KappaRoss

I haven't been officially rejected from one school, but they have given out two waves of acceptances, and the last wave was February 19th. I assume, because it has been so long since the last wave of acceptances, that they are waiting to hear back from the first two waves before they make a decision on me. I was anticipating a rejection a few days after February 19th, but I did not receive anything. My application was somewhat fringe for the school, and the school tries to only extend fully funded offers, and it's an MA program. Additionally, it is written in their FAQ that they give out decisions in late February or March, so the dream is still alive hopefully. I think they are waiting to see if the money shakes down from the first wave of applicants before they can do anything, but I'm still unsure. And I'm also unsure if it will shake down, as it was fully funded MA offers for the first two waves. Although it feels like, from their stats, that they could have also gotten funded PhD offers from mid-range programs, and that's probably also what the department might be considering. I was very lucky to get accepted to one program in late January, so this whole cycle has been at least with me knowing that I'll be going somewhere.

How did you perform in them? Were they in your potential area of study? Also, are those classes you can get letters from? I think you shouldn't go for a second master's degree if your goal is to get a PhD. Instead, I think you should work on your letters of recommendation, SOP, writing sample, potential research interests, and GRE. Those things are all really important. The SOP and writing sample are crucial elements, and many people can improve their GRE scores with enough preparation. You have a lot of time to work on all of these things. However, from your original post, I kinda get the vibe that you really want to get another master's degree. If that is the case, then just make sure that it is fully funded so that you are at least not paying for a similar degree.

Did you take English classes for your master's in humanities?

Tbh this sounds like a perfectly normal interaction with a medievalist.

Take fit/opportunity/happiness over money. If you're going to go somewhere that you don't really want to go to, and you're only going there because you got funded, then you probably won't be happy there, and it could affect learning outcomes and overall outcomes. It sounds like you'd much rather go to the R1, so I would go there. Simply put, I'd go to where I wanted to go. It also depends on the money differences. If you're going to be 40K in debt after the MA, then it MIGHT be better to go to the funded MA. But it won't make a damn difference where you go if you don't like it and don't think you'd be happy there.

I attended UC Davis undergrad. It is very LGBT-friendly. Think SF, but if SF had a controlled population of just college students. For living in Davis, basically any part of Davis is good. There is no crime, and you're like a 15 minute bike ride away from school even from the outskirts of town. Davis also has a good bus system, but you can bike basically anywhere in town really, really fast. So I kind of recommend just getting a more inexpensive place. There's very little need to be within walking distance of campus; even if you are in the dorms, you'll still want to bike around campus. I highly recommend the school, but it is extremely boring, with no great geography such as water, hills, or anything. You're within driving distance of basically some of the best parts of the US though. Yosemite, the Bay Area, Lake Tahoe, wine county. You can do your rendition The Hangover in Reno. The places that tbh a lot of people dream of being near. So if you want to do that stuff, you'll need a car. Life without a car is fine, but you're restricted to the bubble. It's nice for a lot of people, though.

Just try to be patient, calm, and wait it out. There are a lot of other possible explanations for not hearing back from them yet, and the outcome can still be an acceptance. You might consider calling them about the Toefl scores. Sometimes schools are just lazy with changing it from not received to received. It sounds like you were very meticulous about the scores though, so I doubt it's something on your end. Maybe read your favorite book.

One of the best. Extremely hard to get into. I see that your location is Berkeley. I hope you aren't asking just because you're already there and it would be convenient if you could just stay in Berkeley. People with perfect GPAs and near-perfect GREs (even the math!) have gotten rejected. It certainly helps to have poster presentations, be published, have teaching experience, but even applicants with all of the above have gotten rejected. The program even advertises that it usually has an acceptance rate below 10%. I would assume a big thing is fit. So have all of the above and also fit well with a faculty member. So I would still encourage you to apply, even though their own website discourages potential applicants with lines like "The admissions process is highly competitive and acceptance rates are usually below 10%." As far as the program itself, it's one of the best in the country, and it's in an ideal location. As you can probably attest to, no one is shoveling snow in Berkeley right now. If you take a look at job placement on their site, graduates have gone on to teach at Stanford, Princeton, and NYU.

UC Davis does not have a rhetcomp program. They only have an English Lit PhD, but you can get a designated emphasis in rhetcomp and teach writing. I just graduated from UC Davis undergrad, and my professors lamented that there was no R/C PhD program. They only have a few professors in the writing faculty. Most of the UWP faculty is lecturers. There are some R/C PhD programs that don't require an MA. Arizona, Arizona State, and Syracuse are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. They usually only accept "extremely capable BA students," however. That means at least 3.8+ GPA, 90%+ GRE, great recs from English/Writing professors, and a great writing sample. Keep in mind most PhD programs require a significant paper, sometimes 20-25 pages, and the line is usually "something from your MA/honors thesis." It is extremely helpful to have something directly related to the R/C field. They really don't want to read another Shakespeare paper. Your writing sample should be novel. If you can go to sparknotes and get the general gist of your paper in a section, then it is not good enough. But your best bet is a paper on rhetoric and composition. Have your recommenders look over it for you.