ArcaMajora

Best of luck to you all! Happy to provide support and commiserate.

Hello! Just wanted to check in on the new application thread I can't imagine planning applications in such a strange time. It's already strange enough being a grad student in quarantine (aside: I really cannot wait for in-person instruction when it's safe to do so), but to apply during this? I genuinely wish all of you the best of luck. Some of the stories I've seen about funding situations when it comes to graduate offers, etc. have been frightening. I truly have no idea what the admissions landscape will look like for Fall 2021. I'm pleased to see some familiar names as well. @Bopie5 it's been so long! I hope things are going well at Villanova. I'm looking at your sig and I spy a certain UC Irvine in there. Let me know if you want to know more about the program.

Hi all! Checking in to see how folks are doing this in strange, strange time. Never in a million years did I ever expect 2020 years to turn out like this. I'm especially saddened for all of you and the future Fall 2021 cohort, going into grad school with this much tumult is something I cannot imagine. Even in the best of times, the process of applying and deciding whether or not to go accept a program's offer was mentally taxing without the pressures of anything external. I vividly remember experiencing a strong case of cold feet and 'should I or should I not' before I started my first quarter. With COVID at hand? My goodness. I'm happy to keep chatting, offer support, or help proffer advice on decisions. I know that the April 15th deadline is coming up incredibly soon. Always happy to talk.

The overall timeline of when Irvine sends interview notices is one I'm not sure of. There is an implication it seemed to be spread out over a few days (according to last year's timeline: January 30th to Feb 2nd? And this is extrapolating from the results board). Don't lose hope immediately if you don't get an interview notice or any communication from Irvine. They seem to contact in waves, since someone I talked to in recruitment last year was notified a day earlier than me iirc I'd watch your inbox for this week, but if you get no contact from Irvine about anything by next week or late February (esp if they're doing a waitlist, which I'm not sure is happening/how the notifs there works), it might be safe to call it an implied rejection.

Congrats again!!! Looks like the same process as last year was used this year. This goes out to you and to any Irvine admits this year that are lurking the GC boards, I'm happy to answer any questions about the dept/grad student life as a 1st year.

Congrats! Good luck on the interview. Being contacted for this is an extremely good sign. Fingers crossed.

Did this measure actually pass? Edit: in my panic seeing these proposed changes again I blanked on reading the last part lol. I'm doing my taxes right now and I'm getting conflicting information as to whether or not I should count my two quarters' worth of remission as income or if I should just input just the stipends I've gotten. All tax projections I've done (with tuition remission + stipend) do show that my liability shouldn't be too huge (though CA tax is another question). I am eligible for the Lifetime Learning Credit, so that's one tax credit down. I can't help but wonder if the above did pass as there was some IRS online tool that did say that I would have to count remission as income due to the way my fellowship is situated (I'm not teaching and I don't have a research fellowship either. Though a part of me wonders if entering fellowships for first/second years have always had tuition remission as taxable income...) If there's one thing I've learned throughout trying to decode our tax code as grad students, use any and all tax credits to your advantage. Sites like Personal Finance for PhDs can really help demystify the process.

Both. My program's DGS acknowledged out loud that string of tweets from Yale's DGS, and I believe that UCI's seen an increase in applicants as well.

I just want to give everyone encouragement in these times. If you don't have a specific project or a definitive method, that is okay. While yes, strategic specificity is key in things like the SoP, nobody here is expected to produce a dissertation prospectus. It can be incredibly helpful to have a project, but the projects in an SoP are going to be tentative and indicative of a direction than the play-by-play that programs will expect from you after qualifying exams. I came into grad school with some ill-defined notion of a queer archive that, while I have it in the backburner, is a project I'm not currently writing on nor do I plan on writing about queer poetic archives for my MA paper. If you don't feel that your proposal is specific enough, remember that right now, it's not supposed to be a hyper-specific document. What is more key is a strategic specificity that outlines a potential direction that your program can support and shows you're in conversation with current issues in your field, but one that does not foreclose the possibility of you growing within the program. This process is notoriously tough. If anyone's expressing worries, I'm right there with you. I have heard whispers that this particular cycle is a touch more competitive than last year's due to the fact that there's an increase in applications for some programs. Of course, it must be taken with a grain of salt, but the general point I want to make is that this is a hypercompetitive process with almost no feedback except in most cases a decision. Fit is an elusive beast, and you could have an extremely polished SoP and WS, but there may have been circumstances in the department that meant that your app, as strong as it may have been, simply would not have meshed well with the program. If you find yourself staring at a sea of rejections/implied rejections, remember that it's the very likely case that it's not about you nor is it a final judgment on your skills. Fit, to priorities in the department (too many/too little grad students per cohort, too many in one field), funding structures/decisions dictated by admin, etc. and so many factors out of your control can go a very long way into determining the decisions you can get.

