DBear

lol lol, well, as long as you're not applying to computer programming or something, you should be okay, right? hhahahaahaha.. at least your two identities have the same thing.. more donuts, cats, and coffee!

Well everyone, if you're curious about a city you may randomly move to for grad school, we have @heyDW to give us food tips! All that speech & debate travel is benefiting the greater good!!

@heyDW Is there ANY city you haven't been????

@phdthoughts - so for my 3 interviews, Temple lasted 15 mins and I interviewed with two faculty members at Madison, each of which lasted somewhere close to 50 minutes. I think I posted something about what was asked but the questions were pretty by the book. The main difference between Madison and Temple was that Madison spent much more time explaining what the program was all about, so it felt a bit like an orientation+interview combo. I'd love to hear what happened with Iowa interviews, since it seems like a relatively new procedure.

@kirbs005 DUDE! AWESOME! Congratulations! Though that is SUPER old school - did they at least update the online status? Time for you to color Georgia GREEN! Comm people, we might now want to start checking our physical mailboxes along with our inboxes spamboxes and the results page here lol

I dare someone to call U Penn and ask when they're going to put us out of our misery

@The Shade King seems like this season is being good to you, good luck with Iowa!

I don't think that acceptance and rejection notifications go out all at once. Some schools don't even send out notifications all at once.. so seeing someone post that they got in but not having heard anything may not be the greatest feeling, but still, there's no need to lose hope because of it!

@pizzapassion aren't we all just so ready for this to be over??? like stick a fork in me, I'm soooo done!! @GreenEyedTrombonist well, let's see how it all goes first and then I think we can help with next steps - so many people here have been so helpful especially as I'm new to Communication just like you. In my case, my BAs are in Political Science/ English Lit and MAs are in Int'l Environmental Policy/ English Lit. (yeah, I'm collecting assorted degrees), so obviously, not having a Comm degree didn't really hurt me. However, I didn't apply to UI Urbana Champaigne because their Comm Phd program required a MA in Comm or something relevant and they don't define "relevant" very broadly. So having a MA in Comm can't hurt but not sure that's the only way. Some people more versed in this field would be able to assist. But let's cross that bridge when we get to it. It's still not even mid Feb - god help us!

@phdthoughts, @heyDW is so super helpful, right? I think a lot of programs do rounds. Even if they don't not all the students the select initially will choose to go there so there will definitely be shifting and transitioning. The good thing is that this is far from over. The bad thing is that this is far from over. At least we have each other! And I promise that I will be everyone's cheerleader til the end - even if that means applying again next year - but hopefully it won't. We got your back @GreenEyedTrombonist!

@onerepublic96 This depends on the school, I think. Some schools will focus on your most recent grades and even with your undergrad, may only look at grades from related classes. But I can say that it would definitely help that you are in the midst of an English MA. More likely than not, the English MA performance will matter more. I know it's really easy to fixate on GRE and GPA prior to applying, but SOPs and writing samples are important, too, and these can communicate much more clearly and persuasively to admissions committees if you can think and write like a Literature person.

I know this whole process is the breeding ground for self-doubt, but having gotten an MA in English Lit after working in a completely unrelated field for over 7 years, I'm sure you well excel should you go the MA route. Like someone else already mentioned, you still have some schools you are waiting on so don't give up. But I agree with @orphic_mel528, it may be intimidating at first when all the students who did BAs in English Lit start throwing around titles and authors and theory that you may not be familiar with. However, you are still a literature major, so pretty much all of the critical theory would be similar. I had a difficult time at first because I hadn't studied any sort of literature in a decade and everyone seemed to know so much about works that wouldn't even be considered canonical. That was only in the very beginning, though, and I know for sure that you know more about literature now than I did when I started my English MA. So however this turns out, you'll be okay!!

In general, University of Washington or U-Dub is the one in Seattle

@2ManyTacos Welcome - the wait really does suck, doesn't it? Well, as for the "submitted" status, I don't really think it means anything other than the online status system not being meaningful. After a couple of interviews and admissions, only one of the 7 schools I applied to changed the status on my application, and this was only at the very end to say "university acceptance" or something like that. No changes to under review or interview complete or anything like that. I know I've been really reading into EVERYTHING during this whole process - the whole not knowing thing really is hard. Good luck!

