lousyconnection

Getting no emails

 
Getting school-unrelated emails

 
Getting "we got your transcript" emails

 
Finally getting an email from the program!!!!!

Getting no emails

 
Getting school-unrelated emails

 
Getting "we got your transcript" emails

 
Finally getting an email from the program!!!!!

While February IS a bit too early to give up hope entirely, the key to approaching this is perspective.  Your programs did not reject you, your personality, your intellect, or your potential.  They rejected your application.  As such, the key is to take a bit of time away from it (a couple of months) and then go back to the application.  Find people to send it out to for feedback.  Figure out what the problematic part of it was.  Maybe you'll discover that you were looking at programs that weren't a great fit?  Maybe you approached the SoP in a way that didn't fit?  Maybe your writing sample was too vague?  All of these things happen.  In the last five years on here, I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone get rejected everywhere one year and, by doing the above, end up with multiple acceptances to top programs a year or two later.  I also second the advice of looking at a funded MA if you do not already have one.  Those app deadlines tend to be later and you could possibly still get in under the wire there.  My old MA program has a very strong track record of placing its graduates into good PhD programs.  It's small, but you get a lot of personalized attention.  I've copied the link to their website below.  Feel free to ask me any questions about it as well.  Regardless though--never forget that it wasn't YOU that was rejected.  Just your application.  And that can be fixed.
 
http://www.sbu.edu/academics/schools/arts-and-sciences/graduate-degrees/master-of-arts-in-english

I read all of the period essays and author notes in the Norton Anthology of American Literature and the Norton Anthology of British Literature. I did this over about three weeks before the test. You want to be sure to have as much knowledge of prose as poetry. Also, so long as you have a good idea of authors' concerns, styles, movements—as well being able to tell about what period any excerpt comes from—you don't need to actually read the poetry or prose in the Nortons, just the editorial essays/contexts/etc.
Take a practice test and figure out what subjects are tripping you up and what time periods you don't know about. Go back and read those sections in the Norton again.
Also, on test day, *do not panic* when you hit very weird questions. If they're weird for you, they're weird for everybody. The GRE is graded on a curve.
Good luck!

Hi all, I'm the 0/7 Columbia person. I went in for English, so I don't know how much I can address Comp Lit stuff.
But so I took the GREs for the last application cycle. I studied my ass off, and didn't retake it for this year—too much money, too much stress. But I changed basically everything about my application besides the technical stuff relating to undergrad/scores/GPA. I kept 2 of the same letter-writers in my field, changed one to be more in line with my research interests (I'm going in for early modernism: I had a 19th Century Americanist, this year I asked a Medievalist). I re-conceived my whole project from the ground up—basically rewrote my statement so that it proposed a project at a conceptual level above what last year's had been at (asking questions that motivated last year's questions). I wrote a writing sample from scratch, which took from June until December, and was a substantial portion of my free time for those months. Last year I submitted a sample on The Canterbury Tales. It was a class paper, and none of my early modern work was good or long enough to be a sample. But that paper was a huge mistake, out of my field, not to mention I referenced Key & Peele in the opening paragraph. So I wrote the new one, and then used that to see where my mind was going so I could see what project to propose better.
That's it, as far as I can remember. I'd be happy to answer any questions, though.
But yeah, last year was devastating, one of the worst of my life (I was also going through a bad breakup right as rejections were rolling in; brutal). So I know exactly how it feels, and it can get really really bad. And it's a lot of work. But rejection means very little about you—it's not the end of the world, and it might not even be the end of anything at all.

That's me, Bella. Melissa Sanchez gave me a call. I was the first call because my name came first alphabetically. There will be many more calls, so don't worry. And I feel so bad about being so explicit about all of my schools. The whole process took a big toll on my self esteem, and I suppose I'm atoning for that in ignoble ways... haha. The poster upstairs has a point!

