haltheincandescent

Oh, how accurate. Someone brought up the fact that I was applying to grad programs at lunch at work today, and suddenly like five people have to chime in: "Ah, grad school, the thing I wish I had never done" "It's a ponzi scheme, stay away" "I just dropped out, got sick of it" "I even finished, but hated every second after the first semester" "Why would you even waste the money applying, just don't," the same people who have been making snide comments about my decision over the past couple of moths. Like, you know, okay. I get it. Grad school can have it's bad times, academia can be terrible, application fees suck, etc., etc., etc. But, you know, guess what: I've done plenty of research and reading. I know what's coming, really. And here I still am. Why? Because I legitimately love research, and teaching, and was genuinely at home (albeit tiredly) when working on my thesis and still think there's lots of important work to be done there. I've taken a year off of school, with the intention that if I found out I loved doing something else better, I would keep doing that instead. And you know what: never a day goes by that I don't wish I studying, reading, writing, preparing for a conference, discussing, and juggling ten projects, even as stressful as I full-well know all that can be. I'm not the "oh well, I just didn't know what I wanted to do, and don't want to do 'real' work for another 5 years, so hey! grad school!" applicant. But nor am I the "I think it's going to be just like undergrad, and I loved undergrad, so....!" person. Despite being driven to grad school by the fact that I loved what I was doing as an undergrad (though most of what I loved was the reading groups and conferences I was a part of with faculty/graduates), I recognize that this is going to be a huge change, from student to junior-junior professional scholar. I know that there's lots of politicking and managing and career-building that's going to go along with this. I know it's not some idealized life of the mind. But still I want it. And you know what: maybe they're all right. Maybe I'll end up hating it. Maybe I'll regret it, and feel extra like an idiot for being so adamant about really wanting it. I should probably be careful about seeing myself as some sort of exception to what is increasingly seeming like the rule of "ugh, what a waste of 5-7 years." But, it's a little unfair to criticize someone for just wanting the same opportunity, the same experience you were given, before that person has their own chance to figure it out. As one of my profs told me as I was fretting to her about my decision, offering one of the few lights in this dim experience of advice-seeking: at the end of the day, TT job or no TT job, it's an experience, and one that can be great in many ways and lame in many ways [just like any other, as I'm finding out in having taken another job for my gap year], and if you can't see yourself not even trying, then do it. (It's just hard to remember that when I continue to be the butt of everyone at work's cynical jokes about their own past naivety....)

I'm looking forward to the holidays for that exact reason! I was lucky enough, in my year off of school, to find a part time job that covers the bills, which gave me lots of time to work on applications. But now that applications are in....all the free time I have is a little much. While time to catch up on Netflix, dig around endlessly on Spotify, find sweet Xmas gifts for everyone, and read whatever I want at any given moment has been nice....I find that the waiting-time passes very slowly without a defined project to throw myself into work on and/or a group of friends/peers/family/etc. to just spend most of that free time with (friends/peers are still in school or are former profs, family is several hours away). So family time is very welcome--all drinks, food, gifts, and admittedly-probably-annoying political and "so where are you going to be going to school!?" chatter will help the time pass more quickly; then on the other side, likely only two or three more weeks till a first decision.

Seriously--still at least a month (two for most) out until I'll probably see a result. But, it's definitely exciting to see some acceptances already!--congrats to both of you on here, and the other 8 wherever they are!!

Agreed. And when in doubt, OP, you can probably ask your academic advisor if s/he knows anything about the one you've been invited to, or, alternatively, just google the name. That's what I did when I got one from Golden Key, and quickly learned to be skeptical after seeing many others chiming in about the scamminess.

Let us also remember that the first response, the one with which we've all concurred, pointed out dream for a balance of everything with teaching--this is the area in which my profs/teachers have had the most impact on me and many of my friends/peers, as students that ourselves started out without certain common opportunities, and this is the area (one of several) in which I hope to benefit others by working to give students like myself the opportunities I missed. I have a longstanding fascination with pedagogical theory, and I intend to keep it up. Further, I could have, yes, indicated how my publishing plans above intend ultimately to improve accessibility to scholarly work, both in terms of $ and in terms of having, alongside more traditional and technical monographs, well-researched but popularly written works that could help give more readers access to contemporary research and it's impact (both in humanities and sciences; I find the latter to be far more incomprehensible when wrapped in technical monographic garb, but, hey, I'm not an expert in that, so maybe this desire for at least a portion of academic books to be more popularly-accessible is, in fact, partly selfish in that I personally want a better understanding of topics that I haven't fully put in the time to study from the ground up) So, I want to benefit people through education--in my mind all of these things were implied in "teaching" and "improving academic publishing," and, yes, I could have spelled it out, but I was writing a brief dream, not a full 10 year proposal.

