haltheincandescent

I'll try, yeah, I'm just the least assertive person on the planet (and until the interview stuff, it hasn't been that much of a problem; just spiraling a bit because of nerves and also having been sick)--and I've also had trouble in the past (though, admittedly, that was when living in dorms [in the party-capital of the college world!], where the population/attitude was a bit different), where asking for quiet (especially at certain times), would end in the opposite (noise at the exact times you asked for none to be, even when it wasn't happening then before), with little attention/oversight from RAs. I guess at least the stereotypical harp player wouldn't be as vaguely spiteful as party-first dorm mates, but, who knows. As for the libraries--you would think, but no. Everything's either a space for individual and silent work, or a space that allows talking but is prioritized for groups (so if you're alone in a study room, even skyping, a group can come along and basically force you out (with support from library staff)--and they're prime real estate around the times I have my interviews, especially this time of the semester). Either way, it ends up that my advisor offered his office for a bit, so, yay for quietness for this, at least.

interviews interviews interviews all this week, and add to it: i have to give a training presentation at work, which i was totally fine about, until....: the director of the whole company is now apparently going to be sitting in on it. cool. not nervous at all. nope. (relax and back to the w(h)ining on thursday. soon, please, please.)

Okay. Sorry for the double post, but this one is necessary. I have a neighbor, who plays the harp. Loudly. Actually, having played the harp briefly myself, as a child, I'm not sure if there's really a way to control the volume while playing the harp. But anyway: it's loud. And really not good--I mean, they're obviously practicing, but, still. The same three bars over and over, each time with slightly different errors isn't exactly the angelic harp music one might be hoping for. (I'm not sure if I'd be any less annoyed if they were better, to be honest, but I'd at least like the option). And, perhaps most importantly/obnoxiously: they mostly practice at.....11pm. You know, that time when people like to sleep. At first, because I'm an awkward person, I didn't really want to be the person to knock on their door, or the wall, and yell at them to please, for the love of all that is holy, respect other people's space and silence, especially at 11pm, oh my god. But it's every night and I'm about to explode. This is the kind of thing that, if it was house or punk being blasted, would get the cops called. (It's that loud.) However, I have no clue which neighbor it is. The sound is kind of echo-y, so it could be my next door neighbor, but it could also be the one directly above me, or, alternatively, the one diagonal. Or another one altogether, I suppose. I'm not sure I want to knock on each door in my complex, and bother already-bothered-by-ridiculous-harp-music-people even more than they are already. Yet. The thing is, though: I have Skype interviews next week. And, while they normally practice at 11pm, I swear, if they decide to strum those strings while I'm in the middle of trying to secure my academic and professional future: I will be just slightly more than upset. I haven't discovered a not-at-home place that makes practical sense to do a Skype interview at, yet, so I'm stuck with this, and: christ, I should be able to do it at home without worrying about bad harp chords interrupting it and/or my sleep. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. So siccccck of it. (Can you tell that it's happening currently? >.>)

@solomonski thanks! (DFW/Infinite Jest fan??)

Interviews are not terribly common in English (comp. lit. is a different matter, though; also, I have no clue about the process in the UK--my experience and advice here is US only)--my advisors were very surprised and slightly confused themselves when I told them I was invited to one. As far as I know, though, Chicago and Duke are doing them this year (so far just via Skype, which seems to be the common route; any that I have that aren't have paid for everything), but many others (including WashU and Brown, from your list, which are the only ones I'm for sure familiar with) haven't before and, likely (though don't quote me on this) aren't still. So, you're probably mostly right in expecting for-sure decisions from most of them in mid. Feb. (OSU just notifies early).

car battery died, ugh. in the car i'm currently borrowing from my dad (who is out of town and so not using it) so i can get to the airport for interviews and such. thankfully, i did (after several frustrating hours), get it running again. however, i only was able to get it running again because there was an extra battery and charger in the car--which is to say, this is an ongoing problem, one my dad had planned ahead for. which is also to say: it's probably going to die again. ugh. this exact thing, pretty much, happened to my own car: leave it for more than 3 days without driving, and the battery would be dead. after several frustrating months of dealing with that (i was living on campus, and had to park at the football stadium--but had to move the car for football games; so it dying was an absolute disaster), here i am with no car, borrowing one. one that's doing the same goddamn thing. here's hoping it doesn't become too obnoxious, and that making it back home and to the airport goes smoothly.