Hi all, I'm the 0/7 Columbia person. I went in for English, so I don't know how much I can address Comp Lit stuff.
But so I took the GREs for the last application cycle. I studied my ass off, and didn't retake it for this year—too much money, too much stress. But I changed basically everything about my application besides the technical stuff relating to undergrad/scores/GPA. I kept 2 of the same letter-writers in my field, changed one to be more in line with my research interests (I'm going in for early modernism: I had a 19th Century Americanist, this year I asked a Medievalist). I re-conceived my whole project from the ground up—basically rewrote my statement so that it proposed a project at a conceptual level above what last year's had been at (asking questions that motivated last year's questions). I wrote a writing sample from scratch, which took from June until December, and was a substantial portion of my free time for those months. Last year I submitted a sample on The Canterbury Tales. It was a class paper, and none of my early modern work was good or long enough to be a sample. But that paper was a huge mistake, out of my field, not to mention I referenced Key & Peele in the opening paragraph. So I wrote the new one, and then used that to see where my mind was going so I could see what project to propose better.
That's it, as far as I can remember. I'd be happy to answer any questions, though.
But yeah, last year was devastating, one of the worst of my life (I was also going through a bad breakup right as rejections were rolling in; brutal). So I know exactly how it feels, and it can get really really bad. And it's a lot of work. But rejection means very little about you—it's not the end of the world, and it might not even be the end of anything at all.

Thanks for the insight! Writing a whole new writing sample is a big change, and honestly if I had to change one thing about my application it would be that. Ironically enough it's also about a Canturbury tale  
I'm glad all those changes really helped! Congratulations!

I love this.
And thanks for the rest of your reply, too, that's a really poignant post. Congratulations.

Hi all, I'm the 0/7 Columbia person. I went in for English, so I don't know how much I can address Comp Lit stuff.
But so I took the GREs for the last application cycle. I studied my ass off, and didn't retake it for this year—too much money, too much stress. But I changed basically everything about my application besides the technical stuff relating to undergrad/scores/GPA. I kept 2 of the same letter-writers in my field, changed one to be more in line with my research interests (I'm going in for early modernism: I had a 19th Century Americanist, this year I asked a Medievalist). I re-conceived my whole project from the ground up—basically rewrote my statement so that it proposed a project at a conceptual level above what last year's had been at (asking questions that motivated last year's questions). I wrote a writing sample from scratch, which took from June until December, and was a substantial portion of my free time for those months. Last year I submitted a sample on The Canterbury Tales. It was a class paper, and none of my early modern work was good or long enough to be a sample. But that paper was a huge mistake, out of my field, not to mention I referenced Key & Peele in the opening paragraph. So I wrote the new one, and then used that to see where my mind was going so I could see what project to propose better.
That's it, as far as I can remember. I'd be happy to answer any questions, though.
But yeah, last year was devastating, one of the worst of my life (I was also going through a bad breakup right as rejections were rolling in; brutal). So I know exactly how it feels, and it can get really really bad. And it's a lot of work. But rejection means very little about you—it's not the end of the world, and it might not even be the end of anything at all.

Hi all, I'm the 0/7 Columbia person. I went in for English, so I don't know how much I can address Comp Lit stuff.
But so I took the GREs for the last application cycle. I studied my ass off, and didn't retake it for this year—too much money, too much stress. But I changed basically everything about my application besides the technical stuff relating to undergrad/scores/GPA. I kept 2 of the same letter-writers in my field, changed one to be more in line with my research interests (I'm going in for early modernism: I had a 19th Century Americanist, this year I asked a Medievalist). I re-conceived my whole project from the ground up—basically rewrote my statement so that it proposed a project at a conceptual level above what last year's had been at (asking questions that motivated last year's questions). I wrote a writing sample from scratch, which took from June until December, and was a substantial portion of my free time for those months. Last year I submitted a sample on The Canterbury Tales. It was a class paper, and none of my early modern work was good or long enough to be a sample. But that paper was a huge mistake, out of my field, not to mention I referenced Key & Peele in the opening paragraph. So I wrote the new one, and then used that to see where my mind was going so I could see what project to propose better.
That's it, as far as I can remember. I'd be happy to answer any questions, though.
But yeah, last year was devastating, one of the worst of my life (I was also going through a bad breakup right as rejections were rolling in; brutal). So I know exactly how it feels, and it can get really really bad. And it's a lot of work. But rejection means very little about you—it's not the end of the world, and it might not even be the end of anything at all.

