mk-8

Foucault approves! 

This topic might be helpful to you. Not exactly the same, but similar questions.
 

Thank you, everyone. @mk-8, that's pretty much exactly how I feel. Purdue in particular has a PhD program I'm interested in that's 30 hours of coursework, and they require an MA first. I'm going with my gut on this one and just going to stick to the MA programs. Whew.

I think your reasoning is sound. 
Almost all of the PhD programs I was interested in applying to as an undegrad required an MA. Some were MA/PhD, but not many. I ended up only applying to MA programs. I definitely advocate for a lot of the reasons you mentioned.
Personally, I really can't begin to describe how much my research interests have changed since starting my MA. I mostly applied to schools that had PhD programs that I was also interested in; that helped me get a feel for the area and help decide if I wanted to dedicate much more time in the same place. 

Thanks for setting everything up @klader! I PMed you my work / business e-mail.
 
In other news: I spoke with the enrollment adviser at ASU last night and she told me that I'm in review, so be on the lookout and check my status everyday... should find out in a week or two... eep! She told me it's a competitive program with a class size of about 20 students but also said being in review this early may be a good sign. Let's hope so! I keep flip flopping on what program I want and am now thinking ASU and BGSU are my top 2. These next few weeks may be the death of me...

Okay. So, if you're interested in joining our group where we help each other stay on track with applications, please private message me a gmail address and I'll coordinate a chat. Let's aim for everyone to provide me with the address by Monday so we can get going. Sound good?
I think this is the best option because we could also share our work on Google Docs if we want to coordinate readings and offer each other feedback. 
I'll try to mention everyone who has shown interest so far: @mk-8, @Keri, @Narrative Nancy, @punctilious, @a_sort_of_fractious_angel (don't know why it won't let me tag you?), @lit_nerd, @verjus. If I forgot anyone, please go ahead and let them know. 
If anyone else wants to join, please send me your info. You can make a new gmail account with your screen name if that makes you more comfortable. There's no pressure for you to provide your real identity if you don't wish to do so. 

I could start the Group Me chat, but I think there is a character limitation that might be a problem for those of us who like to send long messages
Perhaps we could do a Gmail messaging group, if people would be interested? And it'd be less hassle since people wouldn't have to download and learn a new app? 

To everyone wanting to join the thread, it seems there's a max limit of 5 per thread, I think. The add option seems to have disappeared completely. I don't know of any other group messaging services we could move to, but I'd be willing to move elsewhere

Happy news here today folks! Woke up to an acceptance e-mail from one of my schools!  I'm shocked they got back to me so quickly, my second letter of recommendation just got sent yesterday, but I must have been "under review" until it came in. It's my #2 program so I'm really stoked!!!
 
I'm not sure if I should e-mail the adviser and let her know I'm waiting on the others or not, she sent me an e-mail about scheduling everything and acceptance (but nothing about funding... so I also want to ask about that.) 

I unfortunately don't know how to add people to chats, so could @lit_nerd, @Keri, @verjus, or @mk-8 please add @clinamen and @a_sort_of_fractious_angel to the chat? 

I would be down to join this! 

@klader I would totally be down!
 

Hey, @mk-8! You've got this ? I don't feel like I've gotten a ton accomplished either, but I'm gonna try and start fresh and prioritize my time. I'm trying to look at it not so much of what I haven't accomplished in my working part-time/being lazy but the opportunity I have to turn it around.
My goal was to do a bunch of thesis stuff this summer, but now I'm starting to realize that my conference presentations and PhD apps come sooner, so I may need to reorient myself. I haven't done nearly enough reading, but that's okay. My chair just has very lofty goals for me and will have to understand what else I have going on. 
And @verjus, accountability is truly key and very important! 
I'm wondering if anyone wants to set up a pm chat where we can share our plans/goals and report back to each other every so often? I'd totally be down for that

Reading the posts in this thread have made me feel incredibly behind. I've done a little bit of studying for GRE round 2, reading for my thesis, and looking up some information on programs. My list of programs is massive right now, and I'm having a hard time narrowing it down because there are tons of programs I certain aspects of, but not really others. Thesis research is also just not going anywhere because I'm not entirely sure what I want to do for that. So I'm just kind of out here floating in "IDK" land (while working part time at a summer camp), so any words of encouragement are appreciated.