@Lblack Congrats!!! UCR English is a wonderful department. I'm an undergrad alumnus, but I maintain contact with my thesis advisor and I visit from time to time. I can't speak much to the department from the grad student perspective but I'm happy to field questions about the department. Best of luck, and I'm also happy to see another SoCal resident

Just got accepted to Disjunctions! If anyone here has applied to that particular graduate conference, I'm happy to talk. I'd be happy to chat and hang out at Riverside. It's surreal to be going back and presenting at my alma mater. Looking forward to seeing faces new and old. I'll be presenting on Reginald Shepherd and his self-portraits. With that, I think that's my 2019-2020 conference plans wrapped up. I originally planned on NeMLA being my last conference for the year, but I lucked out on both Disjunctions and ALA taking place in SoCal.

I can affirm what @thoreaulymodern said and vouch for the DGS. I was contacted for a brief interview by an adcom member. By mid-February, I got the official offer letter. Following last year's timeline, it's still a little bit early for UCI English. I got my interview notification at 1/31, and did a phone chat the next day.

Wonderful idea for a thread! Thanks for starting this @digital_lime I'm also presenting in NeMLA this year! Let me know if you want to plan a meet-up or chat. I'm also planning on going to the ALA this year. An abstract of mine just got accepted this morning. For anyone wanting to meet up in San Diego this coming May, I'm happy to talk.

Had quite the admissions related fever dream a few nights ago that I hope will help distract people, even if for just a bit, from the agonizing wait that is decisions. I was just recovering from a sudden bout of the flu that came on as the Winter quarter was just starting. I got home one night with my head pounding and wanting to sleep. I was expecting to sleep at around 10pm, but an hour before that I wanted to lie down and close my eyes for a second. There was no way I was going to do extra work as I spent most of the day socializing, and talking for hours usually tires out my brain fairly quickly. As soon as I closed my eyes, I basically knocked out. From there I remember finding myself reading a rather informal e-mail that I was accepted into Princeton Comp Lit of all programs. It was an e-mail of a group of fictional POIs and names I didn't recognize. The excitement I felt from that was so strong that during the time I was dreaming, and even for a few moments when I found myself slip back into slight consciousness (or if I was sleeping within the dream and 'waking up' during that dream), I was convinced that I made it to Princeton. The rest of the dream saw me traveling by plane to a facsimile of what I assumed Princeton to be. Even weirder, it was a trip I did on my own and randomly. There was no recruitment event attached to it or anything, nor did I visit any fictional POIs. The second part of the dream involved a going back home snafu that involved me hitchhiking with two other people, getting breakfast, and being late for my flight back to California. As far as I know, this is the most recent dream I vividly remember having. It was quite the trip haha Good luck to everyone as decisions come out! I'm rooting for you all As an addendum, I'm now remembering the other admissions I had while I was applying last year. The first I had for sure was seeing an e-mail of UC Irvine sending me a rejection letter, and this dream happened the very night before I got notified from UCI faculty about wanting a phone chat. Then the next dream was a school that had UW-Madison's school colors publicly posting the names of new admits one by one in some site.

Congratulations to everyone who has received interview offers thus far! This is a very encouraging sign and it could lead to wonderful things down the line. For those that are sitting on silence so far, I want to stress that this is only the beginning. For those applying to UC Irvine or UC Riverside this cycle, I'm happy to field questions about the departments and the cities for both. I'm currently in the midst of wading through seminar coursework and my research so I'm not sure what the admissions committee for UCI is doing sans reading the apps right now. If the schedule and procedure from last year holds, I'm expecting calls to go out to unofficial admits by late January/early February.

