jillcicle

NYU sending a pitch for a master's that's 70% out of pocket is something - worse when you ALREADY have a master's degree. PLEASE. When I pay $100+ to apply to a well-respected academic institution's PhD program I do not want them to then try to sell me things after rejecting me ?

Agreed. Also, big HMM they sent the rejections like right after this I know it's very unlikely but part of me wants to think a departmental person was lurking and was like OOPS GRADCAFE IS ANGRY. ?

As a friend said to me back when I still thought I might have decisions to make, "Does it matter if more prestige will mean a better placement if you aren't able to finish the program?" I think you have to honestly ask yourself how vulnerable you are to mental illness and what kinds of pressure are hardest for you to hold up under, considering that between 30 and 60% of grad students qualify for diagnosis with moderate to severe depression. That's worse at more prestigious programs, typically, and the higher end of the spectrum correlates to being a woman, non-white, not hetero/cis, etc. You know your own risks, and you probably have the best sense of whether or not you're at risk of being in the 50% of grad students who don't complete their degrees. I find it helpful to think of the differences in appeal, financial comfort, fit, etc. as differences in risk to you, your health, and your program completion. (Cheery, I know, but we're playing a dangerous game entering academia anyway.)

Has Berkeley really STILL not sent out their rejections? Like c'mon. Last year they went out mid-March - this year are they sending them out ON April 15 or what? I know it's a rejection but I would sure like something definite anyway. I told myself I'd submit my official acceptance once all my rejections were in but apparently that's going to be unreasonable ?

UVA movement - I got my rejection FINALLY and someone else at the visiting weekend i’m at at UNC got official waitlist notification.

Just want to complain that I have been in stellar health for MONTHS, with not even a mild sniffle, and I woke up today to begin travelling to UNC's campus visit to find a real doozy coming on. SO looking forward to the 5 hour sinus-drying flight and avoiding handshakes to preventing plague-spread and pockets full of tissues at POI meetings all that /s. ?

If I'm being honest I haven't emailed because I'm terrified to know - right now I don't have to make any decisions which sounds so breezy and beautiful and straightforward and I don't want a potential decision axe hanging over my head ? (Ridiculous, I know - it's crazy how irrational grad admits are making me act lol)

I don't think so at all - I'd be far more worried about too broad of interests as far as admits go because they want you to be able to pitch a specific, innovative research question. But just demonstrate some flexibility in the SoP. Ie, "I'm conscious of the growth and changes my research interests may undergo while I continue my research, and excited to broaden my (whatever)." They know your final dissertation won't be what was in your app, but they want to see that you're able to develop specifics while being flexible enough that you won't go down with a sinking ship when your first pitch doesn't work out.

*Clicks on hand held recorder* Day 472 - still no word from UVA. All is silent here. Not sure how much longer I can go on.

The money was definitely the biggest pain for me. Still feel like I'm getting stabbed if I think about almost $1,000 down the drain BUT after a really bad day of not getting out of bed and staring at the wall, I've shaken it off some. (It helped to remind myself that I was only ever going to accept at 1 school anyway, and even if more acceptances would have felt better it wouldn't have changed the time and money being gone.) When I was expecting a shutout, I had to remind myself that the time and money were useful even then for helping me figure out what wasn't working. Also, just picturing an ad-com sitting down to 300 applications and they have to somehow narrow it to 6 - thinking about the logistics of that makes me realize how much it's not a reflection of personal worth or qualifications. Start planning for your acceptances and get excited about it. Look at apartments, places to socialize or do recreational stuff, etc. For me, that meant letting the top 10s sort of drift back into the realm of daydream that they once were. Also, thinking a lot about where I was at the beginning of my undergrad degree - I didn't have any ambitions about how good I was back then, I was just excited about chances to read and learn! For that version of me, there's no inadequacy because UG me is blown away that I kept going at all. And I think it's fair to approach rejections like other grief and loss, even if it isn't the loss of a living being. Let yourself feel it and voice the pain, recognize what you're losing, but then move past.