Here's some encouragement:

Last year, I was certain that my WS would be a seminar paper I wrote in the spring. All throughout late spring and summer, I compiled my program list with this paper (and specific academic focus) in mind. I wanted to have everything but my SOP finished by the time the fall semester started, because I knew I would be very busy with two courses, two GAships, and teaching a section of 101 for the first time. Early September rolled around, and I sent my supposed WS to my three LOR-writers. One of them liked it (the one I initially wrote it for in the first place), one of them was very lukewarm about it, and one of them said "based on this paper, I can't write you a great letter." Needless to say, I was quite distraught. Fortunately, one of my letter-writers said "why don't you use the paper you wrote for my class?"...a class I had taken a year earlier, and a paper I had only received an A- on. It was indeed a paper I was very happy about, on a subject I was keenly interested in...but the A- had made me think it just wasn't pursuing further.* But when I told her as much, she replied "Oh, I give most students an A-"...and suddenly I realized I could resurrect this much-loved paper on a much-loved sub-field. The problem, of course, is that I had to put it through many, many rounds of revision...in September. And October. And November. All while I had the aforementioned obligations on my plate, not to mention having to write a SOP from scratch, and having to revisit all of my program selections with my new focus in mind. All of it got done, of course, and while it was certainly more of a stressful semester than it should have been, everything turned out just fine.

All of this is just to say that so long as you are fully committed to making sure everything gets done by the end of November, things will get done. While it's always a great idea to have some things ready by the beginning of June, it's also not essential. My very minor advice would be to simply be thinking about applications regularly. You don't necessarily have to do anything application-related -- just be thinking about all of the aspects, what will eventually need to get done etc. And when you find yourself idly surfing the net, make a point of taking five or ten minutes to simply go to a program's website, and click on course listings, guidelines, faculty members etc. You might be surprised at how helpful just a few minutes a day can be for getting a sense of a program.



*For those of you who are reading and don't already know this, grad school grading is a bit different from undergraduate grading. In very, very general terms, an A is an A, but a graduate A- is like an undergrad B/B+, a graduate B/B+ is like a C/C+, and a graduate B- or anything under is tantamount to a D or worse.

@klader
You're not alone! I had a hellish end to my spring semester, and as a result I've been braindead for the past 2-3 weeks. But, realizing how much I want/need to do, I'm trying to get myself into gear by breaking things up and making myself accountable to others. I'm drafting a schedule with realistic minimum weekly targets for applications, thesis research, paper submissions, and GRE studying to make everything a bit more digestible. (I get an inordinate amount of pleasure just writing a plan down, building in tolerances, and then assessing my progress. The delight of checking things off is almost NSFW )  Also, a few of the people in my MA class are getting together for a workshop in a few weeks to read/give feedback on each other's work and ideas. Can you set up a similar group in your cohort? Otherwise, I'd be happy to participate in something online. Also, I'd also suggest returning to your plan and making sure your goals are specific, achievable, and time-bound. Sorry to sound all management-robot-like, but's just how I've learned to cope in my life as an over-anxious person.

Bit late to post, but I've decided to attend Penn State's doctoral program in rhetoric and composition! So psyched! Now to figure out moving:) 
 

It could also be programs shifting to reflect the job market.  There have been a LOT of jobs the last couple of years that want Med/Ren.  Some were specific about wanting a Ren who could dip back, but most just wanted someone who could show that they could handle both fields.  I wouldn't be surprised to see programs shifting to make sure their early fields folks get good coverage on both sides of the Med/Ren divide.  For those of you starting grad school now, I would recommend focusing your work (not your Diss, per se, but coursework, conference presentations, and maybe a publication or two) on achieving a 70/30 or a 60/40 balance of Med/Ren or Ren/Med (depending on which one you are). 
 
Also, this site is wild in the way it lets you track where the slots go.  Same thing happened in my year.  Someone had an admit to Indiana, but was waiting on another school (I don't recall which one).  She got in to the other school and turned down Indiana, who then accepted another poster who was in at Rochester but waitlisted at IU.  That poster accepted IU and turned down Rochester who then admitted me.  All of this happened in about a 10 hour span on the 13th of April and we were tracking it in realtime on the Gradcafe, haha.

