imogenshakes

Fantastic! Congrats, @Mippipopolous and @TeaOverCoffee! You're both at incredible programs, and I'm so glad you ended up at your top choices. I haven't made a final decision yet, but right now, it's pretty much between Santa Barbara and Davis. Either way, I'll end up in California, but both programs are equally incredible for very different reasons. It's pretty much going to come down to funding negotiations (if they're successful) and the visiting days, I think.

HAHAHA that one got a literal snort from me. I love teaching undergrads so much. A week or so ago, I told my students I'd need to cancel a couple of classes and rework the syllabus for my campus visits. One of my more vocal students pushed me to list my acceptances, and when I gave them my top choices, she started clapping loudly and the whole class felt pressured to join in. As someone who HATES being the center of attention (weird for a teacher, I know, but...they do a lot of group work, heh), I'm pretty sure I turned about 50 shades of red. haha Anyway. I have my fingers crossed for everyone who's still waiting. I'm kind of astonished that it takes SO long for decisions to be made. I mean, I know they have hundreds of apps to wade through, but since we all have to plan around their schedules for visiting days and uproot our lives (in most cases) in the next 6 months, it seems like they'd be required to notify sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I'm just sitting on my hands waiting for GWU. I saw a few posts on results for the MA program, but I just wanna know so I can either cross them off or factor them into the decision-making. And also (largely) because my ego wants to know if I got the clean sweep or not...

I'm not sure if they even have a waitlist, but I declined a funded offer from South Carolina yesterday, so if they do it should be moving soon! Good luck to everyone who is waitlisted at various places. Things should start shifting around soon, and I have my fingers crossed for all of you!

Curious if anyone is going to the visiting days at Davis or Santa Barbara in the next few weeks? I know a couple of you will be at SB, but not sure if there are others, or anyone going to Davis.

I think about this all the time. The world would be lost without writers, readers, critical thinkers, in a REAL and tangible way. I don't know what on earth deemed engineers (and others) to be the gods of the academy and thus allowed them to look down their noses at us. The world doesn't go 'round if half of it's missing, folks. Let us trot down that road with enthusiasm! We can create our own Renaissance of sorts. I'm quite grateful that you say this, WT. It's a difficult thing. I struggle with it more than I should, I think, because I have one foot in a conservative Christian world and one in a liberal academic world. The members of the former ask me nearly every Sunday when it's time for us to make babies for them to hold, and I know my reaction is defensive and probably rude, but I can't help myself. Like, since when is my body and my private decision with my partner subject to everyone else's input? I don't know in what world people REALLY think this is ok and don't have some kind of check when they make such a comment. And of course, on the same hand, two of my advisors (tenured faculty) are incredibly successful academic women with families. One had two toddlers and raised them as a single mom while she was getting her PhD. The two are certainly not mutually exclusive, so I don't know if it's because academia is still considered to be a "masculine" profession or what, but maybe that's what perpetuates this ignorant idea that professors can't also be moms. Who knows. Also, of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you if you decide not to have kids. So I won't ever understand that, either. Women are human, women should be able to choose how they live their lives. End of story. Basically, I just want ignorant people to leave me alone. Haha I have a lot of pent up anger about this, sorry guys. //rant

Oh my gosh. This is so similar to my situation. My friends have been largely supportive, but that's mostly because I didn't really have friends until grad school (and those two that stuck around from before have always been there, have graduate degrees as well, and are always supportive and understanding of what I want to do). That's beside the point, though. My family has known since I first decided (nearly five years ago now) that I wanted to get a PhD, yet, when app time rolled around, I got three distinct talkings to from my mother. Keep in mind that I've been married and out of the house for nearly five years. The first one came five days before my lit subject, in which she asked me if I was doing this "for me, or to impress other people." Lol, like anyone would just put themselves through the wringer that is a PhD program just for someone else. The next one was, I don't think coincidentally, a couple of days before I retook my GRE general, and I was asked what was wrong with taking a few years off, having kids, then going to the school 1.5 hours away part-time "like so many people do" (really? Who that you know, mom?). There have been guilt trips of both the child-bearing(my partner is a few years older than me, so family planning is always on the mind for both of us, and her too, apparently) and "if you move away, you'll kill your family" variety. I've also been asked what's so bad about being an adjunct (what I'm doing now). I've explained that even though I'm working 40+ hours per week, I get paid less than $5/hr and don't get any benefits and that the courses I teach now could just vanish next semester, but I'm not sure she believes me. The whole thing has gotten worse since I started getting accepted to programs and the reality of what's happening is setting in. The major problem is that my BA was always encouraged but seen as a "backup plan" in case I, as a future stay at home mom, would need a degree to "fall back on" in a job search. Neither of my parents have degrees, and neither did their parents - I'm the first. So when I broke the mold and went for the MA, she passed it off as a hobby, I think. She doesn't understand that this is a job, this is a path to a job, and hopefully will lead to a stable future for my family (if all things pan out and I actually get tenured). It's more than just a passion for me, but for her, it is just a whim, a thing I'm using to defer having kids (I'm 23 for pete's sake), to impress other people. I don't really have an answer for how to deal with this, beyond just trying to explain in plain language what I'm doing in the best way I can. And I'm just going to have to figure out a way to deal with the inevitable emotional consequences of doing something that deviates from her plan for my life. Therapy is helping, but I'm not looking forward to dropping the news that I'm likely headed to California in 6 months.