I didn't find it all that hard, but I'm a substitute teacher who was able to really utilize Thanksgiving Break etc. I had to be okay with doing my app stuff in bursts - there were crisis points at work where I had to dedicate everything to lesson plans/grading etc and then just table app work for a while. Seconding the handwritten chart/checklist - I carried a bullet journal everywhere with me, so I could do POI research/read an article etc. and jot down a few notes on my break and lunch when it felt manageable. I also set up a Google Sheet with deadlines, POIs, subfields, waiver possible, etc. and that was a good sort of home base to work from. Overall, I didn't find the applications as time-consuming as I'd worried about - it wasn't the equivalent of another job, just maybe a side gig like picking up a weekend contract or something. Good luck!

If we do this as a team, maybe they'll be soooo impressed they just admit us all instantly, no questions asked??

Hmmm hmm hmm. It wasn't the swamp monster (side note that seems like an unfair name to call Clare Kinney who seems v. lovely but...) after all, then. Man, I'm fed up with this. (I mean, my partner and family are fed up with this just from me saying how much I'm fed up with this lol.) I just want my rejections all done and tidy and everything sorted and apparently I'm going to whine incessantly til then!

Oh, hey Shaggy! 3 of us is nice - the more the merrier. The Clare Kinney overlap is curious. SHE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT IF IT WEREN'T FOR US PESKY KIDS. To me suggests either that the MEM rejections are rolling out later, or that they don't have offer acceptances from all their primary MEM offers yet and therefore that unofficial waitlist is still hanging around waiting. Hmmmm. I guess we wait together (im)patiently and see. Fingers still crossed for y'all!

*Velma and Daphne stand alone at the edge of the precipice, hair fluttering in the breeze, faces determined* But for real, what the eff. You're early modern, right? And I'm medieval? I listed Clare Kinney, Bruce Holsinger, Alison Booth, and Brad Pasanek - would I be right in guessing we have overlap on that possibly? That's the only thing that I can guess is maybe they're processing us slower, or... *BIG SHRUG*

More UVA rejections out, according to the board, but my email is still emptyyyyy WHAT IS HAPPENING

Totally with you - there was a great article from Trevor Griffey for LAWCHA about some of this called The Decline of Faculty Tenure if anyone's interested.

Oh, I'm 100% sure there are those layers. Everyone scrambles like mad during admissions time and the people on the other end are all only human. I was thinking more about those who earn the reputation of "folks with doctorates being pretentious and having no compassion," rather than the ad-coms and those in charge of issuing rejections. Those two groups don't always overlap. (I wish I could say the compassion thing was just a stereotype - though it is often wielded very unfairly against PhDs at large, I have unfortunately met professors who live up to this stereotype and enable its perpetuation.) Something else to keep in mind when thinking about the professors and the admissions process is how much extra labor this involves for them - I'm sure there are plenty of exhausted folks out there who wish they could personally reach out to each applicant who isn't admitted but they're already overworked in many ways even when it isn't admissions season. (Now, could the form letters sometimes sound nicer and the ad com process and timeline be more transparent anyway? Yes, please.) They're at the mercy of the same system as we are, even if it feels like they've "made it" - but this is yet another reason why we should all vow to push back against that system.

I do wonder if a lot of them are fronting that to avoid having others find out that they secretly struggled - like, if you show mercy, people might realize you're weak. And then you have the privileged ones who were able to actually cruise through with few rejections and lots of prestige and I think they are unable to take a serious look at the privilege and luck that combined for that to happen - instead, they convince themselves that it was earned through Hard Work and they don't have to address the inadequacies of the failing system or admit that they're benefiting from those. It is an interesting mix - just thinking about professors, it's been about 50/50 the ones who are like "it's just about Hard Work you have to Work Harder or you aren't Good Enough" and the ones who will openly talk about their own privilege and luck and failures. I wish it was possible to reference that with their admissions record etc.

Free tacos are worth whatever it takes to get them.