Hi all, I'm the 0/7 Columbia person. I went in for English, so I don't know how much I can address Comp Lit stuff.
But so I took the GREs for the last application cycle. I studied my ass off, and didn't retake it for this year—too much money, too much stress. But I changed basically everything about my application besides the technical stuff relating to undergrad/scores/GPA. I kept 2 of the same letter-writers in my field, changed one to be more in line with my research interests (I'm going in for early modernism: I had a 19th Century Americanist, this year I asked a Medievalist). I re-conceived my whole project from the ground up—basically rewrote my statement so that it proposed a project at a conceptual level above what last year's had been at (asking questions that motivated last year's questions). I wrote a writing sample from scratch, which took from June until December, and was a substantial portion of my free time for those months. Last year I submitted a sample on The Canterbury Tales. It was a class paper, and none of my early modern work was good or long enough to be a sample. But that paper was a huge mistake, out of my field, not to mention I referenced Key & Peele in the opening paragraph. So I wrote the new one, and then used that to see where my mind was going so I could see what project to propose better.
That's it, as far as I can remember. I'd be happy to answer any questions, though.
But yeah, last year was devastating, one of the worst of my life (I was also going through a bad breakup right as rejections were rolling in; brutal). So I know exactly how it feels, and it can get really really bad. And it's a lot of work. But rejection means very little about you—it's not the end of the world, and it might not even be the end of anything at all.

Hi all, I'm the 0/7 Columbia person. I went in for English, so I don't know how much I can address Comp Lit stuff.
But so I took the GREs for the last application cycle. I studied my ass off, and didn't retake it for this year—too much money, too much stress. But I changed basically everything about my application besides the technical stuff relating to undergrad/scores/GPA. I kept 2 of the same letter-writers in my field, changed one to be more in line with my research interests (I'm going in for early modernism: I had a 19th Century Americanist, this year I asked a Medievalist). I re-conceived my whole project from the ground up—basically rewrote my statement so that it proposed a project at a conceptual level above what last year's had been at (asking questions that motivated last year's questions). I wrote a writing sample from scratch, which took from June until December, and was a substantial portion of my free time for those months. Last year I submitted a sample on The Canterbury Tales. It was a class paper, and none of my early modern work was good or long enough to be a sample. But that paper was a huge mistake, out of my field, not to mention I referenced Key & Peele in the opening paragraph. So I wrote the new one, and then used that to see where my mind was going so I could see what project to propose better.
That's it, as far as I can remember. I'd be happy to answer any questions, though.
But yeah, last year was devastating, one of the worst of my life (I was also going through a bad breakup right as rejections were rolling in; brutal). So I know exactly how it feels, and it can get really really bad. And it's a lot of work. But rejection means very little about you—it's not the end of the world, and it might not even be the end of anything at all.

Hi all, I'm the 0/7 Columbia person. I went in for English, so I don't know how much I can address Comp Lit stuff.
But so I took the GREs for the last application cycle. I studied my ass off, and didn't retake it for this year—too much money, too much stress. But I changed basically everything about my application besides the technical stuff relating to undergrad/scores/GPA. I kept 2 of the same letter-writers in my field, changed one to be more in line with my research interests (I'm going in for early modernism: I had a 19th Century Americanist, this year I asked a Medievalist). I re-conceived my whole project from the ground up—basically rewrote my statement so that it proposed a project at a conceptual level above what last year's had been at (asking questions that motivated last year's questions). I wrote a writing sample from scratch, which took from June until December, and was a substantial portion of my free time for those months. Last year I submitted a sample on The Canterbury Tales. It was a class paper, and none of my early modern work was good or long enough to be a sample. But that paper was a huge mistake, out of my field, not to mention I referenced Key & Peele in the opening paragraph. So I wrote the new one, and then used that to see where my mind was going so I could see what project to propose better.
That's it, as far as I can remember. I'd be happy to answer any questions, though.
But yeah, last year was devastating, one of the worst of my life (I was also going through a bad breakup right as rejections were rolling in; brutal). So I know exactly how it feels, and it can get really really bad. And it's a lot of work. But rejection means very little about you—it's not the end of the world, and it might not even be the end of anything at all.

