Kaiwei

Accepted to Stanford's MA program! Received letter from POI! 

Accepted to Stanford's MA program! Received letter from POI! 

Accepted to Stanford's MA program! Received letter from POI! 

Accepted to Stanford's MA program! Received letter from POI! 

《待校信》 尚無回音，嗚呼痛哉 未知成否，長期久待 千慮萬愁，人豈不傷 何以忘憂，名揚金榜 時河悠悠，斷吾心腸！

@Kongyiji 欢迎你来参加咱们的谈话！And congrats on your acceptance to UC Berkeley! I wasn't accepted to their program, but I do study Medieval Chinese Poetry, along with being a poet myself. I've been accepted to CU Boulder and might end up there for my masters, so maybe we'll cross paths at some point out west. 
@kotatsumuri It's great that you have an acceptance to University of Alberta! Must take a good bit of the pressure off.
I'm still waiting to hear from six more programs and trying to avoid checking my email 100+ times a day... I went skiing yesterday, and the conditions were amazing--took my mind off applications for an entire day. What a treat! Will be tuning into the olympics this afternoon for added distraction. Curling anyone??  
加油⛽️！

@chihiro Congrats on the admit! 

Thank you @kotatsumuri! Hi!  
Just found out I was accepted to WUSTL on 1.30. No emails, no notifications... Have been worrying for one week. Just god another rejection from CU Boulder.. 
Waiting for Harvard, UBC, UCLA, Columbia, and Princeton. Haven't received any interview offers from Columbia nor Princeton nor UCLA yet..

@kotatsumuri Congrats! Very happy for you  
Also, congratulations to all the folks with UChicago acceptances as well! And welcome to the folks who have joined this burgeoning discussion. 
I've been incognito lately due to an increased workload but have been happily following along. 
@mxiongturquoise I, too, am interested in Irish poetry, and other modernists! I've taken a big influence in my own poetry from W.B. Yates, and I hope to some day tie him into my study of poets in China (possibly pertaining to his infatuation with the Occult and the iconography derived from this!) I also am a big fan of Su Shi, I wrote my undergraduate thesis on subjectivity in his poetry. I haven't read 林語堂's biography, though! I'll have to add it to the list... 
加油 everyone! And here is one of my favorite quatrains: 
 橫看成嶺側成峰，遠近高低各不同，
不識廬山真面目，只緣身在此山中。
蘇軾

@costevens, I love your Sushi's quatrains! Funny the other day I was quoting Du Fu in an email to a professor at one of the places I applied to, and the dominant metaphor is also "mountain": 會當凌絕頂，一覽眾山小!
《望岳》  杜甫
     　岱宗夫如何？齊魯青未了。
　　造化鐘神秀，陰陽割昏曉。
　　蕩胸生曾云，決眥入歸鳥。
　　會當凌絕頂，一覽眾山小。
The sentiment in the last line perfectly captures what we are all going through. Once descending the top of the mountain, we will see all other mountains much more easily. So fighting! Good luck everyone!
 

Congrats to the U of Chicago EALC acceptances! Anyone here going to claim them?
Also...I have a result to share myself! Over the weekend I had an unofficial acceptance from UAlberta (East Asian Studies)! Had an email from the program coordinator saying it looks very likely that I'll be accepted and to keep an eye out for funding information in a few weeks! Super excited as this is a program is definitely a strong contender for me. Very grateful to start out with a solid option!

@NaitoBaron The series looks like a great way to gain more exposure to Classical Chinese! 
 
@Ouyang Welcome! Is your name derived from 歐陽修? I wrote a thesis on Su Shi, and the two were often at odds, especially with the promulgation of Ouyang's "New Policies". Ouyang's political musings are quite intriguing--I intend on reading more about him in the future!

@NaitoBaron The series looks like a great way to gain more exposure to Classical Chinese! 
 
@Ouyang Welcome! Is your name derived from 歐陽修? I wrote a thesis on Su Shi, and the two were often at odds, especially with the promulgation of Ouyang's "New Policies". Ouyang's political musings are quite intriguing--I intend on reading more about him in the future!

Honestly, getting your first book published by any of A ranking academic publishers is good enough. HUP is prestigious, but it's not the most prestigious publisher out there. In fact, I would argue that Cambridge University Press might even be more prestigious than Harvard. Most of the publisher rankings I've seen rank them by categories (A, B, C). Within the categories, all publishers are basically equal. 
For example, this is the A+ category of academic publishers for humanities according to the City University of Hong Kong (which should be similar to lists used by other HK universities):
Cambridge University Press Cornell University Press Columbia University Press Duke University Press Harvard University Press John’s Hopkins University Press John Wiley & Sons MIT Press Cambridge Mass Oxford University Press Oxford University Press Clarendon PHAIDON Princeton University Press Stanford University Press University of California Press University of Chicago Press University of Pennsylvania Press Yale University Press Full list here: http://www.cityu.edu.hk/scm/pbpr_roa/PBPR%20Final%20Draft.pdf

