Scarlet A+

In at yale, oh my god

Oh man for me the anxiety has only gotten worse. I had a dream last night that I was accepted to Penn and when I arrived on campus they handed me a mop and bucket and I was asked to clean the bathrooms... I then had the realization that they had accepted me to be... the janitor. ?

Just accepted to Berkeley!!! I had completely written off Berkeley as an implied rejection, and was bracing myself for a shut out, so try to stay hopeful friends. 

Really feeling this bullshit today lol

a thread of positivity!

Hi! I’m a lurker but just wanted to say that I’m also in at Illinois for the PhD! I’m so so excited!

Today, I found myself extremely bored. As a result, I complied a list of when schools typically notify for first-round acceptances using data from the results page. After, I rearranged things in order by  when programs typically notify.

Michigan State-Dec 10? (Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures)
OSU-Jan 25
Wisconsin- Jan 28
Duke- Jan 29
WashU- Jan 31-Feb 2
Northwestern-Jan 31-Feb 2
Berkeley- Jan 31-Feb 2
Chicago- Feb 1/2
Minnesota-Feb 2
Vanderbilt - Feb 2/3
Texas- Feb 3/4
Indiana-Feb 3/4
Purdue-Feb 3-5
UCLA- Feb 4/5
Johns Hopkins- Feb 5
Davis-Feb 5/6
Penn State- Feb 5/6
Pittsburgh-Feb 5/6
Nebraska-Feb 5-7
NYU-Feb 6/7
Maryland-Feb 7-9
Rochester-Feb 8/9
Emory- Feb 8-9
Irvine-Feb 8-9
Illinois- Feb 9-12
Brown-Feb 10-12
LSU-Feb 11
Rice- Feb 12
Buffalo-Feb 12
Missouri- Feb 12-14
Delaware-Feb 12-14
Kansas-Feb 14
Carnegie Mellon- Feb 14/15
Alabama-Feb 14-16
Cornell- Feb 15/16
Miami University-Feb 15/16
Michigan-Feb 16
Connecticut-Feb 16
CUNY-Feb 16/17
Santa Barbara-Feb 17-19
Stanford- Feb 17-Feb 20
Princeton-Feb 17-20
UVA- Feb 19/20
Rutgers-Feb 19/20
Harvard- Feb 20-Feb 22
Columbia- Feb 20-22
Penn- Feb 20-22
Utah-Feb 22
Notre Dame-Feb 23
Yale- Feb 24/25
Washington-Feb 25
Syracuse-Feb 26
Chapel Hill-Feb 26/27
Oregon-Feb 27-28
Iowa-March 2-5
Florida State-March 4-7
Mississippi- March 5-7

Posting from the afterlife bc I’m literally dead rn. 
Accepted to UT Austin!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Email popped up while in a meeting with my advisor who happened to be emailing my primary POI all day. 
After, got a call from Alabama but couldn’t answer bc i was dead. 

Yup, it’s funny because during the time lead up to submitting the apps I surmised that I would feel a wonderful sense of relief after finishing them.  I was painfully wrong, however, as the stress/anxiety skyrocketed once I turned in my last one.  It’s gonna be a long next couple of months! 

Quick note on Berkeley! People who come in with MAs are definitely in the clear minority among Cal's students, but it does vary wildly year to year (or at least has in my time here, admitted four cohorts ago). In the cohort that just finished their first year, for example, only one student has an MA (there are more if you count MFAs); in next year's admitted cohort, though, 5 of the 11 students do. I'd say the average number hovers closer to three-ish, so anywhere from a third to a quarter of the cohort. I wouldn't not apply simply because you have an MA!

A lot of my information regarding Berkeley was gathered from talking to grad students and the Grad Coordinator a few years ago. They also at one point publicized information (via newsletter?) about where their current students received their degrees from. On average, only one or two people per cohort had a Master's degree. I was provided multiple years of data and it seemed very consistent with the information I heard from other students. It is possible that they could be changing; as different DGS like running things differently but usually programs don't interfere with how they judge applications because it's often a grad school admission.

For example, Penn State's English department would like to weigh GRE scores differently for their PHD program. PSU's grad school determines what weighs how much though so high GRE scores are important. Numbers are easier to understand for grad schools because it's easier to display those numbers to the grad school. We might never know what those magic numbers are, but we do know that Penn State's English department has had to fight hard for candidates they've really wanted that don't fit those numbers. PSU is often thought of as a program that prefers BA-only applicants as is Pittsburgh. Both are state schools and I think it has something to do with the way that Pennsylvania's educational bylaws are written.  

Hi - it shouldn't be a problem at all. I never stayed the full length of any of the 5 conferences I attended. 
Conferences are very much "get out what you put in," in that no one is taking attendance and you're not required to do anything but give your paper. 
Although, if there are panels that could be relevant to your work, it would behoove you to attend them (it's also nice to have an audience as a presenter - I've seen some morning panels with 1-2 people aside from the participants which can be a bit of a bummer.)
It is also nice to network if you're able (there's usually a big reception at the end or the beginning and smaller ones throughout that can be fun.)
That being said, it's fine to structure the conference around your time/financial constraints - I had to arrive and leave the same day for one conference, so I was only able to give my paper and then listen to one other talk, and no one cared. 

