ratanegra19

That's so cool! Congratulations--it's a kickass program!

Hey, where there's precedent there's hope! Thanks, Steve

Does anyone have info on UCLA? I emailed the DGS last week, but all he could tell me is that there are 12 people on the waitlist, that the waitlist works in terms of maintaining field distribution rather than a ranked list, and that very few people have made a decision one way or another at this point. I'm pretty much sold on Santa Barbara, but turning down a funded offer from UCLA (if I end up getting it) would truly be madness.

Unless UCLA pulls a rabbit out of its hat and I get off the waitlist, I've decided on UC Santa Barbara! UCSB is a great program with friendly people, awesome faculty, and is actually committed to interdisciplinary amalgamations (as opposed to just saying that to seem hip). They've offered me great funding, and it's also a gorgeous campus right on the water. Bike-friendly, and I wouldn't have to deal with any real kind of "winter" for at least half a decade! Since UCLA is practically a public Ivy, it would be silly to turn them down if they gave me a shot--however, for my own peace of mind, I'll wait a week and then just take myself off the waitlist--butting up THAT close against the deadline isn't worth it when I already have a bird in the hand. Everything about this application season has culminated in a kind of vindication one rarely receives in academia, and I'm basking in it

Thanks, same to you!

Sorry not to see you at UCSB in the Fall, but I'm sure you'll be super happy at Davis--it was great to meet you IRL! @Joasia0429, I was also at the Recruitment Day for IU. It was very big and impressive, and I actually really liked Bloomington. The cohort was great, and the faculty were solid. Like @positivitize said, it's actually a mind-bogglingly big school, too. However, I feel like my other choice (Santa Barbara) is a better fit for me overall, so I will be turning down my funded offer from IU today or tomorrow. IDK how their waitlist works (if it's in terms of strong candidates or if they're trying to maintain a certain field distribution--I'm 20th/21st century American, emphasis in cognitive approaches to literature), but I'm crossing my fingers that maybe you can receive my offer!

Hoo boy...I leave the thread for a couple of hours, and this is what I come back to! Humanities people are crazy

Rhet/Comp or Lit? I have a buddy who just officially accepted for Rhet/Comp, and the way I understand it they only accept about 2 ppl per year--of course, she could have been exaggerating about that number...

Holy crap, I was gonna say... From the context of the letter above, though, I'd say they probably mean the WHOLE Grad School of Arts and Sciences. I hope. Otherwise there is no hope for any of us, ever.

Dude! That's awesome. I was accepted there too--PM me if you're going to the visitor's day, so that I'll be able to talk to at least one person there

Thanks for the info! I'm also in this position, though I'm leaning toward the two "in the hand" offers I have--just because I don't want to stress over something that may never happen. Still, good to know!

I just got my rejection from Michigan yesterday via email--I know they sent out a bunch of waitlist offers like two weeks ago, so unfortunately you'll probably be hearing the bad news soon, too.

I'm in a similar situation right now. I can't tell you exactly how to negotiate--department cultures are very different in this regard, and how much money they have to throw around varies widely regardless of quality. What I CAN tell you, however, is what my advisors told me: go and visit both before making a decision and/or negotiating. The thing is, no matter what the funding offer actually entails (assuming they've offered the full package), whether or not you gel with the cohort culture is key to both your success and happiness. This is the next 6-10 years of your life! A number of my professors tell me that when they were students, they were actually leaning toward other schools before their own visit. The way they were received, however, sealed the deal. No matter how "good" the school is, you really have to ask yourself whether or not your personality, research interests, and way of being fit in with what you see when you visit. True, they'll be rolling out the red carpet for you--but talking to other grad students usually helps you "read between the lines" on these matters. Worse case scenario--getting in debt sucks, but taking out a couple thousand per semester in Stafford loans (assuming you don't have quite enough to live comfortably on) in the first couple of years (before you can apply for fellowships) is a much better idea than being thoroughly miserable in a place where the stipend goes further. That being said, sometimes negotiation indeed works--but why waste all that time and energy, as well as risking the disfavor of the DGS and the department, on negotiating for an offer you might not even end up accepting?

Yeah, I just got a rejection letter in the mail today. Bummer (I wanted to live in MA), but it's been an implied rejection for like, a month now.

From what I've heard and read (unless they've changed recently) is that they only fund about half the students. Funding is certainly available, but they seem to have the notion that competition for funding is good for students' success :/ UW is a good school, and some of my professors at WWU went there--they just seem to have an uber-competitive cohort culture that I'm not really down with. That's one reason I didn't apply. Still, here's crossing my fingers for you! Who knows--you may very well be offered funding

I can't speak with authority on the PhD program at UW, but I know that when I applied to the MA a couple of years ago it took them a REALLY long time to reply--I didn't actually get my official rejection until around April 10th, even though I had emailed them. I'm from Washington, and I've known a lot of folks who were associated with UW--they kind of have a reputation for taking longer than most to make their decisions.