The general rule is that major American university presses (Harvard, Princeton, UC, Stanford, Yale, etc) are better than smaller university presses with a reputation in a particular field (University of Hawaii would be the obvious one for us), which are similar to the major UK university presses (Oxford, Cambridge - note, these are definitely a step below the major US ones, they publish a lot more stuff with less editing/support and lower quality control) which are better than commercial academic presses (Brill, Routledge, and cronies). This isn't to say that there aren't good books put out by Brill, because there certainly are. But they provide hardly any support to authors in terms of editing and such, their peer review is much more cursory, and their books are extremely expensive despite low production values. Basically, anything from HUP is going to be a reasonably important book, pretty readable, and largely error-free (and moderately affordable, like $40-$75 new). Also, from an author's perspective, being put out by a press like that pretty much guarantees that research university libraries will buy it and that it will get reviewed in the field's major journal (JAS, for instance). None of that is guaranteed with Brill, and the book will cost $300 (which is bad for both readers and authors, the former for obvious reasons, the latter because it substantially reduces how many people are likely to read their book).

I am talking about publishing in reputable peer-reviewed academic journals. Phd students do publish, but not as a matter of rule, and if they do, it is usually after comps. Most publish after their final defense. 
MA students, highly highly unlikely, and they are not expected to. 

Yes!! Congrats, Naito!! 

I got accepted to University of Pennsylvania!!! 

"but PhD is a "vocational" training, with many "petty rivalries, intellectual dead-ends, disillusions and disappointments, self-doubt and self-reproach", so the admission committee is more likely to admit someone who they think is well-prepared for the storms ahead." 
@NaitoBaron I can't tell you how many professors have admonished me about the dismal state of the academic job market (especially in the humanities!) It's almost like they're trying to dissuade me from going into this field. Several professors at different universities expressed similar pessimism and cynicism surrounding the path to a PhD. The other week, I sat down for a lunch with a few friends in Boston who are STEM graduate students visiting from the West (we even ate 小笼包和麻婆豆腐) and had quite a productive conversation on the matter. 
I figured out the only logical path for me right now is getting a PhD. I understand the job market is abysmal, but I'm not completing a PhD in Humanities to get a job--I'm continuing my studies in EALC because it's something that I love to do and it uniquely informs my creative process as a poet. I'm aspiring to complete a PhD because it was one of the only avenues that allows me to spend a bulk of my time reading and writing and sharing my enthusiasm for literature through teaching. And coming from a low-income family, I really have nothing to lose. I understand this a romantic ideal, and I'm neglecting to acknowledge the chance that I might not cut it in a scene filled with "petty rivalries, intellectual dead-ends, disillusions and disappointments, self-doubt and self-reproach," but I've already dealt with a lot of that stuff and any person (whether your an academic or a laborer) goes through these kinds of hardships. 
Furthermore, there are plenty of other job opportunities for EALC grads right now. One is not condemned to the academic job market. Just graduating with a BA in Chinese, I have found plentiful opportunities to use my language skills in education consulting and tutoring for Chinese nationals, and I'm sure these could be lucrative endeavors in the future. 
I guess these professors are trying to dissuade people who are on the fence about heading into graduate school, but for someone like me, it's the only career move that makes any sense. I think I have an adequate response next time someone cautions me in this vein  
 

