one of the smaller state schools I'm considering updated their offer to a surprising degree. If you haven't mentioned to your DGS that you're weighing another (higher) offer, yet, you should consider it!

I met an English student in his 4th or 5th year who does mostly American Studies & Ethnicity and Gender Studies. Also, with folks like Karen Tongson and Jack Halberstam listed as professors in multiple departments, It seems like it's possible to build fruitful relationships across departmental boundaries pretty easily. And the English Dept. actually requires you to have at least one professor from outside the department on your exam committee.

I just received the follow-up email to the Open House, today, but this is the first communication I've received from CUNY at all. My application status even still says "Submitted." So maybe they forgot about me but I'm actually waitlisted?? Did anybody here attend the Open House?

I hadn't heard anything from CUNY, and I just received an email to all "Prospective Students" following up on their open house events, and asking wait listers to be patient as they should have info soon. And the website still lists my application as "Submitted." Eep?

This is the best thread. Butler, Marx, Moten, hooks.

I feel bad, too, for leaving waitlisters hanging. I've got another visit at the end of the month, and then I need to get advice from my team. I hope to decide by April 5th? Ugh.

I appreciate the advice and information, hypervodka & others! I still have a lot to learn and weigh, but y'all are being so helpful and easing my anxiety!

I visited USC's literature program a few days ago, and it was fun! The campus is beautiful, LA is great, the faculty and incoming students are very impressive. I got to meet Karen Tongson, and she was super fun and awesome, and she made it sound like the big names (including Jack Halberstam) do actually teach and work with grad students, so that's cool. Let me know how you like it when you visit!

My visit to Riverside complicated everything for me. The work that folks are doing there opens so many possibilities for radicalizing the humanities. I couldn't have been more impressed. I'm an emotional person generally, but at least three professors made me tear up when talking about their work and the profession. But, money, and location, and job placement. My visit to USC was brief--beautiful campus, impressive cohort, though the work there seemed generally mainstream, liberal, or even neoliberal (which owes, I'm told, to a monied and reactionary administration). I'm surprised to learn I love LA. Visiting Davis later this month.

I'm sorry you've had a rough application season. FWIW, you've been incredibly helpful and warm on GC through the entire process. You're clearly much more prepared for graduate work than I was when I was coming out of undergrad, but I will say that my M.A. (and my MFA) helped me immensely to figure a lot of this stuff out. Hopefully you love UMD and come out the better for it.

I think that's a great way of looking at the SOP--being able to formulate appropriate research questions. The relevant portion of my SOP, after having discussed my subject position and the work I've done previously, in case it's helpful or interesting: "Of particular interest to me are writers, events, and texts which might prefigure queer theory’s destabilization of gender and sexual norms. [...] The 19th Century produced a variety of texts which demonstrate the lived realities of queer, transgender, and gender nonconforming people before those categories had been discursively produced. Queer and trans* people in the 19th Century were engaged in the process of constructing their gender identities and narratives at the same time the United States was constructing its own cultural autobiography. By examining the Queer 19th Century as a doctoral student, using an intersectional and interdisciplinary methodology, I hope to trouble the junctions between a budding imperialism, the juggernaut of white supremacist capitalism, and the queer lives, bodies, and texts at the margins which render themselves culturally unintelligible in their radical resistance to traditional gender norms."

Thanks, I appreciate the support! I leave tomorrow morning to spend three weeks in CA. The AWP conference in Seattle is my only experience of the West so far. This should be fun.

I'm having a hell of a time weighing my three California offers. USC's funding is quite generous, and they have the general academic name power despite a lower ranking. But Davis has Beth Freeman, who's a boss, and a really special poetry community, and Northern California! But Riverside has all the radicals & queers (aka a general good intellectual fit for me). I think I've had to say "it's a good problem to have" to about a hundred people at this point, and it's true. Anybody wanna make the decision for me?

I think you may be right, to some extent, that more narrow or specific proposed specializations have more success in application season. While I didn't name a specific text or set of texts I want to work on, my SOP was pretty specific about my interest in radicalism and gender non-normativity in 19th Century American lit & culture. I don't really know much about early modern & prosody, but it seems like perhaps you applied in a pretty competitive field--one where there are very few spots, mostly at elite institutions? I'm genuinely interested in my proposed specialization, but I indeed chose it at least in part because it's less competitive than, say, contemporary , which I'm most prepared for as a poet / creative writer. I feel that having a relatively specific focus, in a less competitive historical period, with a hot theoretical / methodological approach, helped me so much this season.