Geez. I just now saw this. I'm sorry, guys. People can be so stupid and cruel. Hang in there!

To answer your question: no, it doesn't bother me at all. But I do think that how you ended up keeping the library book is a fun story for ANYTIME... I'm terrible about notetaking on my computer...it's too easy to get distracted, and I remember more when I handwrite. I didn't take many notes during my MA, though, for the same reasons @Wyatt's Terps mentions...I'd get too absorbed in the discussion, and find myself just destroying the margins of my texts with notes and stars and highlighting. It's super helpful (and my new primary method for taking notes, though I did start doing this my junior year of my BA), but I also find that now I have to move 6 large bookshelves FULL of books across the country, because there's no way in HECK you'll catch me getting rid of my precious treasures now. haha At any rate, I think I'm going to try categorizing my notes on my Google Drive after handwriting them. I know it will be much more time consuming, but I imagine there will be two great benefits: 1) more time with the notes, and 2) easier searchability (yeah, just made up a word). Totally agree with you on that one. As for my pen and paper snobbery, I alternate between Sharpie and Uniball pens, all colored (though not for color-coding. I wish I could be that organized. It's just for fun, so I like to look at my notes). I also recently started purchasing Moleskine lined notebooks and I don't think I could ever go back. I do love spiral bound notebooks, but the size, portability, and general hardiness of Moleskines are fantastic/hard-to-beat, and I find myself jotting more thoughts down throughout the day because I always have one on hand. My advisor told me that I should head down that road as far back as my junior year of UG, but I didn't listen to him for like three years. I wish I had, he was right. Also, I've used a planner religiously since I was in high school, and recently picked up a Create360 one from Michael's that allows you to buy stickers and insert your own pages and images and lists etc.etc. and it's the BEST thing ever. It made planning even MORE fun, which I wasn't sure was possible for a list-making nutcase like myself.

I generally hate dressing up, so the first year of my MA program I wore skinny jeans and cardigans almost exclusively. When I transitioned into teaching the following year, I started wearing more business casual dresses and skirts. I have friends from my cohort who continue/d to teach in jeans and a blouse, but that's also kind of the culture of my university. I wanted to distinctly set myself apart from my students (many of whom are the same age as me or older), so I abandoned the jeans. Haha I think I did go to class a few times in leggings, provided I wore a long enough shirt. I can't really envision myself doing that in a PhD program, though, now that I've discovered the wonder and comfort that is a nice cotton dress with tights ?

Man, I know! I'm quite excited about all of the environmental initiatives they have! And I actually don't know much about the Lit and the Mind program...I can't find who mentioned it (was it @ratanegra19?), but I remember seeing something out there about that.

I don't mind at all, Mel. In fact, thanks for calling my attention to this thread. Everything you say is right; I've said this in other places, as well, but I REALLY truly believe that fit and a good overall application is what matters most with applications. I got my BA and my MA from the same university, in much the same situation as what Mel outlines (small program, large third-tier public uni). A friend from my cohort is now at a top-10 university, and I've been accepted to 7 out of the 8 programs I applied to (four of which are top-30 programs). The odds were stacked against me in particular (for various reasons), but something apparently worked. I don't for one second think that you should close yourself off to the idea that you could make it into a great PhD program. I do think it's a good idea to pursue an MA first; not just for the GPA boost, but also because it will give you time to craft an amazing writing sample and SOP, refine your research interests, work with faculty who can speak to your ability to do excellent graduate work in English, and to build your CV with conferences/talks/teaching (potentially)/etc.

