claritus

Congrats! The program at Riverside looks glorious—I mean, reading Samuel Delaney with Fred Moten??? Could it get any better?

No I'm applying directly out of undergrad, which is partially why I'm so astounded! I had a pretty rough go for a fair bit of undergrad; dealt with some mental health issues and ended up completing a 6-year BA. I thought I was aiming really high, and expected one PhD acceptance at maximum, so this is really beyond anything I expected.

Thank you all so much! I wish I could hug and/or high-five you :))))))

Basically feeling like:

I got into Brown too! This whole situation is absurd. I can't believe it.

Thank you! It was definitely strange. Happiest I've ever been to have a bad sleep though... Not sure if you're planning on attending Davis, but if I end up at Berkeley maybe we'll run into one another!

It makes everything harder! But I'm thrilled! Thank you so much!

English!

Holy shit I just got into Berkeley. An email at 9 pm, after I had resigned myself to a rejection. Shitting complete bricks right now...

Yeah something weird happened with the first doc...

Congrats to the Berkeley admits! I'm only slightly jealous

Wait... you can breed horses in the Sims 3????

Oh no, I am thinking about http://complit.utoronto.ca/about-us/masters/! Requirements are only a Bachelors in Language/Literature with a B+ average. You would be able to take courses in the English department (there are a number of cross-listed faculty), and the MA would set you up to apply to doctoral programs in English or Comp Lit afterwards. It's unfortunate that the deadline has passed, but it's something to keep in mind for next year, if things don't work out!

I may already be "that student" though

It is, but I think U of T has improved quite a lot recently, especially for international students. You would be quite likely to receive scholarships/bursaries, as well as a TAship. I did my BA at another Canadian school, and there were a number of international students in the English MA program, all of whom seemed to be doing pretty well in terms of scholarships, teaching, external funding, etc. One thing that is good about Canadian programs as well is that the MA and PhD are standalone, and the MA isn't positioned as inferior to the PhD since an MA is almost a requirement for PhD applications. Whereas MA programs are often seen as cash-cows/funding the PhD stream in American programs, I haven't run into the same logic here.

Another thing to keep in mind is that specific faculty members often trump general institution reputation in these situations. Look at the work being done by potential supervisors: where are they publishing, are they actively publishing, are they working with faculty members at institutions you are interested in moving on to? Likewise it helps to look at where they completed their doctoral work & what sort of network they have. Obviously there's danger in instrumentalizing all of this information, but maybe the best way to think about it is that you want to work with someone who is motivated to do good work, is publishing in the right venues, and is still excited about academia. Institution doesn't mean too much at this point, but having a strong ally with a solid network does.

I've always had a fantasy of doing a second BA, but one where I write all my papers as really immaculate conspiracy theories. Cite really excellent academic sources, beautiful prose, etc, but come to conclusions that are completely wrong and bizarre.

Hey—stop second guessing yourself. You still have four schools to hear from, and this can be a very arbitrary process. I had two rejections (implied still, but almost certain) before I got into a program this cycle. It's the nature of the process; each school could likely admit two or three times as many applicants without diluting the "quality" of the incoming class. You really can't assume that you're not competitive after two rejections, because the final decisions are subjective choices based on a super qualified pool of applicants. Treat each and every school as a separate situation, because they simply aren't correlated. Re. MA programs—the only case in which I can see your French degree impacting your success is that in which a program specifically asks for X credits in English Literature. By and large, programs are looking for your ability to read critically, and that's a skill that is equally applicable regardless of the language of the text. That and the fact that you are not going to be grilled about your knowledge of canonical English language texts. If you can make a reasonable case in your SoP for your course of study, they're not going to push you for more confirmation. All that being said, and assuming you are rejected across the board (which I don't expect will happen), there are also a few MA programs in Comparative Literature you could look into. The program at the University of Toronto comes to mind, and it's really excellent. It's hard to get better than working with someone like Rebecca Comay!

Yes! I intend to attend (lol) and it'll be great to have a little GC moment. Super thrilling!

Adding myself to the Hopkins admits!! I feel like I'm losing my mind a little bit right now. @Sunsy and @piers_plowman, it will be great to meet you two

I thought this week was going to be the week, but it seems like English is moving at a snail's pace this year. I'm not sure if I can go another weekend without some sort of sign–even a rejection.

It's an online scheduling service—they had us fill out our availability for Skype interviews. Interviews happened January 24th-27th if I remember correctly.

There was a shortlist of about 45 people on a Doodle poll, some of whom were given interviews. So I would hazard a guess that it is an implied rejection. If it makes you feel any better, I was shortlisted and didn't get an interview, which was a bit of a fun mind game. Best of luck!

I imagine Berkeley is having a bit of a rough time figuring things out for grad students impacted by the ban. That and trying to grasp how Trump's policies will further impact students/the university.

No. They won't remember and they won't care.