Reporting from California here. The stipend is fairly livable. I'm currently on fellowship for $21,000 over a 9-month payment schedule, with a $3,000 summer stipend to come. On a month-to-month basis, that's about $2,300/month during the academic year give or take. I do have to preface that I am both single and my hometown isn't too far from Irvine, so the move-in costs were not nearly as large versus needing to move from someplace else that's much farther. As far as rent... I'm currently paying about $800/month for my 2 bed 1 bath unit in one of the on-campus apartments, with our own rooms as well. There's cheaper units for on-campus housing, but those are the much higher demand units. The unit itself is pretty good. I haven't had any utility costs spring up at me plus internet access is also provided straight from the university. Day to day, I'm doing good so far on needing enough to cover the essentials (rent + groceries), being able to pull off out-of-state conferences with the help of conference grants, and the occasional night out to dinner/social events. I'm currently living on campus without a car, which definitely helps ease how much I use my stipend (a car would invoke not just insurance, but the breathtakingly expensive parking permit). Any money I save now is part-emergency fund and part-money I'll use for summer rent. The drawback though is definitely the summer months. The school year has largely been fine, but the summer months is where we have to produce our own income. After the first year summer stipend, I've seen people either take up summer session teaching for UCI or be exam prep tutors/instructors over the summer. Watch the space for how this one goes. Work on the side is tempting, but the amount of work and the time-intensive nature of grad seminars usually dissuades me from that haha. My first quarter as a grad student was immensely challenging and pushed me a lot harder than undergrad did. It was incredible, but also immensely stressful. And there were parts during that quarter where I couldn't think of anything but 'how am I doing right now as a grad student/am I any good?' For the first quarter at least, I just couldn't see myself taking on part-time work without breaking my personal work/life balance line. Let's see how this quarter goes. For summer months, I would definitely work over the summer unless a research fellowship that takes me far from California happens. In short, it's livable, but it depends on a whole bunch of factors that are context-sensitive to the area, your needs, your financial situation, etc. and how those factors intersect. My stipend is comfortable for me now because my hometown is close to the area, have family nearby, and have an increased safety net that takes pressure off my stipend (plus cohort friends that are willing to drive me around for hangouts/dinners). I have no doubt that if I was writing this from somewhere like Buffalo or Seattle, I'd def be having a much different experience and a double adjustment to grad school plus entirely new states.

Hi all! Just wanted to wish everyone here a Happy New Year's and a hearty congratulations for anyone either finished with applying, nearly finished applying, or anywhere in-between, whatever stage you may be in. Decision season is coming soon (Buffalo is one to watch out for this month to the best of my knowledge) and I want to wish everyone the very best of luck. I want to stress: your results do not define you. I've had to ingrain that lesson in myself and it feels strange to even say that because I struggled with precisely that last cycle all throughout the process. This is going to be a time of both highs and lows. It got to me last cycle to the point where my sleep cycle ended up being messy due to way too bouts of late-night thinking over whether or not this path was meant for me. If you are ever in that position, or just want to talk, my DM box is always open for anyone that wants to chat. I may be busier now due to grad school, but I will get to your message as reasonably quickly as I can. And no matter what happens, the fact that you're in this position is itself incredible. Let's celebrate and commiserate from here to April 15th and beyond. I'm looking forward to seeing how this year will go for all of you

Hi all I hope everyone here is doing well with their graduate school applications. This is genuinely only the beginning. The process truly does not let up at all, and the fact that all of you are in this position of applying is already a tremendous achievement. Remember to rigorously self-care throughout this process and remember that you are human, too. I leaned on my support system to an almost immense degree during this process and I felt completely out of my depth when applying. I lost faith in myself more times I'd like to admit. The whole thing (applying + then writing the applications + decision letters) was an emotional rollercoaster, and I feel that's an understatement. If you ever feel lost please know that my DMs are open. No matter where you're applying, no matter what stage you are in, know that in the words of Warelin, you are GREAT. Please, please, please remember that. ----- Additionally, I just wanted to throw out some signals as far as upcoming conferences that people are either planning to go to or are shortly forthcoming! SAMLA is in a matter of a few weeks if anyone's planning on traveling to Atlanta. Feel free to talk to me if you're currently slated for SAMLA or are going to be in the local area in mid-November. NeMLA 2020 is also happening and my abstract's been accepted. I'm also happy to talk if anyone's gonna be in Boston for NeMLA!

Admittedly, this is a gray area and I've had conflicting advice from my letter writers in this regard. One saw mentioning the specific names of faculty as being a touch too presumptuous, while another letter writer encouraged me to contact faculty while applying and mention them in my SoP. I did not contact faculty but I did mention faculty by name when I wrote my statement. When I sent these drafts to all my letter writers, I wasn't pinged for mentioning faculty by name (which I did for all applications). Ultimately, the decision to do this depends on the approach you take for your SoP and how well your rhetoric lines up with either mentioning faculty by name or not. In most SoP's I've seen for PhD programs, I've seen faculty being explicitly named (the Berkeley History PhD example that I modeled my SoP after does so to my knowledge). There are best practices for this, of course. (ie. if you mention faculty by name, try not to over-mention them, and speak about them in a way that allows for their strengths to intersect with your interests while not resorting to appealing to overt flattery). It also largely depends too depending on how many faculty you've found, how you yourself define fit, and how that faculty member can configure in the calculus that defines your fit with the program. For example, for SUNY Buffalo, that was the one case where I did both (mention specific faculty that I was most compatible with but also described their general strength with poetics). I identified at least five or six faculty there I could work due to their poetics program, but for pragmatic purposes I mentioned the two names I felt I was compatible with while remarking on the bigger picture research of the poetics program. I am really happy that what I wrote helped Good luck with your SoP and the rest of your application materials! As I've said in the past, I'm always happy to talk via DM to answer any questions anyone has about the process. Graduate school has diminished my spare time recently but I can make time for quiet moments work.