Hi all, I'm the 0/7 Columbia person. I went in for English, so I don't know how much I can address Comp Lit stuff.
But so I took the GREs for the last application cycle. I studied my ass off, and didn't retake it for this year—too much money, too much stress. But I changed basically everything about my application besides the technical stuff relating to undergrad/scores/GPA. I kept 2 of the same letter-writers in my field, changed one to be more in line with my research interests (I'm going in for early modernism: I had a 19th Century Americanist, this year I asked a Medievalist). I re-conceived my whole project from the ground up—basically rewrote my statement so that it proposed a project at a conceptual level above what last year's had been at (asking questions that motivated last year's questions). I wrote a writing sample from scratch, which took from June until December, and was a substantial portion of my free time for those months. Last year I submitted a sample on The Canterbury Tales. It was a class paper, and none of my early modern work was good or long enough to be a sample. But that paper was a huge mistake, out of my field, not to mention I referenced Key & Peele in the opening paragraph. So I wrote the new one, and then used that to see where my mind was going so I could see what project to propose better.
That's it, as far as I can remember. I'd be happy to answer any questions, though.
But yeah, last year was devastating, one of the worst of my life (I was also going through a bad breakup right as rejections were rolling in; brutal). So I know exactly how it feels, and it can get really really bad. And it's a lot of work. But rejection means very little about you—it's not the end of the world, and it might not even be the end of anything at all.

If any Rutgers admits are floating around the forum today, feel free to PM me if you have any questions in advance of official communications! I'm a first year in the program doing 20th century things, and there are a few other people on grad cafe as well in different periods.

haha!  It would definitely be okay for you to post the questions list, but here it is.  Also, I'd just be honest with the programs, especially since the money they're giving you won't be enough to cover either visit individually.  
 
-PLACES TO STUDY AND WORK
-Where do most people do their writing and reading?
-What study spaces are available? Do students get a carrel? Do those who teach get or share an office?

-LIBRARY
-What is the library system like? Are the stacks open or closed?
-What are the library hours?
-Are there specialized archives/primary sources that would be useful to my research?
-Are there specialist librarians who can help me with my research?

-FACULTY
-Are the faculty members I want to work with accepting new students? Are any of those faculty members due for a sabbatical any time soon?
-Are professors willing to engage you on a personal level rather than just talking about your work?
-Are there any new professors the department is hiring in areas that align with my interests?
-Students’ relationships with their professors – are they primarily professional, or are they social as well?

-FUNDING
-Is funding competitive? If so, do students feel a distinction between those who have received more generous funding and those who haven’t?
-How does funding break down among the cohort? i.e., how many people receive fellowships?
-How, if you don’t have much savings, do you make enough money to live comfortably?
-Are there external fellowships one can apply to? If so, what is available? Does the program help you apply for these fellowships? How does receiving an external fellowship affect internal funding?
-If people need more than five/six years to finish, what funding resources are available? (For instance, Columbia can give you an additional 2-year teaching appointment.)
-Do you provide funding for conferences or research trips?
-How often is funding disbursed? (i.e., do you get paid monthly or do you have to stretch a sum over a longer period of time?)