No worries--I have trouble keeping track of who says what on this thread sometimes, too. We're working with 50+ pages and in only about 2 months worth of posts! To answer your question, I learned about the program originally through reading the "Acknowledgements" section of Lisa Zunshine's book, Why We Read Fiction. It's a great read, and one of the first bona fide works in the field of cognitive literary studies, as opposed to cognitive science per se. She talked about how she'd gotten a lot of her ideas through the great seminars at Santa Barbara, though I don't think it was called "Literature and Mind" at the time. I did some research, and found that that cognitive approach tradition is still going strong--it looks pretty cool! It's actually not a program so much as a reading group that offers some seminars, so if I choose to go to UCSB I would still be getting a "normal" PhD in English (whatever the hell that means), However, I'd do my best to work with some of the professors doing cognitive literary studies--there's also an option to do one part of your comps exams in the "Literature and Mind" subfield! Woo...we're all such nerds here

@imogenshakesand @chamakay, awesome! Let's PM a little closer to the date so that we can coordinate. To answer your question, chamakay, I talked to a couple of the professors yesterday who are associated with the Literature and Mind group. I haven't spoken to any grad students yet--I'm hoping to be able to do that soon, though!

Congrats on your recent acceptance! I've decided to bust ass for the next couple of weeks and get everything done so that I can go to UCSB's Open House on the 10th after all-- I'm in the process of deciding between UCSB and IU Bloomington, and it's really important for me to get as much data as possible. Cali is much better location-wise, but Indiana has its perks too--lol, I'll probably be posting a new thread pretty soon begging for help from you guys in making the decision If you're going to be there too, let's meet up IRL and say hello!

*Grimace of sympathy. My family isn't quite that bad, thank goodness, but I still thank my lucky stars that three of my sisters have already had children, and the fourth plans to, so no one bugs me about it. I feel like I dodged the proverbial bullet

For sure!

Lol, maybe the four of us could share a Motel 6 room for three months while they figure out the family housing situation... Thanks for all the good info, that's actually super helpful--I will probably try to talk to the Housing division directly if and when I go over there to visit. As they say, knowing is half the battle

You're absolutely right in saying that different ages have different challenges attached to them--being taken seriously at a younger age, especially if you are a young-looking person or a woman, is sometimes very difficult. Luckily, the teaching experience that you get in MA and PhD programs is not only good for professionalization, but it helps you define the "teacher" persona that they'll be looking for later on for job searches (if you're going into academia, that is). That's one thing that's really nice about doing an advanced degree in the Humanities as opposed to other fields--we tend to get TAships instead of RAships, which means that we almost always have at least 5 years of solid teaching under our belts by the time we try for that professorship. I didn't mean for my comment to be discouraging for you and other younger folks trying for the MA or PhD--I was just trying to point out that being older, like being younger, has it's own pros and cons

It's weird--since I haven't talked to the DGS yet, I actually haven't heard about visitor's day or anything else. I expect that they will probably contact me more formally on Monday, though. That being said, I really want to go and visit, but whether I go on the 10th or another day remains to be seen--I have a final to give and two seminar papers to turn in by that following Monday Right now I'm mostly worried about the affordability of SB--I mean, they offer the full funding packages, but it looks like it's about 18K/year--a lot more than I'm making right now, but it won't go very far in a place like Santa Barbara, where housing is so expensive that even the faculty live in University-subsidized apartments. Not that I mind, but I have a partner and so we would have to get family housing, which has a waitlist of around 10 months--yikes! We'll see, though--it's honestly a really good fit. I'll have to see the campus and talk to some of the students already attending to get a better idea of the ins and outs of living there

Very true. You can't put a price on good, old-fashioned experience. I've never regretted taking time between my BA and my MA--the plethora of work experience (in my case, teaching experience) aside, it just gives you a bit more perspective on things--you freak out less, you plan more, etc. Still, it's really crappy that you have to take all that sexist bullshit from folks, especially folks who ACTUALLY THINK they are helping...it baffles me. Between you, me, the fencepost, and the rest of this thread, some of my profs have actually told me that they prefer working with older grad students--they aren't basing any decisions on that sort of thing, of course, but just in the general scheme of things they find that the older students are a bit more down-to-earth and willing to understand that grad study is a full-time job, as opposed to an inertial whim.