claritus

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...

It is certainly at the top of my list at the moment, so that would be fantastic! That whole UC partnership thing is totally dreamy! haha

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Thanks for the kinds words everyone!! I've been thinking a lot about how this happened, and one thing I'm amazed by is how mysterious this whole process still is to me. For instance, I got rejected from UChicago and northwestern (probably Columbia too), but accepted at Berkeley and Hopkins. I still have quite a few schools to hear back from, obviously, but this cycle has just shown me how important fit is for these things, which is what people have been telling me all along.    

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. 

Seems to be fixed now.

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 posted the Berkeley acceptance. Sorry about the lack of information—I didn’t know what to add. Still a bit shocked by the news!

YES. Sort of! Could be better, but I'm waiting for the Sims 4 to have their own pets version!
I keep adding wild horses to my house hold and trying to have the most colorful baby ponies possible.

Ugh, completely forgot the Comp Lit detail! Yes, two minutes after reading your message.
Yes I will definitely keep the program in mind, thank you for your precious help  

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. 

I may already be "that student" though  

Lol, that would be hilarious. You'd be "that student" that all the faculty giggled about over coffee in the office...

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. 

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. 

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! 

Based on all of the really excellent speculation that goes on on this forum, I think that we should spend our summers developing conspiracy theories. We'd come up with some great stuff. 

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.