??@emprof it is so wonderful having you around in the forums especially as someone who was traumatized by lack of mentorship and advice in my master's - you're giving me hope! Ahhhh I love this also ditto re: the ethnographic info WHY is there no common app yet?! Especially when I could tell the same platform was being used for each school! I'm trying to shake the trauma and betrayal of a nightmare master's degree and I DO still love this enough to want to keep doing it just for me. In some ways past experience has made me feel like I have to go in like a warrior - cold and fierce with hard boundaries about what I need in terms of work/life balance and support and non-toxicity set in stone, and that maybe if I'm just not naive this time around it will prevent the years from being hellish. But I am also trying to learn to hope and be optimistic and give some/most of academia a chance again - I mean, we've all learned from rom-coms that hardening yourself so you won't get hurt doesn't work, so why would that work with careers? So in that spirit here's some more things I've done to celebrate that I recommend for y'all: 1) Made a list of fun things that I'm excited to do in the city I'll (probably) be moving to that aren't academic. 2) Talked to others about some of the things that gave me a sense of child-like wonder and joy when I explored them in undergrad, with the hope that maybe I'll be able to access that feeling again in a PhD. 3) Told more people about my admission - I was weirdly reluctant to do this, but then they force you to celebrate which is helpful and nice. Since telling close friends/family is kind of hard, I practice by doing things like telling my dentist! (Sounds weird but near-strangers are v. nice for this sort of thing because they don't have any expectations for you and are pretty much guaranteed to be impressed.) 4) Took the dog for a walk to a high-up place where home was spread out before me and thought about my growth as a human and hopes for the future (cue montage soundtrack) 5) Looked closely at the adjectives used in my emails from the department - there was something wonderful about realizing that previous acceptances/job offers have said things like "enthusiasm for the subject" and "potential," and now they're being to say things like "superb qualifications" and "an asset to the department." It made me feel like the years so far of teaching and studying HAVE actually gotten me somewhere and people have noticed, even if I didn't feel like it. ?

Check out Colin Milburn at UCD Also, a couple people in the department do childhood in fiction and there are some great Amer. lit/modernists in general. That was my undergrad department and it sounds like a very good fit for those interests IMO! DGS at UNC Chapel Hill also just mentioned to me that their rare books collection includes some little known 19th-c. sci-fi, and a quick departmental search shows quite a few fac members with sci-fi research interests. They're probably worth looking into as well. You're going to need to dive into research and read works that align with your interests. (Articles will be easier due to brevity, and lucky for you since you're still in undergrad you have institutional database access!) Then flip to the bibliography and write down all the names they're citing. You should see some people coming up again and again. Track them down and figure out where they are - that's the best way to start finding POIs. (It will be frustrating, as some will be retired, and there will be a few in a geographic location that you're just not able to go - conversely, my problem in medievalism studies is how many of the big names are in Australia! But there will also be some new names in locations that suit you.) If there are researchers doing things that intrigue you who aren't currently affiliated with an institution that you want to attend, also look at where they did their PhDs as a possible option. Something else to look for as preparatory research/reading is if there's an anthology or overview of your subfield. Ie for me there was "Medievalism: A Critical History". In a work like this, the top names have been carefully selected to each give an overview of one foundational or cutting-edge approach to your subfield, so it's done some of the work for you. Bonus, once you've read these articles you'll be better prepared to write an SoP that demonstrates an awareness of and engagement with the current field AND to do the ever-important name-dropping in the case of interview etc.

So, this is from a master's, not a PhD, but a friend at Oxford passed on what her mom had told her when we were all starting our program, and it helped me a lot: "If you are convinced you've somehow made it this far by tricking people into thinking you're capable, then you must be incredibly good at fooling people and there's no reason that will stop now."

Lmao this is exactly it. I assume I'll see you all for Happy Fun Rejection Hour next week ?. (Hopefully, at least some of us with good news! I'll keep my fingers crossed for everyone.)

Very cheerful update - I contacted DGS and told them what was up and he tracked down a reimbursement budget for my flight and ADDITIONALLY even offered an extra night of accommodations to make cross-country travel/attendance easier. Absolutely incredible and kind response. My takeaway is don't be afraid to ask!