If anything, it just emphasizes the seemingly-arbitrary nature of admissions results -- obviously hard work pays off, but there's certainly an element of chance in the mix. The best candidate in the world could get shut out if they happen to apply to programs that don't quite fit in that given year. It's of course the nature of the game, and not something that I'm particularly bothered by, but knowing this certainly helped me last year when I received less-than-thrilling results for my application season.

HEy, congrats on your acceptance! However, I'm not sure many people will be able to help you here, in the Literature section of Gradcafé  

That's quite a generalization. Sure, many relationships don't work out, but many do. Everyone in my family (and by that I mean extended family) married the first person they've been in a relationship with, and all but one stayed married many decades into the game and are still either married or widowed today.
Obviously everyone is different, and I'm not in a position to judge whether OP's relationship is at a point where he's comfortable prioritizing his girlfriend above his career goals, but there is no shame in prioritizing a relationship. I was always told that family is more important than career. If your future boss and/or future schools believe that you need to sacrifice your personal life for your studies and career, then they're not worth your time and commitment.
But more practically speaking, I really don't think there's going to be that much of a difference in these two schools. I tend to agree with one of the comments above that you need to look at UA's placement numbers and not just go off of the one from Purdue. You can get into a very good PhD program from either of these, and they have no way of knowing why you chose the school you did anyway. For all they care, you could have turned down Princeton and Oxford.

Agreed. Relationships don't work out.

Relationships can work out depending on the individuals involved.
MA rankings (which don't exist) don't matter. Placement numbers into PHDs don't tell much. We know where they may have gotten their MA from but we don't know where they got their BA from, GRE scores, SOP, Writing Sample, Letters of Recommendations, their publication history, their conference history, their teaching experience, or their research experiences. Nor do we know what their research interests are.  We also don't know whether or not they accepted an offer to be closer to family or if there was a family emergency that influenced their choice. We don't know whether or not they would have been accepted into a Ph.D. program the following year because that particular spot was already filled by someone else that the university accepted.

Hi everyone, I know there's a separate forum for decisions, but I could really use some advice from within the discipline.

I've been accepted to a Canadian MA program and waitlisted at two American PhDs. The department where I'd be doing my MA is by far the best match for my research interests that I've found, so I'm inclined to accept that offer now. However, I'm an American, I went to an American school for undergrad, and I've always been told that an MA should be a back up and that it's always a better choice to go straight into a PhD if you can.

In general, I feel like it's usually best to wait to have all the information possible. I'm just not sure if that's true in this case. Finances aren't too bad--tuition at UBC is really low and the offer is partially funded, and I have enough savings that I likely wouldn't have to go into debt. Also, I've been reliably informed that though it's still possible I'll be admitted to one of those PhDs, it's very unlikely, and the other is sort of a second choice for me in terms of research interests. I'd also just really like to make a decision ASAP because I need to start getting my life in order, and because I'm impatient.

Will doing a two year Canadian MA put me in an okay place for the rest of my career? Or is doing an MA separate from a PhD program enough of a back-up sort of plan that I should wait to hear back from those other schools anyway?

"Rankings of doctoral programs in the social sciences and humanities are based solely on the results of peer assessment surveys sent to academics in each discipline. Ipsos Public Affairs conducted the surveys in fall 2016. Each school offering a doctoral program was sent two surveys per discipline.
Questionnaires were sent to department heads and directors of graduate studies – or, alternatively, a senior faculty member who teaches graduate students – at schools that had granted a total of five or more doctorates in each discipline during the five-year period from 2011 through 2015, as indicated by the National Center for Education Statistics' Completions survey.
The questionnaires asked respondents to rate the academic quality of the programs at other institutions on a five-point scale: outstanding (5), strong (4), good (3), adequate (2) or marginal (1). Individuals who were unfamiliar with a particular school's programs were asked to select "don't know."
Scores for each school were determined by computing a trimmed mean – eliminating the two highest and two lowest responses – of the ratings of all respondents who rated that school for the last two surveys; average scores were then sorted in descending order."
These surveys are still too opinionated until they consider placements, resources offered, publication rates and other things.