-COHORT
-Do students get along with each other? Is the feeling of the program more collaborative than competitive?
-Do students in different years of the program collaborate with each other, or are individual cohorts cliquey?
-How many offers are given out, and what is the target number of members for an entering class?
-Ages/marital status of people in the cohort – do most people tend to be married with families? Are there younger people? Single people? What sense do you have of how the graduate students interact with each other socially?
-Do people seem happy? If they’re stressed, is it because they’re busy or is it because they’re anxious/depressed/cynical/disillusioned?
-Is the grad secretary/program administrator nice?
-What is the typical time to completion? What are the factors that slow down or speed up that time?
-I’ve read that there are two kinds of attrition: “good” attrition, in which people realize that the program, or graduate study, isn’t right for them and leave early on, and “bad” attrition, in which people don’t finish the dissertation. What can you tell me about the rates of each, and of the reasons why people have chosen to leave the program?

-JOB MARKET/PROFESSIONALIZATION
-What is the placement rate? How many of those jobs are tenure-track?
-What are examples of institutions in which people in my field have been placed?
-How does the department prepare you for the job search? Are there mock interviews and mock job talks?
-Are the people helping you navigate the job search people who have recently gone through the process themselves?
-If you don’t get placed, is there anything the department can do for you? (e.g., can you stay an extra year?)
-How does the department prepare you for and help you attain conference presentations and publications?

-SUMMER WORK
-What is encouraged/required?
-If there separate funding/is the year-round funding enough to live on during the summer?
-Do people find themselves needing to get outside work during the summer in order to have enough money?
-Am I expected to stay in town in the summer, and what happens if I don’t?

-LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT
-What is done to help people who don’t have language proficiency attain it? Does the university provide funding?
-What is the requirement, and by when do you have to meet it?
-Given my research interests, what languages should I study?
-When do you recommend doing the work necessary to fulfill the language requirement? (i.e., summer before first year, summer after first year, while taking classes, etc.)

-LOCATION REQUIREMENTS
-How long are students required to be in residence?
-How many students stay in the location for the duration of the program? (i.e., how many dissertate in residence?)
-How is funding affected if you don’t stay?

-Incompletes on papers at the end of the term: What is the policy, how many students take them, and how does this affect progress through the program?

-TEACHING
-What sort of training is provided?
-What types of courses do people teach?
-Does teaching entail serving as a grader? Serving as a TA? Developing and teaching a section of comp?
-How are students placed as TAs? Is there choice about what classes you teach and which professors you work with? Do classes correspond to your field?
-How many courses do you teach per semester/year?
-How many students are in your classes?
-How does the school see teaching as fitting in with the other responsibilities/requirements of graduate study?
-How do students balance teaching with their own work?
-Is the department more concerned with training you as a teacher/professor or with having cheap labor to teach their classes?
-How, if at all, does the economic downturn affect teaching load/class sizes?
-What are the students like? Can I sit in on a course a TA teaches to get a sense of them?

-METHODOLOGY
-Is a theory course required?
-What methodology do most people use?
-Where, methodologically, do you see the department – and the discipline – heading?
-Is interdisciplinarity encouraged, and what sorts of collaboration have students undertaken?

-Typical graduate class and seminar sizes

-What should I do to prepare over the summer?

-Ask people I know: What are the questions – both about the program itself and about the location – I should ask that will most help me get a feel for whether this is the right program for me?

-Ask people I know: What do you wish you knew or wish you had asked before choosing a program?

-Is the school on the semester or the quarter system, and how does that affect classes/teaching/requirements?

-What is the course load for each semester, and how many courses are required?

-What kind of support is provided while writing the dissertation? I worry about the isolation and anxiety of writing such a big project. What does the program do to help you break the dissertation down into manageable pieces, and to make the experience less isolating?

-What do writing assignments look like in classes? Do they differ based on the type/level of class and/or based on whether you intend to specialize in the field?

-Ask professors: what have you been working on lately?

-Ask professors: What is your approach to mentoring and advising graduate students?

-How long are class meetings?