I'm looking into PhD programs and I've narrowed it down to 15. My goal is to apply to 8-10, but I was wondering how to go about factoring in funding. Many of the programs are so ambiguous about the funding situation, but if they are Top 30 programs admitting such a small amount of students, can I assume that (at the very least, through teaching) the courses will be funded? It would be nice to know exactly how much the stipend would be (in order to factor in cost of living for the area), but I'll settle for knowing that it has some sort of guaranteed living stipend (and tuition coverage). I'm just afraid to waste an application on a program that doesn't guarantee funding in place of a program that does offer funding (not to mention the time & application fees), because if accepted with no funding offer, I won't be attending anyway. 
The funding sheet on GC has been super helpful, but just because one person was offered that amount does not mean that everyone is. Do I email the department and ask what the majority of admits receive for funding? I've seen program websites say something like, "with the many fellowships and assistantships that we have, many applicants receive some sort of funding" but WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? Is it too much to ask to have the funding laid out (or at least the base rate), including a break down of what you have to do each year to earn it (first year fellowship, second to fifth year teaching, sixth year dissertation fellowship, etc)? I am too Type A for this lack of detail. ?

There are a few schools in the top 30/40 who do not guarantee funding.

In recent cycles, the following come to mind:

University of Wisconsin offered a 3 year package to multiple phd students.
The University of North Carolina doesn't guarantee first year funding.
Penn State University doesn't guarantee funding to international students.
The University of Illinois has had 3 strikes in the past 5 years due to tuition waivers being threatened to being withdrawn.
The University of Colorado doesn't fund all PHD applicants. They make it known on their page that they only fund 4 spots and the remainder of acceptances are unfunded.

I have never even seen any emeriti faculty around at my last campus. I would avoid appealing to emeriti.

Seconded.
Unless you've been in contact with them and they've agreed to work with you, it's highly unlikely that they'd be around enough to take on any kind of advisory role. I'd shy away from even mentioning them in passing, like "I really enjoy Professor XXXX's work" because you never know how that professor was viewed within the department, or whether the department is moving in a different direction, so on and so forth. Others may feel differently, but I've always heard that you should avoid name-dropping any faculty members, period, unless you've been in contact with them and they've at least implied that they might like to work with you. All of my successful applications avoided mentioning specific people.

Not a PhD, but I saw this CFP that seemed relevant to your interests:
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/06/04/queering-the-us-south

Fellow Southern specialist here! I think you'd probably be served best by focusing on the queer theory side of your interests, and bringing the Southern focus into it as your own angle. Yeah, finding that Southern focus might be a little more difficult outside the South, but that doesn't mean Southern specialists are exclusive to the region (or any other regional identity; I'm off to Denver, and there's an Appalachian specialist there!). Certainly apply to some Southern schools, but don't feel locked into the region.
As far as useful resources for applying go, this very forum is a treasure trove =P Anything in particular that you're worried about?
I know I skipped your second question -- since I did the Southern search last fall, I've got a boatload of schools I could float for that half of your interests, but I'd need a minute to review the list and I've not got much time at the present to respond! I can add more later/PM you if you're interested.

Hi everyone! I wanted to share this resource I built with the help of @Warelin and @a_sort_of_fractious_angel! It's a spreadsheet for prospective English PhD students to fill out to determine which schools they may want to apply to. 
I'm calling it The Fit Finder.
Please feel free to check it out, and if you like it, you should be able to hit File -> Make a copy in order to save it to your own Google Drive and use it! Let me know if you have any issues or questions. I used a similar spreadsheet to help my husband decide where to apply, and we would have been in absolute chaos without it.

Honestly one of my main pieces of advice would be to befriend, or at least become friendly with, any PhD students while you're an MA student. My MA program was only a year long, but I ended up being in classes with some of the new PhD students at my school. Near the end of the school year, I had a random conversation with one of the PhD students after class and she ended up offering to send me her SoP/writing sample and to read any drafts of my SoP/writing sample that I wanted to send to her. When I started my MA, I didn't even think about this as a possibility, but seeing her work was hands-down one of the most helpful ways for me to get a sense of what types of things top programs were looking for in an SoP, etc. Had I known how friendly and willing to help she would be, I would have definitely tried to form connections with as many PhD students as possible at my school. 
In addition, I would also say that you should try to form connections with as many profs as possible, even if you're not necessarily going to use them as recommenders for PhD. I sent my SoP drafts to my recommenders, but other people that I knew in the program had a good enough relationship with various profs that they were able to send those profs drafts of their work even though they weren't expecting recommendations from said profs. Basically, just make sure that you're building connections as much as possible. When it comes time to write your PhD apps, you'll want as many eyes as possible on your apps, because that's really the best way (in my opinion) to make your application as strong as possible. 

So I don't know if there are any resources available that have several writing samples available, but I would be happy to send you the writing sample I used. I was recently accepted to IU-Bloomington for the English PhD program (IU-B is ranked #20 by US news), and I also focus on feminist and queer theory, although in a different time period. 
In addition, have you been able to befriend any current PhD students at UA? During my MA year, I was in a class with a PhD student and after chatting with her, she offered to show me her writing sample that had gotten her admission to the school we were at. I think that was possibly one of the single most helpful ways to get a sense of what schools are looking for.

I just want to jump in here to advocate for the importance of words like "intersectionality," especially in the case of "intersectionality." In fact, without intersectionality, concepts like feminism are not inclusive and actually isolate women of color, the LGBTQ+ community, etc. By making the move from just plain "feminism" to "intersectional feminism," these "certain types of people" are actually included in the conversation and welcomed into academic space rather than kept out. So, in some cases, what some might consider jargon is absolutely important and shouldn't be shrugged off as meaningless. 

HUSBAND GOT INTO HARVARD
 
I CAN'T EVEN CONTAIN MYSELF HOLY OMGGGGGGGGGGG IS THIS REAL LIFE?????!!!!!!!!!!!

Everything is in! I am officially going to The University of Alabama (for an MA), the proud winner of their Graduate Council Fellowship!! 
Pretty soon I'll have a challenging and rewarding education, a new home with my partner (who also got accepted, as a TA), a new dog, and a more than livable wage ($17,000 fellowship + part-time tutoring job + double income household).
I could not be more excited about this chapter in my life!