Hey, @klader. I am (at least one of) the Penn State acceptances (in english generally, not rhet/comp specifically; but they're within the same department at PSU, right [I know a few are separate, at least]?)--I applied only with a BA, and am on the MA/PhD track (though, I don't think I specifically mentioned continuing on to the PhD since it was an application for the MA, technically--just discussed long term research plans which at least implied a PhD, I think). Anyway: I don't think you need to be too worried yet. I definitely sympathize with you on getting an early rejection; however, keep in mind that Michigan State was very early with decisions this year. Further, there's been a lot written on these boards in past years about Penn State taking quite a while to get through the whole process--they might, like OSU has, be notifying fellowship recipients first, and then others will come later. We'll see. Either way, try to remember: it's not a rejection until it's officially a rejection. And, finally, though I don't specifically have experience applying to MAs (so, anyone who does, correct me if I'm wrong), from looking at the results boards in past years, decisions are usually made around the same time as a lot of the programs I'm applying to: mid Feb to mid March. Which is to say, (unfortunately) you/we still have quite a while to wait, but, fortunately, it's hardly over, so you still have a lot (of I hope good things) to hear yet.

First, congrats @johnnycomelately!! Second, I second what's already been said about "tell me a bit about yourself," but to add: you definitely don't want to entirely re-hash your application materials/SoP, but as with the SoP, you'll want to think out a similar--yet shortened and simplified, obviously--narrative of yourself and your research interests. As with the SoP, you don't want to get too personal, go into the "as a child" sort of thing, but here I think you can be a bit more informal, and talk about yourself as a human being--after all, interviews are about getting to see more about you than just your academic accomplishments--which you've already given them--so, you want to be you, for sure (but also always connecting it back to your reason for applying to that particular school).

From what I can tell from these boards, I think most humanities/social sciences programs notify a little later than the hard/life sciences, etc.--& especially those that don't do interviews. My one solid acceptance is surprisingly early--for mine that don't interview, late Feb/early March is about when they say they'll send out decisions.

Sorry to hear you didn't hear from them. For the rest, all I know is what I managed to find on these forums from the last couple of years--if it's the same, they interview ~15-20 by skype, then ~8 of those get invited to campus for a second interview, then ~6 of those are admitted, with the others from the 8, and some(?) from the original round also on the wait list--overall, a really intense process. (Who knows if it's the same this year, though) I guess in the case that enough turn them down, they'd go back and pull from those not interviewed--though, I really hate to say, I don't know how likely that would be to happen. Here's hoping for better news for you in the next few weeks-

The friend I applied with and I both got notifications about interviews with Duke today! We both work in different departments at the library, and when he got his, he ran upstairs: "Hey! Check your email!" And there it was. (It's supposed to be quiet on my floor, but...oh well; lots of excited chattering) Because: an interview with Fredric Jameson (who, for those not in lit/cultural studies, is a huge, huge figure in the field). Excited & terrified in equal parts.

And, Duke Lit interview invitations just went out, it seems.

I applied to all 3 of those schools/programs--nothing from Columbia or Duke yet. (As for Chicago, as @genderboi said, there have been emails sent out for tentative interviews.) As far as I can tell from past results posted on the boards (which could of course not be the same for this year), it'll still be a few weeks before anything from Columbia. Duke Lit. has, in the past, notified about interviews around this or next week. At this point, you should have nothing to worry about--just more waiting. Join us here to commiserate about the waiting process, if you want:

First reject (at 11:20pm--from a school that I know is the same time zone, so thanks for keeping me awake last night....). Not as bad as it could be since I already have 1 acceptance, but options would always be welcome. But, now all my early notifiers seem to be out of the way--back to the waiting for another 3-5 weeks.

Could be something to do with the other change this year, the switch to allowing applicants to apply to both Lit and English--might just be someone new in charge, setting it up a different way--that includes interviews--, or perhaps both sides are getting more applicants, instead of a split between the two, meaning more strong candidates, meaning greater need for interviewing? Could be a lot of things, though.

Well, if I click application status, it takes me to a page that says "pending," but that's a link, which takes at least me to yet another page where it says the app's in review. Maybe the same for you?