I've thought over the role of the SoP and here's my thoughts now after having settled into my graduate program and the general expectations for first years at least from what I have seen in Irvine so far. I want to stress that the statement of purpose is by no means a contract. You are absolutely not beholden to it once you are in the program. I've talked with my advisor about how my fields could well shift in the duration of my fellowship year and that the questions I raised in my SoP would instead be much different ones depending on where my lines of thinking go. That being said, it is productive to be as specific as you feasibly can without appearing like you're completely calcified in your field/period. When I was writing the basis for what became my statement of purpose, I thought of it as a sort of 'prospectus.' I wrote a vision of myself as a scholar at that moment then; and accordingly then had a tentative dissertation topic/larger lines of thinking that could form the seed of the eventual dissertation prospectus or master's thesis if I sustain that project beyond just applying to graduate school. Being specific enough without appearing like you're too set (to the point where you may not benefit from graduate education) is a balancing act. If you are a restoration scholar, then it is very much okay to write yourself as such in your SoP, as that will ensure a higher (but not guaranteed) chance that your SoP will be read by a faculty specialist that is within or adjacent to your time period. If you know what kinds of texts, authors, theorists, etc. you're working on, make that apparent in your SoP. The flexibility (ie. being molded by the program) comes if you make it clear with confidence that you know your project can benefit from having the influence of discourse with faculty within the program either due to its general strengths or if there's a particular faculty member you're looking to work with. For example, this might mean writing in your statement with strategic moments of 'While so-and-so project represents the current inquiry I have into this specific time period/issue/question, this is by no means a closing off of my wider scholarly interests. Indeed, OMG University's strengths could complement my project by way of so-and-so-and-so and possibly even expand my research into these ways/areas.' It becomes an exercise in showing how you and your project/lines of thinking could be molded by the program that you are applying for, and it's one of the many ways in which you can demonstrate your potential fit to an admissions committee. Thus, don't sacrifice your specificity (the adcom will want to know what you're studying) but make sure to appear as such that your interests can change, expand, and of course be complicated. The SoP is a barometer of fit just as much as it is the adcom's way to hold a litmus test in how well you can present yourself as a scholar in an academic and professional context and also as a way to see if you can start proposing the kinds of projects that are expected of graduate students to produce. The best way I can phrase it is that you do need to be specific enough in order for a program to identify not just your field, but the methodologies you favor (you like queer theory? are you more into ecocrit? continental philosophy?), the texts that you gravitate toward, etc, but the possibility of change (either the refinement of interests or even an outward expansion) by either faculty discourse, the program's strength, seminar, etc. will definitely need to be there.

I modeled mine after this statement of purpose from UC Berkeley's History PhD. While it is from a different field, there are aspects of it that feel like it can be conversant and productive for SOPs in English. I'm also happy to share mine, let me know via PM at any time.

Glad to see this thread still getting updated omg I'm still a ways away from UC Irvine starting but that September 26th start date is creeping up quick. I have two orientations next September (School of Humanities + Campuswide) and then a beginning of the year party. Also have an apartment, about to pick up keys in a few weeks' time and hopefully settle in by mid-September. It's a little bit surreal to call myself graduate student still (much less having a new institutional affiliation). I've been busying myself with MLA database deep dives as well as reading some books that are long overdue for me to read (all this time my UG library would have a full PDF of Cruising Utopia digitally lol). I don't have the jitters quite yet, but tbh once it hits September it'll definitely sink in for me. So excited for all of you!