@Forest Owlet Congratulations! A lot of international students are getting their sleep cycles completely messed up! It's going to be a hard habit to break (waking up, checking, back to sleep) even after this is all over but we're closer to this being finished now!

I've worked and studied in a couple of different fields and found that some disciplines are more welcoming of people from varied academic backgrounds than others. English literature was not one of these fields. Obviously, different programs in different schools may be more open to diverse academic backgrounds, but for the most part, literature is a pretty particular field. A lot of lit people will say it's open and diverse, but coming from a different field (social science in my case), I realized that the (invisible) barrier to entry is much higher than I had expected. I double majored in English Lit and really liked it so I thought I'd do well in my MA in English Lit. I completed the degree without too much difficulty, but just realized that the kind of approach and the kind of writing the literature professors are accustomed to is different from what I was used to and in some cases, the professors weren't really thrilled by my "innovative" approach. If you really are passionate about pursuing a graduate degree in English Literature, I would strongly suggest applying to a MA program first. Honestly, it may be a difficult task to convince admissions committees that though your primary field of study wasn't in English Lit during your undergrad you are now serious about pursuing a PhD in English. If you do the MA, then you'll have a writing sample that is the style that English programs look for and you'll learn more about what kinds of applicants schools are looking for and that you are competing against. BA to PhD in English Lit isn't impossible, but it isn't easy in general even without the different background to consider. When I decided I wanted to do a PhD in English Lit, I had a long talk with an English professor from my undergrad days and he suggested I do the MA before applying for a PhD. I'm glad I did because I found out what I really wanted to do wasn't English. A lot of applicants will be applying in the middle of their MA - some schools will ask for your current GPA even if you're not finished with the MA, some schools will ask to have your final MA GPA updated before you can be enrolled in their program. Some schools will focus on your English Lit class grades. If you are enrolled in a MA program and doing well, you can choose to emphasize this in your SOP. Also, you may be able to offset some of the GPA issues with a great GRE verbal score. I would spend my time during the MA to really explore what you want to do within Literature and write a great SOP and writing sample as these will say much more about you and your potential in the field than your undergrad GPA in an unrelated field. Good luck!

@heyDW Ugh.. slow is an understatement - it's like time stands still!! @michellelaura92 I hope you find that you like the culture at Iowa - I think chemistry really is important and feeling welcome and wanted into a program really matters. Hopefully they are impressed with you and you are impressed with them.

@siitrasn OMG - I flew from Seoul to SF recently and my hand was shaking on the flight from internet withdrawal! Yes, the time difference is challenging even without the language barrier. I'm lucky on the English front, too, but I have friends who aren't as conversant and just trying to communicate with admin people and such via email due to the time difference is that much more difficult when you can't make your point clear AND there's the delay in response time due to the time difference.. I got so used to checking stuff at night that I've been waking up at least twice a night even though I'm stateside now

Thanks @TakeruK, I'm not even sure I'll be comfortable negotiating but if the situation becomes dire, or I become a bit more comfortable, I'll definitely keep what you said in mind

Oooh, thanks for the information! Wow, they were pretty detailed about the next steps! - but they sent you an email on a Sunday?

@Evangeline95 lol hi again! ooh! ... I wish I knew how to to go about this! The thing is, for some schools, they post funding rates/ ranges so I'm not sure there's a lot of wiggle room.

Another possibility I've seen in some cases is that schools may want to check English for non-native speakers or people applying from countries where English is not used widely. Not sure this would apply in your case. Either way, good luck!

I have had many jobs over the years but really am not one to aggressively negotiate when it comes to compensation and such, so when it comes to funding offers, I was just going to take what was offered. I didn't think that grad school funding packages were even negotiable until a few people I know talked about negotiating their way to better terms and conditions and even getting moving costs covered. I'm curious, how negotiable are funding packages? I'm sure this differs from school to school, program to program, and maybe even individual students. However, would it be considered completely out of left field should a student even attempt to negotiate for better terms? Or is this acceptable? Knowing my own personality, I probably won't negotiate, but I'm also worried that a little bit of negotiation is standard practice and that I'll miss out...

That really depends - do you know if interviews are pretty standard for the field you're applying to? Also, do you know if the schools you applied to conduct interviews? If you look at the program-specific forums or the "results" database here on gradcafe, you may get the information you need to assess your situation. If you're not sure, you could always email and ask whether the school conducts interviews as part of the application review process and whether invitations were still pending. You could always just say you are curious for planning purposes.