I work as an editor's assistant/proofreader at an academic press, and, it's crazy how many editing errors there are in manuscripts that get accepted (and how many persist despite several stages of review), from the smallest typos down to major issues (such as entire repeated paragraphs, and the like). Which is to say, errors definitely happen, and profs are probably making a bunch too in their own writing, so they likely understand that, although overall good presentation is definitely definitely important, a certain percentage of errors in a "first" submitted draft (which of course is like a 4-13th draft for you) shouldn't overtake the overall idea, if it's a good one. Especially once you get to book-scale, with even an almost outrageous amount of self-editing, some of these things almost just can't be caught except by someone else (I think some people even hire proofreaders for their dissertation, for this exact reason). Obviously, there are a lot of things only you can do or catch, in terms of larger scale editing or extremely technical jargon, but for highlighting the egregious, a second set of eyes is always helpful. (My mom used to help read over my papers for this reason )

Hahah, yeah, I used to just put in place holder titles, because I wanted something on the page when I started, one of which was something like "Something or other about failure in this novel--the kind of failure I hope this paper isn't." I printed it, and almost turned it in without reading it. I ran into the prof while going to reprint it, half an hour before it was due--"No, sorry, it's not ready quite yet...." Though, to be honest, he probably would have gotten a kick out of the title. But, after that, I put any place holder text in brackets so I can easily go back and search for what I needed to remember to actually input.

Yeah, I haven't reread anything that's still under review, but for this one I only even realized it because they sent me a pdf of the offer letter, and it was being sent to the incorrect address. And now, here's a whole mess of them having to update my application, now, since I can't do it. (I mean, I really don't think it'll be that much to deal with, but still I feel bad for taking up someone's time even with a tiny typo like this.)

Just realized I had a typo in my address on one of my applications. Listed as 234 instead of 324. Whoops. (Best is, I remember reading it over, and changing it, but I guess the website didn't auto-save corrections, or something, but, alas.) And, of course, it was on the one application that's actually sent an acceptance, and a hard copy offer letter. Egh. I sent a correction and apology to them, but, also, 324 doesn't exist on my street, so hopefully it'll still show up--in the meantime, hoping a such a small, yet still pretty darn careless, error won't annoy the people at my program. Edit: ugh, they called me out on it, too. "You had 234 on your application, but I can resend it." Feeling like a silly idiot now. Blah.

It's here: http://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/ You can search for, say just "literature" or "english" to pull up all results in your fields, or, also more specific things like "duke english," etc., and it'll show you all the results people have posted for that field or program over the history of this site, along with the date it was received. If you hover over the little red diamond, it'll give you the stats that the people who got the acceptance/reject inputted. Basically useful to keep track of when results start coming in, as well as the average GPA/GREs of those admitted (though of course there's always a lot more at play than just those stats). You can also record your own interview/acceptances/rejects there to keep others updated. If you're feeling especially anxious checking that board all the time, you can go here: (someone put together a pretty useful site where you can set it up to email you when new results for your programs are posted, so you know when to check websites/your mailbox for your own stuff, etc.)

Mine's still "in review." Wondering, of course, now, whether or not they're notifying all at once, and if this means a likely reject. We shall see, I suppose.

Mine are all on my phone/work calendar. Everywhere's been slightly early, this year, so far. (I'm not complaining, or anything, just observing.)

Most of my extended family, when I told them I was going to get a doctorate, still think I'm going to be an MD. They are all excited for me. My dad, who knows what I'm doing, was, for a long time (until I very carefully laid out a defense of my decision and a larger one concerning the importance of humanities studies), less thrilled. So, from my half-experience, there's more support for people studying medicine, though definitely because there's a clear career path there, whereas before I even decided to apply, my dad would constantly berate the very idea of a humanities PhD: "what job could someone even think they'd get with that? As a person who hires, I wouldn't even consider someone with a ~cultural studies~ degree, just out of the pure fact that they clearly don't have any common sense or general understanding of what's important in the real world." Needless: it took me a long time to build up the courage to tell him I wanted to study English Lit, instead of, say, law or business. (After explaining it, though, he's excited now--also because he might get to visit me in NYC or Boston).

If the friend I've been going through the application process gets in, there will be many many beers and celebrations. If he doesn't get in, drinks will probably still be had, but more sad ones. We've been running through this whole thing together--applying, but also taking classes, co-authoring blogs, constantly bouncing theory ideas off each other--so even though I'm in at least somewhere, it won't be quite the same if he's not around too (well, by around, I mean in a PhD program--he wants west coast, I want east coast, so even in the best possible case, it'll be a little bittersweet). Also, yes to duolingo. I got through the whole tree for German, and feel pretty good about reading short stories and essays, though still with reference to a dictionary for outlying vocab.