Yes. Yes. YES PLEASE. I'm so in! It's so nice to have a niche, guys. It's hard to grow up a nerd, but man, when you find your crowd...it's the BEST.

Dude. This makes me so happy. I still think that we were destined to meet. Everything I know about you sounds SO MUCH LIKE ME it's weird. Don't worry about the correspondence. I've pretty much inundated my POI and the DGS at Davis with a gazillion questions, even though I'm visiting in April. As everyone keeps saying (and has been comforting to me), they've already decided we're a good fit for the program, and it's their turn to court us and convince us that they're THE program. I don't think asking lots of questions is out of place, and whenever I'm not sure if a q should have had an obvious answer, I preface with something like "I'm familiar with x from the website, but I wonder if you could tell me more about it"/some specific question about it.

Mel, what's your field? I know @Wyatt's Terps is an early modernist...it would be super cool if we all ended up at similar conferences at some point (SAA, anyone?). Though there's always MLA...

Hooray! Yes, let's all three meet up (and anyone else who's in at SB)! So far, I've heard from two faculty (my POIs) and a student. I asked the DGS to put me in touch with a student, so I just heard from her a couple of days ago. You should hear from people soon, if you haven't already!

Thank you!! And Yay! I'm glad you're going to make it out. My partner and I will both be there. We should definitely meet up! If that's where we both end up, it would be nice to already have a friend ?

Oh yay!!! Congratulations!

Hooray! I'm excited to hear where we all end up ? Yeah, I'm totally overwhelmed with the decision at the moment, but definitely leaning toward Cali. There are a lot of moving parts, but I think Davis or SB would both be amazing fits for different reasons, so I'm hoping visits clear things up. I also really do love the looks of Iowa. Gahhh

Good luck! I will say, it was kind of a weird email. The attachment was mostly like "you got funding, here's some vague info, if you accept we'll give you many more details." haha Not much about the program as a whole or anything. I hope you get some good news from them!

In my experience, it wasn't a hinderance. I was afraid that it might be, but was limited in my ability to apply to other MA programs at the time (and I also just love my department and never wanted to leave, ha). My advisors also thought it might make it difficult for me to get into any "top" programs. But...let the record show that it's possible to do that and still get into a (or a few) great PhD programs!

I somehow missed this in my haste to post! I also heard from most of my top schools really early, but I'm super indecisive, and all of the programs I applied to are very clear fits so I knew going in that I'd be happy at any of them. That's making this so much harder. I do agree, though, and we can always chat about the directions we're leaning and whatnot (or just talk about random things, since that happens on nearly every thread and is just as wonderful). Also, I'm really grateful for the offer to chat, I'm finding that talking to students who have been in and around the departments/programs are the most helpful in narrowing things down! Re: ISIS...yeah. I can see why that needed to happen. Yikes. How long did it take them to decide they needed to change it? haha

Thank you! And yeah, you're right...it was a letter sent as an email attachment. Sorry, I should have been more clear! My UIowa portal just says "in progress," unless I'm looking in the wrong place. Thanks a bunch! I think someone who has already decided should start that thread...I feel pretty far from making my decision yet. Eesh.

Thank you so much! I have my fingers crossed for a clean sweep, but I doubt I'll end up at GWU if I do get in, so I won't be too torn up. Thank you so much! I will send you a message soon with some of my questions, for sure. And congrats to you on having made a decision! I considered applying to ND, they have such a great program in so many areas. I'm so excited for you! You should start a decisions thread or something, so we can all celebrate and figure out who all will be in the same programs!

Wow, guys, I haven't been on for a couple of days and this thread just exploded. Congrats to everyone who has gotten an acceptance in the past few days! I just got my official letter from Iowa, so that train should be rolling now! I already had an idea (my mentor knew and was being really vague about it, haha), but it's nice to have specifics. Was offered a TAship and the DGS asked to call me soon to talk more about that, so...yeah. I'm quite excited! It's a MUCH better offer than I was anticipating, so I may not have really narrowed down my decision as much as I thought I had. I mean, their book studies program is INCREDIBLE. Has anyone on this thread officially decided where they're going yet? Is there going to be a new thread somewhere to post this news? I haven't decided yet, but would like to know if and when anyone has settled on anything.

This is quite impressive, especially considering the fact that we're all internet strangers. Bravo! ?? Just got done with day one, has been great so far! I'll msg you my thoughts in a bit!