cypressknee

Received official acceptance from Stony Brook. Last school I am waiting for is University of Florida. I cannot believe it is almost over!

I received a call from the DGS at BU this afternoon---I got into their American Studies program! 

I received a call from the DGS at BU this afternoon---I got into their American Studies program! 

Congrats!!!!

Congrats @cypressknee!!!!
 

I received a call from the DGS at BU this afternoon---I got into their American Studies program! 

I received a call from the DGS at BU this afternoon---I got into their American Studies program! 

I received a call from the DGS at BU this afternoon---I got into their American Studies program! 

Right??? I'm happy to have gotten into a few really good programs, but I really want to know what it was about the candidates who got into top AMST programs. To be a fly on the wall of those admissions committees...

I'm just going to grad school to wait out the apocalypse 

Just walk away people, nothing to see here. 

Me, upon seeing this thread being a thing still.

Not to make this too political, but I definitely must say that the attitude my relatives have towards humanities professors is markedly different than engineers and scientists. This is particularly frustrating, because literature and history professors are broadly painted as these die hard Marxists running around burning the pillars of society and dousing tar on conservative children. 
My family and relatives may be supportive of the PhD, but the amount of times I have had to defend professors from unwarranted political attacks from those close to me is downright obnoxious. I used to be very conservative before university, but my movement towards the center and moderation of my opinion has been a benefit not a detriment from attending a state flagship. However, I have received constant warnings from my grandparents to watch out for those communists. Then I took a class with a professor who was an avowed Marxist. She mentioned it every once in a while, but she was a fair grader and taught American labor and social history. My entire department (small national foreign lang/lit) was filled with socialists and green party activists, and my research interests dealt with, God forbid, religion in literature. Every professor I had helped me refine my research and scholarship, not an ounce of disgust or apathy over my research. Yet as soon as I walked in the door during a break, you better believe I heard every tirade imaginable about those crooked academics living in their ivory towers. /end rant
Oh, and I give my condolences to any of you have to deal with the gender problems of a PhD. It is an accomplishment in receiving admission, and the stress is already high enough without the added comments about children and a 'woman's place' *shudders*. I am flabbergasted when people reward the woman who put off marriage until her late 20s or early 30s and soared the ranks of career, yet they pity the woman who chooses to pursue a PhD or academia. Somehow the one attaining financial success is acceptable, but putting off marriage and childbearing for any other reason is monstrous.

I just got into the Comp Lit PhD at Yale! My top choice!

Honestly, and this is coming from someone who had to choose between four top ranked programs a few years ago, the only way I found to decide was to visit, be on the campus itself, talk to the people in person, meet the other grad students, and so forth. Numbers went in all various directions, and departmental reputations were of course spread out across my interests from innovative to tried&true, but none of that ended up mattering when it came down to it. My gut ended up telling me where I would flourish the most. For example, I went to visit one school I was really excited about and almost settled on (one of your options actually), and in <24 hours I realized that I could never live there and feel okay about the place, and the people there just didn't click. 
If the environment is miserable for your taste and the people unpleasant, it may come back to bite you in the quality of your work. If you get somewhere and feel like, "Yes. This is home. This place makes me feel really excited to get started," then you've found your choice. Maybe this sounds a little flimsy, but it worked for me. As many lists as I made comparing, I ended up just *knowing* where I wanted to go after I saw the place.  

Current BU student here. They haven't met yet to make the final decisions. Supposedly they're planning to meet in the next week or two. They were the last school I heard from - best of luck with the waiting!

Rumors of my being a lesser omniscient god are completely underexaggerated, by the way.

I just heard from Penn -- I got in!!!! 

I did EXACTLY the same for math, tried to solve some stuff but otherwise went with my "gut"   Scored 139, though... hahaha

I took the GRE for the first time three years ago when I was applying to MA programs without studying and did pretty poorly (I think it was something like 153V/141Q/3.5W). I'm not a very good test taker and tests in general are very anxiety provoking for me. 
I took the GRE again in November when I was applying to PhD programs and studied for about three weeks, and intensely for two. I focused only on the Verbal section because my advisor told me that humanities programs don't take math scores into account (which may or may not be true, but it justified my reasons not to spend time or energy relearning math). For the Quant section, I literally chose 'B' for all the answers unless by some miracle I remembered how to solve the problem, and for all the fill-in-the-blanks, I put "0" (because at least of the answers is bound to be zero, right?!?). Disclaimer: You should probably not do that on the Math section, but I really hate math and haven't taken a math class in almost 10 years.
Anyway, I ended up with a 162V/145Q/4.5W and I got into a top 20 program. Because I didn't have money to spend on test prep materials, I read ETS's prep guide and became really familiar with both the types of questions and the different types of answers. I took practice sections on GRE Prep and GRE Prep Club. Magoosh (which is a paid service) has some free guides and vocabulary lists that were pretty useful. I also found the /r/GREhelp subreddit to be useful. I studied for about an hour a day for two weeks, taking a couple of practice tests a day. And finally, in the week before the test, I took the two practice tests on ETS's heinously outdated software, POWERPREP II, which requires you to install Java. The ETS practice tests look pretty much identical to the real thing, and I found that the practice tests were more difficult than the actual test. 
I hope that's helpful! 

I was accepted to Yale's American Studies PhD! Got an email from the DGS which was very nice and included funding info. I applied to study the history of the US far left, especially looking at radical use of space and at the construction and use of alternative infrastructure.
Though I thought the program was a good fit I really was not expecting this, it's my first acceptance anywhere and I've gotten a few rejections. I had come to terms with the fact that I wasn't going to get in anywhere this year. So excited!! Hasn't really sunk in yet. Still waiting to hear from Cornell's History PhD, which is the only program I haven't heard from that I might consider over Yale.
Thanks so much for the support and discussion y'all, really helped me get through these last couple weeks. Much love.

Please don't take this as being condescending, but I have to giggle at this a little.
I'm 31 years old and I'm about to start my PhD. I got married when I was 27. It may be that in your community, people get married much younger, but virtually none of my Master's cohort was married or even in a serious relationship, and most were your age or a bit older (I was 26 when I started). The age at first marriage in the United States has been steadily increasing for a couple of decades or more. 
There will be plenty of people left in the dating pool, and what's better: they will likely be academics like yourself. That's the circle you're going to be moving in for the next five years. There will be plenty of opportunities to meet someone. Within your cohort, at the library, at conferences, special interest groups, in the community. 
You can decide for yourself whether I'm washed-up in the looks department. hahahaha

Yes!! Congrats!!! 

Just got into UVa! Received a really lovely phone call from their DGS. Totally and utterly shocked! 

I tried to post this yesterday but I think the site was down. Happy late Valentine's Day to all ye GC dreamers and romantics! I hope your day was full of things you love, whether a person or a pizza or a poem that fills up your tired, anxious heart. In times like this, it's so important to take care of yourself and pause to recognize all the wonderful things in your life. Yesterday I thought a lot about the ways poetry and literature engender empathy and love. That everyone on this forum wants to dedicate their life to the study of it speaks volumes about your character and I'm proud to know you all. 
In recognition of love day, a favorite Poe quote of mine:
"I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched."