Ramus

For those that have successfully negotiated offers: what's an acceptable increase to ask for? I'll give you the numbers I'm thinking with: I'm leaning towards OSU's offer, which entails a ~$16K/year stipend for four years. The thing is, though, that my MA program currently gives me an $18K/year stipend, and I really don't want to lose $2K a year AND pay higher rent in Columbus. But I'm thinking that asking for $2K more each of my four years in Columbus is stretching it a bit. Am I mistaken in thinking this? If it is indeed too much to ask for, what might be a reasonable amount to request?

Blargh, I haven't heard from him yet. Hopefully soon! They've quickly moved to the top of my list; a first year fellowship would very nearly assure my commitment to them.

Me too. I imagine this is the week that a lot of our 'implied's are converted.

I'm not a big fan of the "consolation" MA-offers myself. I worry they create a hierarchy within departments, where MAs are rushed through their programs, drained of cash, and are given little to no serious attention by faculty. This is not to say that folks who take these offers don't get anything out of the experience. I just think that if you don't get into a PhD program the first round, your best bet is to apply the following year to funded MA programs. But, to your question: I'm not sure if there is a master list, but I can list the consolation offers I got during my first application cycle: Boston U offered an MA with absolutely no money, Boston College a one-year tuition credit, and Chicago a half-tuition credit for their one year program. You mentioned UVA; some folks have recently received similar offers from UMD. NYU is another one who partakes in the unfunded MA option. I'm sure there are many others. A lot of top 20 schools will do give applicants the option.

My friend was admitted with full funding, but I don't know any details about how she heard or when the department is notifying others, etc. etc.

Relaying more news from my Facebook feed: UVA acceptances are rolling out presently.

Accepted at UConn. I'll almost certainly be turning this down, but the offer eases the blow from UNC.

I have to assume that. If I'm not mistaken, only one person has posted a PhD acceptance on the board, and I wanna say they have nine spots or so.

I'm waitlisted for the PhD Med/Ren spot, and I'm considering attending the open house. The program's Ren faculty and proximity to the Folger make UMD really attractive, but I also don't want to make the trip to DC if their PhD slot isn't likely to open up. Not quite sure what to do at this point.

thepriorwalter, I stumbled into the money question when speaking on the phone with the DGS at Maryland. I rather awkwardly mentioned trying to attend Maryland's open house and OSU's open house in one large trip, and my mentioning the other offer prompted him to acknowledge that there is some wiggle room with the funding. I'd guess that this would be the easiest way to broach the subject in most cases. Now, I do have one tidbit regarding Michigan (btw, congrats on getting in!). I have a friend in his first year in the joint English/GWS program there, and he told me the English department is very flexible about funding. In his case, he, being an awkward turtle like me, mentioned to the DGS that he was "worried about the cost of living in Ann Arbor." He wasn't trying to squeeze them for money, but that little aside landed him several more thousand dollars (including a summer fellowship). So while I realize not all programs are this loose with the pursestrings, I say you definitely should hit up UMich for extra $$.

Beat me to it.

In some strange way, I find it comforting to move schools into the 'implied rejection' category, even if I do it a bit too soon. Doing so allows me to stop worrying about that program and stop religiously checking my email/the results board. If it turns out that later that I've jumped the gun in assuming rejection, I haven't lost anything: I still have the waitlisting (or acceptance), and, to boot, I get the pleasure of being proven wrong. That's just what works for me. I understand the desire to hold out hope until you get official word, and I'm not chiding those who do this. I just figure it's not worth the pain of experiencing the full force of rejection twice: once when you see you're not among the first accepted, and for the second time when you get the official rejection.

Medievalist folks: I'm trying to introduce myself to Gower, but I'm having a bit of trouble tracking down a modern edition of his works. Do you all know of any readily available editions suitable for a first-timer? I'm hoping to find an edition of Vox Clamantis or (excerpts of) Confessio Amantis. Something like a Norton Critical Edition would be great. A bilingual facing edition might be even better.

On the Brown rejections: there was some confusion at first, but I believe all of the rejections that went out were for their Modern Culture and Media applicants. English rejections haven't been sent out yet.

I haven't received an official rejection, but I think it's pretty safe to assume 'implied rejection' at this point (at least that's how I'm taking it). In the past, they've sent out all of their acceptances at once. As far as I can tell, they don't have a standard waitlisting practice, either.