@karamazov I can speak only from the BA-only side (though with the benefit of a gap year), and the one thing I can is that it definitely depends from program-to-program, and also, from individual-to-individual. I completely understand why you're nervous. I was in a similar position last year, wondering how I'd compete those holding MAs. I have seen that line of thinking floating around the forums and with some certainty, it does seem to be case. I believe there was one post that remarked that BA and MA applicants are either separated or are read with different lenses. As a BA-only applicant, it's fine if your project/research questions may need some ironing out (if there's one thing I've learned during graduate student recruitment, a program wants to also ensure that it leaves its mark on you). An MA applicant will most likely have the upper hand in terms of having a longer and more graduate palatable CV, but they've also had some years of experience in a graduate program already. Admissions committees (to my knowledge anyway) will be aware of what degrees you're bringing to the table and evaluate you accordingly. The one thing I can say for those applying with just BAs, I'd definitely make sure to try and point out your potential as a graduate student and make clear what kind of research trajectory you're on and how the department can help achieve your goals. A project and SoP (as well as a sterling WS) that is well-constructed, well thought out, exciting, makes an intervention/conversation within your field (and, I cannot stress enough, also one that the program can feasibly support) can and will catch an admissions committee's eyes, regardless if you're an undergraduate or graduate student. I also want to stress that it also depends on what priorities and what kinds of students does the program desire (do they want those they can mold a bit more? have they had equal success with both BA and MA students? is one field over-crowded and one field underpopulated? etc.). Admission rates (from what I've seen from spending way too much time roaming through available admissions data), can be very elastic and unstable for some departments. Of course, this does not at all diminish the incredibly hyper-competitive nature of PhD admissions. However, the composition of what kind of cohort they want can absolutely change, especially from politics within and beyond the department (funding cuts leading to smaller cohorts to a department aggressively recruiting to justify more funding lines, which can cause an admission rate spike). That is to say, there's a lot of insider info/dynamics can influence a department's vision of what their ideal cohort may look like, so it is admittedly within the realm of the unknown. To close off though, it is absolutely possible for BA-only applicants to be competitive in this tough environment. Cohorts are definitely mixed in with profiles of students who took varying and diverse paths to the program. I repeated this one mantra to myself when applying: present the absolute best version of myself as a literary scholar and leave no doubts to my capabilities, my potential as a graduate student, and my fit. After submission, it's out of my hands and it's up to the admissions committee to decide.

@punctilious That is legitimately fascinating, and it lines up with what I've seen from the cohort profiles that I'm seeing from various institutions. I haven't taken a detailed look at mine specifically for Irvine, but I can share some trends that appear somewhat similar. Thanks for sharing this I am fairly sure mine is a mix of both BA and MA applicants (majority BA-only, but a catch here), but the common thread I've seen is that it's more and more common for applicants to take gap years or do MA degrees to build their research profiles. For my cohort, some took time after undergrad/MA to develop teaching skills, build a writing profile that isn't hewed to academia, etc. As far as I know, only two are coming in immediately after undergrad. A good amount of the BA-only admits in my cohort all took gap years in some form. Seeing more MAs in cohorts doesn't sound surprising. It looks to be a great way to help reduce time to degree (especially if coursework can be articulated for transfer credit that allows a candidate to reach ABD sooner, though YMMV depending on the program structure if such a thing is possible). The benefits of an MA going into the PhD are tangible, you have a more visible/a more specific research profile, experience with the publication process if one did so during the MA, more chances for conferencing/professionalization, teaching/TA experience, and experience in the graduate seminar room. I think the landscape of literary study has changed too much for the traditional BA-only applicant applying during undergrad to be the only desirable demographic for any school. I'd love to see more cohort data from other schools if feasible and if it's not broaching unwritten confidentialities/rules of course.

Welcome to everyone who has joined! Very glad to see the Fall 2020 community develop, especially as we loom closer to the start of the new school year. For those focusing on GREs, while all of you are making very good choices in studying in advance for them, I just want to stress that they are one component of the total application package. I got into my current program with very uneven GRE scores (158V/142Q/5.5AW), so for anyone worrying that an eye-popping Q score (12th percentile for my case lol) or a non-160 verbal will throttle an application, no fear. It also seems English PhD programs are beginning to drop the GRE even more. On the Ivy side of things, Yale has been mentioned as dropping the GRE subject (courtesy of Wimsey). Also, did some sleuthing on Harvard's English site and it seems they've dropped the GRE (both general + subject) entirely. Not sure if it was ever announced the same way Cornell was forthcoming about it, but for anyone looking to apply there (or if it's always been that way, I swore they required the GRE last Fall), you can go in GRE-less. All this to say, there's definitely an increasing trend of English departments formally dropping the requirement, so here's to hoping many other programs follow suit from here on out. (EDIT: I decided to take a random look at UMich's site and it seems they too have just dropped the GRE) For anyone living around the Northeast or follows this regional MLA, I've poked around the UPenn CFP database and it seems that NEMLA has released their CFPs for their conference next March. I haven't taken too close of a look but there's some very intriguing panels in there (including one on Elizabeth Bishop), deadline's September 30th for most of them. Also, if travel funding works in my favor, I'll be presenting a paper in SAMLA this November! If there's anyone going to Atlanta this year or is around the local area, let me know Would love to see GCers around.