Pretty much the same. Not exactly sure how I'll work it in, but I'd also like to continue to be involved in academic publishing (where I am now), and not just as, obviously, an author, or even the usual prof position of series editor or reviewer, but do something to really work to bring publishers and the scholarly communities they work with & for together. Because man is there a huge disconnect between cultures sometimes, and I hate it. (Also my research deals with the history of publishing practices--albeit mostly involving fiction, but, still. There's a pretty direct connection between this work and my research--bring the latter theorizing into some sort of practice.)

Which program? Mine from UT Austin was marked as "in review" after I had submitted all of my own materials, but before my third required LoR was in. rising_star might be right, but I'm going to guess, from the similar situation I was in, that once all your part of the app is submitted, some programs get a head start on reviewing those parts, then the letters and other supporting materials are added on to your file as they come. Same reason, sort of, why letters are sometimes okay being a few days later than the rest of the app--they don't seem, to me, to be part of the absolutely crucial criteria for the first round of cuts. Further, someone mentioned to me that "under review" might just mean that the materials have officially been sent on from the admissions office of the overall program to your specific department--again, though, I don't think that means that later materials (that still arrive by the deadline) won't be looked at as well.

I saw somewhere on here, too, that someone suggested using a new email account for all application stuff--which of course I didn't see until after starting everything (also I thought it would be more official/better to use my university address--which is also my work address & I get so many emails........ugh). I think I might set up a new one now, though, then make a forwarding rule--send everything re: admissions // re: my school names to the new inbox, then set it to a different sound on my phone, that way it's more obvious if it's something to or not to jump at. A little over-complicated/over-thought, probably, but I know come Jan/Feb I'll be anxious at every single ring otherwise.....

They will for sure. She already submitted the ones for early deadlines, but, for whatever reason, she's waiting until the week of each deadline to submit for that program.

Hm. Mine says in review as well (admittedly I don't remember it ever saying incomplete, but, it probably did, I just wasn't paying attention), even though my last recommender still hasn't yet uploaded her letter. Presumably "in review" means that all the main portions are uploaded, so they're trying to get a head start on reviewing, even before the deadline? Anyone who hasn't uploaded their writing sample/SoP yet? Have the same thing / still "incomplete"?

Oof, I wish I could take some time off and go to LA. Alas, I can't afford anything between app fees & saving for potential campus visits come decision time D:

ugh i should never have checked the box for the gre search service. i mean, it was nice at first, when i was getting emails from good programs that i might have been actually interested in (different research focuses, though). but now it's a bunch of "yeah! you want to join this MBA program, right?!" with just swell subject lines like "2016 Application Notice!" "Admissions Office of...." i'm hoping they'll slow down once we get into admissions decision season in late jan/feb, but....with rolling admissions and spring semester admissions....i don't know if i'll be able to take all this "oh man! maybe this is the 'application notice' for X-school i applied to, finally!" blah blah blah

Most of mine are English Lit, but I applied to a couple of Comp Lit programs as well (Emory, Columbia [since it's together with English anyway], and Duke [well, their Literature program anyway]). Definitely feeling the anxiety of waiting as well! I've been out of school since May, so I've been away from the similar anxiety of waiting for grades for a bit--definitely didn't miss it! But, I think that at this point, I've (we've?) been working on the apps for longer than there's left to wait now--so, not that much longer :). In the meantime, I have a stack of books and a Netflix queue to get me through the next months.

Last minute panic as Duke and Stanford's rec requests went to spam (twice!) for the last of my recommenders--but it's all sorted now, and all is in for the early deadlines. I went ahead and submitted everything on my end for all of them--now just to wait for that same last recommender to send in letters for the rest.

Oof, yeah--I ended up going ahead and submitting all of mine today....and my bank account is now very sad (although shout out to Vandy for waiving the fee for submitting online).

Double check that they don't take it after you submit the rest of the application. This was, for whatever reason, the case with Vanderbilt--no place to upload it on the actual application, but after submission, another page opened that allowed you to upload additional "additional materials." Otherwise, I'd say yeah, either upload it under undefined "additional materials" if there's a place for that, or, if not, probably ask the DGS if they'll take it as an additional attachment.

