Warelin

Congrats! I’d also like to add a small note here that some universities also “guarantee fewer years” in order to make it easier to increase your stipend after certain exams at some schools. Other schools guarantee your stipend for one year only in order to adjust their stipend for inflation and to ensure all students receive equal funding in the program.

I've decided to officially accept Vanderbilt's offer of admission. I just got back from Ole Miss and while the program and people are even better than you can imagine, (seriously, if anyone in the future wants to talk about Patrick Alexander or Cristin Ellis, hit me up) Oxford is not ideal. So I am going to be accepting Vanderbilt's offer and becoming a...I don't actually know what Vanderbilt's mascot is, but it's not a "rebel" so that's a plus.

Thanks! It really is! I couldn't be more excited. The faculty, program coordinator, staff, students have been nothing short of wonderful.
Thanks. I think I'm the lucky one though.
Thanks. I hope that all goes well for you and your husband in Cambridge!
Ha! I'll need to get (more) ready for that exam soon. 

Officially declined my spots at Illinois (Writing Studies) and UConn (Literature). Good luck to everyone.

Ok, just about to formally accept my offer from UW-Madison! This process has been something else, and I'm so glad it's over. 
Best wishes to everyone here with grad studies/whatever else you end up doing!

Some programs might refer to this as "popular and public culture".
 
Some programs which are noted for this kind of work include:
Virginia Tech (I know a recent student there did a thesis on Superhero Comics)
MTSU
Carnegie Mellon
NYU (http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/mcc/doctoral/)* (This is not an English PHD)
UCSD
CUNY


 

Do you know if Michigan has already sent offers out? Have you tried calling the coordinator?

I think it's alright if you accept the best offer, but remember that you'll need the program's permission to withdraw if Michigan accepts after the 15th. Accepting after that date might also result in a previously-funded offer becoming withdrawn from the other two schools.

Maybe our fields are different with different norms. But I would actually advise against playing schools off each other and getting counter-offers. It can hurt someone in my field to do this. The general culture in my field is not for schools to "hold back" when making these offers in the first place. They generally start with the best offer they can give to the student which they genuinely believe to be enough to live on. If the student asks for more, they can't just magically make the money be available, it means they will have to redistribute some funds, perhaps make an appeal to a higher authority to get the spending approval etc. That is, it takes work and my opinion is that if you are asking for a higher offer, you are implying that you will take it if your request is granted (and you might take it if the request is partially granted). In my field, if you ask for more money, get what you asked for, then come back and say that you now have even more money from another school, it's not going to reflect well on you. You should have just asked for what you needed in the first place. In addition, if you ask for more money, get everything you asked for and then go somewhere else, it's not as bad but the people who had to do the extra work to find that money for you won't be very happy with it!
 
Note: The above only applies to fully funded PhD programs (i.e. full tuition coverage and a living stipend paid). If you are talking about partially funded programs, then this doesn't apply and I'd agree that you need to do what it takes to get the offer you need to pay the bills!

Congrats on making your decision!
 
Denver's a fun city though! I have some friends near Denver that say commuting from Boulder to Denver is easy due to the connecting buslines. Maybe you can find a cheaper city between the two?
 
Congrats. Vermont is a very gorgeous state! Enjoy the winter wonderland.
 
Congrats! It's a very friendly program!
 
Both of you are going to take the department by storm. It has been a pleasure reading both of your posts.

Gearing up for accepting my Michigan offer this week!

Officially decided on Vermont, thank you all for the unconditional support throughout this process!

Officially going to UConn! Thanks all, for going through the process with me-it definitely helped!!

Officially committed to Stanford Modern Thought and Literature!!! See you around campus, @FreakyFoucault!

April 15th is the deadline to accept funded offers. Offers without funding are not included in the April 15 resolution. Withdrawing from a university (after April 15) after previously accepting an offer requires written permission from that university in order to be released in order to accept another offer. It is not recommended that you accept two offers. While it is legal to accept two offers, it can result in burned bridges as academia is very small and based on connections.

The April 15 resolution regarding this addresses what I said below:

"Students are under no obligation to respond to offers of financial support prior to April 15; earlier deadlines for acceptance of such offers violate the intent of this Resolution. In those instances in which a student accepts an offer before April 15, and subsequently desires to withdraw that acceptance, the student may submit in writing a resignation of the appointment at any time through April 15. However, an acceptance given or left in force after April 15 commits the student not to accept another offer without first obtaining a written release from the institution to which a commitment has been made. Similarly, an offer by an institution after April 15 is conditional on presentation by the student of the written release from any previously accepted offer."
 

I think it would be worthwhile to note any special grants. I think separate lines were created by  people for people who were a part of Alabama's strode program and a separate line once existed for another fellowship too but it doesn't seem to exist now. I think listing the college's name followed by an asterisk, and then mentioning the special circumstances in the note section would help the most people be aware of it.

@Warelin Rice had an increase after initial offers, but I'll double check the form. I have a question, how - or should - we log financial offers that were not the standard? Is it worthwhile to be aware of special grants or fellowships that the programs offer, or would it be too confusing?

Officially accepted my offer at TCU's rhet/comp PhD program. Very happy to finally have made my decision. Good luck to everyone out there still trying to make a decision. It can be hard, but take your time, you've still got two more weeks

Officially turned down my waitlist spot at Penn State (rhetoric). Good luck to everyone.

Officially turned down my waitlist spot at Penn State (rhetoric). Good luck to everyone.

I don't think there is an official rule. There are some programs in English and Rhet/Comp which require an MA to be considered for admission into a PHD program.

My interactions with Washington University in St. Louis have all been positive. I also wanted to provide an update to this thread (for future readers) that the subject test is now optional at WUSTL. The SOP and Writing Sample remain the two most important components of the application.

My interactions with Washington University in St. Louis have all been positive. I also wanted to provide an update to this thread (for future readers) that the subject test is now optional at WUSTL. The SOP and Writing Sample remain the two most important components of the application.

I think this helps to prove that fit is ultimately, a very weird thing and is not only determined by how well faculty matches, but where the department is hoping to be (which is really an impossible thing to determine in any given year. Applying broadly to schools that have a major interest to you is a very important thing to do as you'll never know where you might fit into a school's puzzle. The ivies have often been said to recruit from the same pool but @punctilious' husband earned 1 acceptance, 1 waitlist, and 1 rejection from the Ivy League and had mixed results elsewhere. It's important to not apply only to top 10 schools, but also to not discount schools just because they are ranked highly. Faculty fit + Institutional goals + class profile all play a much larger role which may be invisible during the whole process to us as applicants.

Programs will only accept you if they believe you can succeed. They will not accept you if they do not 100 percent believe that you would succeed in their program.

I think this helps to prove that fit is ultimately, a very weird thing and is not only determined by how well faculty matches, but where the department is hoping to be (which is really an impossible thing to determine in any given year. Applying broadly to schools that have a major interest to you is a very important thing to do as you'll never know where you might fit into a school's puzzle. The ivies have often been said to recruit from the same pool but @punctilious' husband earned 1 acceptance, 1 waitlist, and 1 rejection from the Ivy League and had mixed results elsewhere. It's important to not apply only to top 10 schools, but also to not discount schools just because they are ranked highly. Faculty fit + Institutional goals + class profile all play a much larger role which may be invisible during the whole process to us as applicants.