Sav

I couldn't have put it better myself. I just accepted my offer at Yale — see you in New Haven?  

To the surprise of probably no one who's ever heard me say anything about anything, I officially accepted Rice's offer of admission. 

I turned down CUNY today. 

Just sent an email to accept the offer from the University of Mississippi's MA program!

I've turned down Nebraska 

I’ll be there!! Looking forward to meeting you! 

GOT ACCEPTED AT UPENN! I'm still in disbelief. Got a phone call from the DGS, so seems like UPenn isn't closed today after all?

I also want to point towards Sunaura Taylor's Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation. It's great.
The Deleuze & Guattari full chapter name is "Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, becoming-Imperceptible" & is indeed from A Thousand Plateaus!
& if you like them, @NoNameGuy, you might like Brian Massumi's What Animals Teach Us About Politics which is really Deleuzian.
I think having studied philosophy is a huge asset for you! There's a lot of synergy between the two fields -- While in an "English" program, my focus is on philosophy or "theory" more often than not.
OH, and Alexis Shotwell's Against Purity has a few chapters on animals, and talks about veganism in a way I find compelling!

I've listed some books below. One thing that should be useful to you is that animal studies as a theory draws heavily from philosophy. Some of these are fiction and some of these are theoretical texts. You'll want to also research posthumanism, new materialism, and objected oriented ontology, as those fields intersect/stem from animal studies (among other disciplines). I also really enjoy the Knowing Animals podcast. 
Richard Adams, Plague Dogs
T.C. Boyle, When the Killing’s Done,
Sue Coe, Dead Meat
J. M Coetzee, The Lives of Animals 
J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace
Olaf Stapledon, Sirius
Derrida, “’Eating Well’ or the Calculation of the Subject” 
Levinas, “The Name of a Dog” 
Giles Deleuze, "Becoming Animal" (in a number of their writings but I *think" in Thousand Plateaus)
Derek Ryan, Animal Theory: A Critical Introduction
Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am
Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal
Haraway, When Species Meet
Cary Wolfe, Animal Rites 
Mel Y. Chen, Animacies
Wolfe, What is Posthumanism?
Wolfe, ed. Zoontologies
Akira Lipitz, The Electric Animal 
Peter Singer, Animal Liberation
Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat
Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights
Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, Zoopolis 
Chris Philo, “Animals, Geography, and the City: Inclusions and Exclusions”
Anat Pik, Creaturely Poetics
Gary Francione, Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach 
Colin Dayan, The Law is a White Dog 
Lindgren Johnson, Race Matters, Animal Matters: Fugitive Humanism in African America
Bénédicte Boisseron, Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question 
Neel Ahuja, Bioinsecurities: Disease Interventions, Empire, and the Government of Species 
There's plenty more so if you like any of these and want additional recommendations, or decide to go in a particular direction, just message me. Also, one thing that made sense to me when picking my literary time period (I do 19-20c American lit) was when a professor said that she enjoyed all literature but she wrote her best work and enjoyed writing about early American texts. So, just see what you feel drawn to with literary analysis and that should help you narrow down an area.  

In at UNC Chapel Hill! Received a nice, very personalized email from the DGS. Look out for those acceptances if you applied!