This should be a huge consideration. If you're asked to teach comp as soon as you start the program, you know that you're not going to be given any substantial training prior to entering the classroom (though the one week "training" your program will have you do before the semester will feel like an eternity). Teaching right out of the gate can also be a real struggle if this is your first time doing graduate work. You'll be reading a lot more than you did in undergrad, and the amount of work can be difficult to get used to; if you have to teach in addition, the learning curve is all the more steep. The total amount of teaching is probably even more important, for it's one of the biggest factors that'll affect the amount of time it takes to graduate. Does the department/grad school have dissertation fellowships? If only the graduate school does, how often do English doctoral candidates win these awards? For those students that don't win dissertation fellowships that excuse them from teaching, what's the teaching expectation for ABDs? If the department expects you to teach a 2/2 load of comp each and every semester, it'll be almost impossible to graduate in five years. I imagine that even a 1/1 load can feel like a lot when you're trying to finish up the dissertation and apply for jobs in your final year. So, this is all to say that, yes (!!), teaching requirements should be at the forefront of your mind when choosing among your options.

I'm in the same boat with both schools. I have a little less hope for Brown, which I've moved to the 'implied rejection' category, than I do for Austin. The problem with the latter is that they roll out rejections over a period of weeks.

This is pretty close to an experience I had. My senior year I took a graduate seminar in medieval Latin, and had a playlist of particularly irreverent songs (Petey Pablo's "Freek-A-Leek", for example) that I'd listen to while doing my translations. Translating Bede was all the more fun when it was paired with strains of "Fuck Tha Police."

I'd say so. Same thing happened to me when I was first contacted by the university where I ultimately ended up. Received an official offer about three weeks after that first email. Hope the same happens to you!

To be honest, given the number of acceptances posted on the results board, I think they've probably already made all of their acceptance decisions. I'm not aware of the department's policy regarding waitlists, though. I wouldn't be surprised if those waitlisted are held in limbo until the department hears back from the grad school regarding fellowships for admits. The DGS told me that he will be informed of those details on Feb.16th.

A lot of folks coming straight out of undergrad are put at a disadvantage because of this. I, for one, didn't really have a good sense of the "big" critical discussions happening now (two years ago, I thought Gender Trouble was radically new stuff). And even if you're aware of what individual POIs are doing, not demonstrating an awareness of larger critical trends can hurt your application. My advisors told me that before I applied this time around, I should read the last couple, three years of essays at each of the top four or five journals in my field. Doing so helped me immensely. My area of interest, early modern logic, is about as unsexy as topics come, yet I aligned myself with some other historical-formalist work that's been coming out in recent years. That hasn't led to my admission into all fourteen programs to which I applied, but I'm still a hell of a lot better off than when I applied with only a BA.

This makes a lot of sense to me. For adcoms that have to reduce you to a few bullet points, a transhistorical focus might suggest that you haven't quite "settled." I think we'll probably see more of an acceptance of transhistorical graduate student work in the next few years, but I think it'll take even longer than that for adcoms to start accepting folks who explicitly want to do more than focus on a hundred year period or so. If you end up reapplying next year, you might stress the early modern; it's always easier to do something a little more innovative once you're embedded in a program. Another thing: I'm not sure how much you positioned yourself in relation to existing scholarship, but doing this might be a really effective way of pitching your argument (even in a SOP). It might be really fruitful to explain your work as part of the New Formalist revival, specifically reacting against some of the methodological issues of hardcore (strictly sociopolitical) historicism. I think this might head off adcoms' concern (at least I imagine this is a concern of some of them) that prosody studies isn't a thing people really publish on anymore. In general, the importance of "selling" your argument gets overlooked on this site. I'd guess this is just as important as-- perhaps even more than -- "fit."

No kidding! In addition to some other reading, I'm working my way through this edition right now. I'm not terribly fond of all the Norton Critical Editions, but I love this one.

I've been trying to finish up my thesis, so I've been listening to Daft Punk's Alive 2007 album on repeat. There's something about loud, fast club music that motivates me to write about early modern logic.

I've moved on to reading Bourdieu's Distinction. I think its ideas are brilliant, but the prose is so turgid that I can only do about fifteen pages an hour. And even then I have to read it aloud to keep up with its convoluted syntax.