Ramus

It might be theoretically possible, but it would take a very long post to explain all the ways it's a bad idea. If you want to do law, leave your PhD program and go to law school. You certainly wouldn't be the first to make that decision. But don't do both, at least not at the same time.

OSU English has decided to proceed with grad admissions as usual.

They're still debating the approach within the department. If I see anything definitive that comes across the departmental listserv, I'll let y'all know.

Can confirm. There's an ongoing debate within OSU English about whether to cut or suspend altogether 2021 grad admissions.

You should be good. Funding details aren't populated in the application portal.

For all of you attending the OSU Open House on Monday, feel free to send me a DM with any last minute questions or concerns! I'm happy to help in any way I can.

I genuinely sympathize for you. It's shitty feeling like you've gotten wins in this arduous process but that those wins might not be enough to position you well for your end goal (presumably, a TT job). As one of those commenters ragging on the odds of getting a decent TT job from a lower-ranked school, I'll just say that I hope it's clear my remarks are not designed to make readers feel like shit. I get no satisfaction from that. My concern is with the consequences of the well-meaning optimism on this site. I'm all for celebrating, but the back-slapping and congratulations can obfuscate the r

You're right -- this is GradCafe, which is worse. As one of my mentors once joked to me after reading some of the advice on this site, 90% of the material on here is just the blind leading the blind. That includes any advice that describes online PhDs in English as "perfect" for anyone. For anyone who wants to teach at the college level, the online PhD is right up there with attending the Chicago MAPH in the category of dumpster-fire-bad ideas. On this topic there are no caveats, no "but...if"s, no "it might work for some." Just don't do an online PhD.

This is half wrong. The prestige of the MA program generally doesn't matter all that much. In fact, a terminal MA program's prestige needn't even correlate with the prestige of the same institution's BA or PhD programs. (I'm looking at you, UChicago, Columbia, and NYU). But you are absolutely, 100% dead wrong to think that BA prestige doesn't matter. Don't believe me? Check out grad student CVs and departmental pages at Berkeley, Harvard, or Yale. You're not going to see a bunch of people listing Central Michigan, or Truman State, or Montevallo as their alma maters. Instead, you'll see a

All fair points. My advice for OP would be dramatically different if they were trying to split hairs over two programs ranked in the 20s ("Do I pick 23 or 26???"). One can certainly place too much stock in rankings. I'll only add that few programs publicly report their placement statistics as thoroughly as WashU. (As someone who's ditching academe upon graduation, I especially appreciate that WashU reports alt-ac placements as well. Too often those graduates are simply excluded from placement reports. ) For example, OP's two options don't post the kinds of placement information that on

As evidenced by this thread, you'll find examples of those who do well outside the top 20 as defined by US News (or top 30, or whatever your threshold is). That's not really the issue. The issue is whether a program consistently places its graduates into tenure-track lines. And, of course, we haven't even started the discussion about whether a program places its graduates into good tenure-track lines (with a livable wage, livable teaching expectations, etc.) But it sounds like you may have already made up your mind, OP. In all seriousness, I wish you the best of luck. I just don't want y

That may be so—though I'd caution applicants placing too much stock in this kind of anecdotal claim—but it isn't especially relevant to the present discussion about Miami University of Ohio and Ball State University. As I've said elsewhere, the ranking systems are by no means perfect. My concern is that critiques of them, like yours, @Regimentations, might lead young applicants to believe they don't measure anything or that they can be outright ignored. In fact, they are especially important for cases like OP's. In the present case, the US News ranking system, even with its wa

ETA: Now that I'm in front of my computer, allow me to elaborate. The most common (if much maligned) ranking system is the US News one: https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-humanities-schools/english-rankings. People like to grumble about it, but it's a decent approximation of prestige within our field. According to this list, Miami ranks #77 nationally. Ball State does not place in the top 153 programs surveyed here. Make of that what you will. I'll just say that if I knew the realities of the academic job market when I was applying for schools, I wouldn't consider programs o

With all due respect to you and others considering these programs, I wouldn't seriously consider either of them if you want a TT job teaching literature. Neither are highly ranked and neither will lead to a tenured position on the lit track. (The outlook may be slightly better for rhet/comp at Miami.)

If by better or lesser "known" you mean more or less prestigious, go with option 1. As I've said elsewhere, prestige is the name of the game if you're looking for work in higher ed. That should be your priority over the other things you mentioned (including the money). I'll also add that "vibes" are usually a bad way to gauge a program, especially given that whatever vibes you can discern at this point in the application cycle are going to be superficial markers of faculty and program quality. If you go to an acceptance day at a program and the faculty members are total dicks to you and