sarabethke

I saw that too! Wtf, right?? Rude.

Oh, nice! Thanks! Hopefully I'll get a yes from someone...starting to bite my nails over here and go crosseyed checking my email every five minutes.

Notre Dame will have updated your application already if they've decided to reject you, but you have to first open the application then click to see your application before it will say "you have a new message." They didn't email or anything. I'm waiting to hear from UT Austin, Indiana, Mississippi, and Oregon. I'm not 100% sure what my focus is. I like both Middle English and Old French literature and that sort of exchange between England and France in the 11s and 12s. What I do know is that I'm interested in magic/supernatural/religion in those literatures.

Where is Indiana? I'm surprised they haven't notified anyone of anything yet. I guess it's still early, but it looks like last year they were at least a week earlier...

Finally heard something...waitlisted at Davis. God, I want to go there!!!

YES. Thank you. This is me.

Oh...digital...duh! I've been picturing them all in a room sorting through paper this whole time. Thanks @bhr and @solomonski for your responses as well. It makes sense that it would be less about "having" time than "making time" and departments are going to do that differently. It's good to have some information though.

Does anyone know anything about when adcoms do or do not meet? Is it just any time of the week? Surely not on weekends? Probably not the first week of school because they're getting organized with actual classes? Or is that a good time because they don't have grading/too much going on yet? Anything?

Yes, and I second what echo said about cvs at this point generally bring too small to be picky about what goes on them

All I have are "Under review" (submitted but not yet accepted) or "Forthcoming" (accepted but not yet published/presented) articles and conference presentations. And I put that at the beginning of the line, in place of "Presenter" or something.

I'm in my second year in an MA and I actually feel a lot more supported by faculty than in undergrad. I've definitely seen proof of departmental politics, but nothing that really affects me. My stipend is not great, but it's an MA and it's better than nothing. It pays half my apartment rent and I have $100 for groceries (I do pay my whole phone bill and car note though) so I've taken out loans. Hoping for my PhD I won't have to anymore. i am really bad at making friends and was terrified I would have no friends so I immediately latched onto the first fellow lit major I found and we are now really close! After getting a teaching assistantship this year I know a lot more people AND have one other really close friend. My school had a grad student Facebook page and people often try to get together, although I've never gone, so I assume if you want to meet people from other departments it's not hard if there's something like that to work with.

I saw that this morning! I don't think it was necessarily saying that the GRE was "important" in the way that it indicates success, but that it's used as a cutoff which I thought was kind of commonly known. Some people say that one item will not make or break your application, but when it comes to a very low GRE score it really might. The points about diversity were pretty disheartening to me, because it kind of reinforces the importance of race in making decisions, whether that means favoring whites, blacks, hispanics, asians, or other US minorities. I did find it to be an interesting read! Indeed, despite the promise of anonymity, I was a little shocked at some of the frankness of some faculty when talking to the researcher.

Ha! Very nice! I got an email the other day saying "one of our transcripts hasn't come yet" and I felt so helpless and frustrated but then they emailed a few days later and said it arrived. So a different kind of excitement altogether haha

Nice!

When were your applications due?! Geez Louise--it's so early!

Good to know, y'all! Thanks!

Others who applied to UT Austin...if your application says "in review" it's done, right? I'm kind of thrown off by the lack of a "submit" button. My status used to say "incomplete" but now it's "in review" and that's all it should be, right?

Plenty of people I know in my MA program comes from schools I've never heard of! I definitely mentioned professors in my SOP for the program I'm in, and I did that partly to show how I wanted to go more in depth in certain areas so that I could choose between several interests I have. We actually read very few canonical works in my program, which is not something I expected. My department has a big emphasis on New Contexts. I brought in my teaching experience, PhD goals, interest in working with people in the department (people will tell you a lot that they've never even worked with anyone they mentioned in their SOP, usually because they go to larger universities, but I've worked with (and loved working with) everyone I mentioned! As my advisor would say, your POTENTIAL matters so much. Credentials and present experience matter less.

Yes! I had thought that UT and/or A&M only used ApplyTexas for undergrad apps, but apparently not. Ridiculous. Luckily I found that out over a month ago. I got all my applications open and going pretty early so I could see if there were more specific instructions for things like SOPs and letters of rec in them.

I have three out of six done--just sent off Oregon's today (they wanted so much more stuff than the rest!) UT's is due mid-December as well, then I have one left for January and one February. I'm not even going to worry about them until mid-February because that's the earliest any have said I'll hear back! Just trying to crank out the rest of my papers for actual classes at this point.

I see what you mean now. Thank you!

Right, but California schools require the SOP and a diversity statement which, to me, indicates they should be about different things? I have all my serious scholarly stuff in my SOP. Why ask for a second statement just to say all the same things?

Hi y'all, While I've read a lot about SOPs and I think I have mine just the way I want it (finally), I haven't seen much about what makes a good personal history statement besides, you know, everyone's varying personal histories. Is there a lot of weight put on this, or does it just help the AdCom determine whether they want to spend 5-6 years with me hanging around the department? Are there certain things I should not say? And what am I supposed to say if I'm not really...I don't know...diverse?

A friend of mine who applied to Michigan told me they did not want any professors mentioned, but on many application pages (such as UT Austin I think) you're encouraged to mention people you'd like to work with, so look for that kind of thing!

I haven't made it into a PhD program yet, but I'm in an MA at an unranked school and I was worried about the same thing. Then my professors listed several examples of people who have gone on to good schools, including UPenn, so I'm feeling more hopeful I'll be able to join their number!