They're all done and off. Now to sleep--for like, 3 months would be preferable.

And off go my Dec. 7-8th apps. At this point I should for real just submit them all, because if I find a typo in one of those later SoPs.......it's probably in the ones I just sent, too. (99.9% confident there are none, though.)

My first real deadline isn't until Monday, but everything's pretty much set to go--all LoRs in, except one, and that prof just said yesterday that they'd all for sure be in on time. I'm just holding onto it as long as possible just in case I have a sudden idea about something that could be better in my SoP (I work best under deadline pressure). I should probably just go ahead and submit them, though. And then, this:

If my dad calls me, asks me what I'm doing, then laughs half-disappointedly half-snidely when I say "reading/studying" one more goddamn time.... I mean, what? I go home for the holidays, and after family event #7 in a single day, I go to my room to read a bit--because, you know, even though I'm not in school at the moment, I like to stay on top of things, get at least a little reading in every day; and I'm a bit of an introvert and can only take so much "~doing stuff~" in one day. My dad decides he wants to go out shopping, or out to eat or something, who knows--and, it has to be a family affair. "No, it's no big deal, I don't mind, I won't feel left out, I assure you 100% if you all go and I just stay here it will be great and fine. Really," is not a good enough answer--instead, I must be sick, maybe, or am just a boring old wet-blanket who doesn't like to have fun, and also apparently wants to ruin the fun for everyone else. So I give up and go. It was the same thing last year when I actually had papers to write and assigned readings to finish over breaks. I had to finish it all up beforehand, or wait until everyone else was asleep, because god forbid..... So, now I'm back home, and, hey: time to catch up on reading. And what do you know, he calls to check in about something--and apparently reading on my own time is terribly boring and anti-fun as well! He sure does love to brag vaguely about his kid that's got a great GPA and is applying to an Ivy League; he sure did insist when I was still in HS and below that anything not an A was entirely unacceptable; and he sure does love telling dramatic stories about all the long hours he put in and work-centric sacrifices he made "for the family." But, anything that all that work actually entails for anyone but himself...? Nope. Boring. An un-family attitude. (I guess maybe he thinks academic work isn't comparable in effort to his "real" work & so shouldn't take as much time??) I mean seriously, it seems totally ridiculous even typing this out--but there it is. WTF.

He got them and all is good! Though he did say his letters would be in very close to the deadline. Then, that he's keeping his fingers crossed--though about what is not exactly clear. I rather hope it's re: me getting in somewhere and not re: him getting the letters in on time!

Thanks. And, I only sent the soonest 3 so far, so no sudden glut of emails; I also didn't want to suddenly leave 14, and figured those three might be enough of a reminder to go back to the others as well, since they already have the list.

Alright, so, I've got a week 'til my first deadline, and I just sent out reminders the last of my recommenders that haven't yet sent in their letters--but have a couple of questions. First: If I use the automatic online system, should I send a separate reminder through my own email account as well? (Probably too worried about overly nagging/bothering, but also vaguely worried that the requests might have been spam-filtered--though it admittedly would be odd odd if all 15 were, only to one prof. Although: another prof. submitted 2/3 of them when I sent the original request, then only submitted the last few today after I sent the reminders, so I guess some were indeed missed--sort of worried it could happen again.) So: "Hello Prof X, I just wanted to check in with a reminder that the first few application deadlines (X-School, Y-School, etc.) are coming up in about a week. I sent separate reminders through each school's online system with the link to the recommendation form, but wanted to send this as well just to make sure that nothing was lost in spam filters or otherwise missing. If you got them, definitely no rush--I'm just double/triple checking everything at this point! Thanks-" Second: should I send reminders for all my programs at the same time, or only the ones that are due in a week? (My deadlines are pretty spread out between Dec-Jan.) Thanks!

Mrs./Ms./Miss./etc./etc./etc./etc./or etc.? Ugh. Really, I don't know why this annoys me as much as it does, but: reason #5 for getting a PhD: Dr. That's it kids. Dr. (Okay, it's not a motivating reason at all, obviously, but, nice little added plus).

ugh Michigan. you're the only one that wants a paper transcript mailed. you're the only one that limits my SoP to 2 double-spaced pages. You're the only one that requires a separate personal statement. yours is the only app of mine that's not 99% done. And now, 4 hours after I pick up my transcript, signed and sealed with your special cover sheet included with all my personal info with the exception of the UMID that I don't have yet, you send me my UMID. So difficult. Why, why so difficult. If only your program wasn't wonderfully suited to my interests...........