-How often do professors teach graduate courses?

-Are course schedules available for future semesters (10-11, etc.)?

-Can I see the grad student handbook? Are there any other departmental documents – such as reports on the program prepared for accreditation – that I can see?


-QUALITY OF LIFE
-Prices – how does the cost of gas, milk, cereal, etc. compare to other places I've lived in?
-Cost and quality of typical one-bedroom apartment.
-What does the university do to provide you with or help you find housing?
-When (i.e., what month) do people start looking for an apartment for the fall, and where do they look?
-Is it easy to find a summer subletter?
-How close to campus can—and should—one live?
-What grocery stores are there in town?
-How late are cafes, bookstores, malls, restaurants typically open?
-What do people do to make extra money?
-Does the town have more of a driving or a walking culture? What is parking like near campus (availability, ease, cost)?
-Where do most English grad students live? Most other grad students? Most professors? Where is the student ghetto? Do most students live near each other, or are they spread out far and wide?
-How far does the stipend go in this location?

Columbia English 2015 had some really good ones, particularly:

and this sad one

and these salty af ones:
 
That's such a bummer. Best wishes to the poster. I lived a block north of USC the summer after I graduated a couple years ago, that security was elaborate. But then you leave campus. Someone was bludgeoned to death 200 feet from our gate, right about the time of night when I would take a walk. Luckily I was out of town at the time...

Y'all are great. @cloverhinge sounds like we had the same interview.
 
How I felt before my interview:

 
How I felt during the interview:

 
How I wanted to look when one of the professors pushed against a point I made:

 
How I actually looked:

 
How I felt after the interview:

 
 

@123hardasABC One of my friends who's done a lot more interviews than me has A Thing about using professional vocabulary in interviews. I don't know if that's good advice in general, or if it's just her thing because she has a more formal style of speaking and writing than I do. So when we practiced doing interviews together, she was trying to get me to stop calling works of scholarship "awesome" or "cool" quite so often. I don't think this was a requirement for admission, but it was probably a good idea.
Anyway, fast forward to my interview with the school where I'm interviewing with one of my favorite scholars. I ended up describing her most famous book, to her, as "like, totally awesome."

I thought I'd be more relaxed after receiving my first acceptance notice... but if anything the frequency of checking my email inbox and the Results page has tripled since last week.
I want ALL the admissions decisions. Please?

Getting no emails

 
Getting school-unrelated emails

 
Getting "we got your transcript" emails

 
Finally getting an email from the program!!!!!

@haltheincandescent I just received an acceptance from UChicago too! *high five* Maybe see you at prospective student day.
I really can't believe I can sit back a little bit now. I've been a piano wire for months!
And congrats to all the admits that are popping up on the board!

Hooray! True celebration is in order on this thread. I'm really glad see those of us who felt completely unadmitable feeling awestruck at their acceptances. Truly a life-changing event for us (as I definitely share that sentiment)! I'm sure that the shift in self-conception will have positive effects on our lives - but we just must fight hubris to realize the gold at the end of this crazy rainbow: this happy news heralds a future of hardwork and service to others through the shared creation of knowledge. Mainly to myself, I guess I am saying - probably way too far in advance (as is the wont of someone totally afraid of the future)  - let's remember those caring professors and scholars who motivated us to spend those thousand-plus dollars and seemingly ten-thousand-plus hours slogging through this tedious, panic-ridden process and not become those pompous, self-aggrandizing, cold, and bitter academics who perhaps made us feel so unadmitable in the first place.
 
Anyway, I am sorry if that sounded much more like a St. Crispin's Day speech for noble academic Enlightenment than one fit for our mini-monumental shifts in our personal narratives (neither nationalism nor unreflective Liberalism is my jam). I'm just, I guess, processing what seems like the crazy crazy crazy implications of these opened doors on us applicants and our futures. 
But anyway, for now, as Louis CK would say, Weeee! 

Because previous searches have not resulted in the best candidates being female?