I disagree completely. School prestige, from my experience on this board and in applying, is probably the most important factor. It is not the only factor, of course. A good candidate is a good candidate, whether they come from Yale or Unknown University, and ability and fit are extremely important. However, it is far easier to demonstrate you are a good candidate when everyone reading your application knows your school has strong academics (not to mention the potential of having LoRs from leaders in the field). After all, accepting a candidate is a risk that involves a lot of time, money, and other resources from a department. If you somehow got identical applications from Yale and UU, of course the Yale candidate would get in. In terms of proof, I have scoured every graduate student page from every college I have considered and from my experience, most candidates come from recognizable schools (though I have reassured myself that it is still worth a shot because there's always someone from a university that seems to be less prestigious than your own). The lower you go down alleged prestige list of programs, the more non-elite backgrounds you find, of course, but it is definitely easier to be a Yale graduate than a UU graduate on the admissions scene.
That doesn't mean that all the Yale applicants will get in before anyone from UU is even considered. The application still needs to be good, you still need to have good fit, and then all the other hidden factors need to be considered, too. As for your examples, they're a bit of confirmation bias and anecdotal. As I said, it is not the only factor, so there will be candidates from Yale who get shut-out and candidates from UU who sweep. Also, you have 2(!) offers, in a field where the term safety school is a misnomer (also, am I to understand from MPhil that your degree is from is UK? Because it is also arguably harder to apply as an international for the same reason: school prestige is less recognizable (and a host of other factors such as academic culture dissonance, etc.)).
I think we would all prefer a neutral playing field and dismiss school prestige because, ultimately, it is one of the things you absolutely cannot do anything about (other than go to a top MA, which many people do). There is nothing for us to be gained from this conclusion, but to deny it is to fall into the same trappings that suggest that all you need to do is work hard to be successful when we know that to be patently untrue (even if for many people it has proven to be true). This fact changes nothing though. There is a chance that you get into a top school no matter where you went to, and to do so you need to make sure everything in your app is perfect. That is the case if you're from Yale or UU. But we should recognize the fact that for some of us this is a matter of swimming against the current. When I applied last year I talked to 4 professors, all of whom went to some very good schools, including programs I applied to. They all told me the same thing: you definitely have the ability to study at the top programs but you should consider applying to some other schools just in case because no one on these adcomms knows who we are ('we' being the school, some of them were very reputable).
Honestly, if I have the time at some point I would like to test this out by compiling information on where successful applicants apply from.
 

As I said, the process is the same no matter where you come from, it’s just easier for some. We just need to have perspective so we can maximize our chances. Hope or no hope, the only time to give up is when all decisions have been made.
 
There’s also the issue of cultural capital. The higher up the rungs of ‘prestige’ you go, statistically, the likelier it is that you have more means than those below. More means translate to more opportunities to impove your CV and focus on academics. It’s a bit of vicious cycle that is not unique to academia and so there is no reason for me to think that admissions are somehow isolated from these issues, either.

who's ready for Monday aka when more decisions are going to roll out and creep into your email inbox?

waitlisted at Michigan State! "high on the waiting list"

Spam folder caught CUNY acceptance email from professor... not an academic address so hoping this is real. 

I really love the Knowing Animals podcast that discusses animal studies.

I really love the Knowing Animals podcast that discusses animal studies.

I really love the Knowing Animals podcast that discusses animal studies.

Just got an email from Columbia that they are “sufficiently hopeful” they’ll be able to offer me admissions. Whatever that means, lol. They also asked me to “bear with them” so it seems like they’re trying to get me admitted. What a weird experience with Columbia! Still keeping my fingers crossed. 

Waitlisted at Emory—this has been a dream school of mine since 2013, so not in the best place about it. 
DGS said I was on a small waitlist but not a ton of hope of movement since Emory has increased their stipend in a significant way this year. 

I got into UConn PhD (not on the board yet). I received the email about 6-7 hours ago. I don’t even know what I’m feeling. I’d completely accepted another shut-out and was talking myself into alternative plans that now it doesn’t seem real and I don’t think it has even hit me yet. 
For future reference, it is a 5 year offer to TA from Y1. Specific duties will be sent in the future. I’m an African-Americanist. If anyone wants info PM me. Also if anyone has info on UConn (like CoL, campus, etc.), please PM me, too.
Thank you to everyone who was supportive through this process. Other than my wife you’re the first people I’ve told.

Woke up to an acceptance from CUNY!  

Woke up to an acceptance from CUNY!  

Woke up to an acceptance from CUNY!  

Accepted to UVA! I am in shock and ecstatic.