@spicyramen I got asked questions in emails but not in a Skype interview like the PhD candidates (because I'm an MA-only applicant this year...taking it one step at a time 步步扎營！　and also as a caveat, most PhD programs with Harvard coming immediately to mind most likely do NOT take candidates who don't have an MA, or so I have heard!). I got some lengthy email correspondences with professors if that counts for interviews. One professor repeatedly wrote "why don't you apply to Columbia? Please apply to Columbia! If you're at Columbia, work with Professor this and that and stay there! I graduated from Columbia! It's a good program!" so on and so forth...From what I heard, MA is a different ballgame compared to PhD application, so don't worry if you don't get an interview. Actually, most people are not interviewed and my professors told me that decisions are mostly based on your written materials, especially the SOP, which makes or breaks... These people are very, very busy and sometimes the admission committee service work is another line on their CV for the tenure promotion 6 years down the road (service to the university category), so they don't really have a lot of time. They are probably more worried about publish or perish...Anyhow, I also reached out to a few people asking how to prepare for an interview either for this year or 2 years later when I apply for a PhD, and one person suggested me to prepare for interview during the stage where you collect your application materials. You want to get a LOR from a professor who was a PhD advisee of a full, endowed or emeritus professor because such professors can promote your file on the admission committee; they like to read what their former students-turned-colleagues recommend in the letters. If you end up getting an interview with the full professor who was impressed by their former student's recommendation of you, you can instantly pass the "fit and match" round right away. It's like dating. In a Japanese o-miai (お見合い) the two parties are usually introduced by a third party. Also I was told to be sure to read the acknowledgements in the potential advisors' books -- see what their personality is like, do they acknowledge their students and colleagues' contribution, etc. and of course read their books before you interview if you have time! And talk to former students of that potential advisor who interviews you -- they probably know a thing or two that only experience can teach. If I can remember anything else I will add!
@costevens I was advised by a few PhD holders not in the academic track to also consider other options, such as management consulting, government, etc. Please read this article from a History PhD, who ended up becoming a partner at McKinsey consulting (https://www.mckinsey.com/our-people/josh-wolff), who also got his dissertation published in Cambridge University Press (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/western-union-and-the-creation-of-the-american-corporate-order-18451893/D96207D9AA361EDFE495AAF820B29D24) after exiting academia (in fact the connections probably helped him get published in Cambridge as opposed to some other journals, like Brill -- getting your stuff published by Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard is always a good thing, and Brill is like a second option, IMHO, but maybe @anon1234567 can offer a second opinion). Here's the article: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2014/a-new-course-converting-a-passion-for-history-into-a-private-sector-career
(It's an article written in the American Historical Association, and it's very, very well-written and has a lot of golden advice on how to use your PhD outside of academia, so please read it by all means. The author writes very well so it's a good read!) 
With a PhD in anything you come in as an associate and then probably get promoted very quickly because a PhD is a credential clients value (they want smart people and PhD signals you can do research and find solutions). The Director of McKinsey in Shanghai got a PhD from USC: https://www.mckinsey.com/our-people/jonathan-woetzel
There was a panel last year hosted by the Association for Asian Studies on the topic of Careers Beyond the Academy for Asianists: http://www.asian-studies.org/Conferences/AAS-Annual-Conference/Conference-Menu/PROGRAM/Special-Events/Beyond-the-Academy-Careers-for-Asianists
I don't know if they will host it again but there were a few prominent PhD's who didn't become professors. I'm tempted to point out Christian Murck who went to Princeton: http://www.apcoworldwide.com/about-us/our-people/bios/Christian-Murck#
You can also consider the Foreign Service: Ambassador Stephen Young (PhD Chicago, History) http://globaltaiwan.org/stephen-m-young/
If you want to become a government official (for the US) like Tang dynasty's scholar-official/mandarin/bureaucrat, you can consider the Presidential Management Fellows program which requires at least an MA but if you have a PhD you come in at the GS-11 level (PhD required) which pays more than the MA level, and by the way, if you have any student loans (federal loans, that is) they pay for your student loans too. https://www.pmf.gov/become-a-pmf/eligibility.aspx
https://www.pmf.gov/the-opportunity/compensation/pay-and-promotions.aspx
https://www.pmf.gov/the-opportunity/compensation/student-loans.aspx
But I must add, I believe Du Fu warned people not to become a bureaucrat! He wrote "束帶發狂欲大叫，簿書何急來相仍"  (Stephen Owen's translation: "I tighten my belt going crazy, I want to shout out loud,  how urgently public documents come continuously!" )
《早秋苦熱，堆案相仍》
七月六日苦炎熱，對食暫餐還不能。
每愁夜中自足蠍，況乃秋後轉多蠅。
束帶發狂欲大叫，簿書何急來相仍。
南望青鬆架短壑，安得赤腳蹋層冰。
Prof. Stephen Owen's translation:
"Suffering the Heat in Early Autumn, the Paperwork Keeps Piling Up on My Desk 
On the sixth day of the seventh month I suffer the steamy heat,  I face my meal, take a bite, and then I can take it no more.
I always worry how in the night there are plenty of scorpions, even worse now with the coming of autumn there are even more flies. 
I tighten my belt going crazy, I want to shout out loud,  how urgently public documents come continuously! 
I gaze southward where green pines frame a short ravine —  how can I get with bare feet to walk on its layered ice?" (from The Complete Poetry of Du Fu)
（The poets of the Tang can roughly be divided into two types: the ones who succeed in government service, like Bai Juyi, and the ones who don't like it, like Du Fu lol...)
Like the Ancient Tang, state apparatus such as the State Department is also a huge bureaucracy with a lot of paperwork...How some things never changed! 
Becoming a curator of a museum is also a niche:  Alex Gardner (PhD Michigan, Asian Languages and Cultures), Executive Director and Chief Editor for the Treasury of Lives, a digital humanities project that comprises a "biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalayan region." https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/humanities-phd-proj/2017/05/15/a-digital-humanities-project-in-tibetan-studies/
You can also teach in Asia, like Professor Pastreich: http://www.asia-institute.org/members/
He also wrote a lot of books in Chinese and Korean and wrote his MA thesis in Japanese...Incredible. 
So there are many options for the PhD, but just that tenure track positions are very, very scarce!!! 
Alternatively, if you can get an assistant professor job at an Ivy school right after PhD, you can get a tenured job at a lower-ranked school. Why not at the Ivy school where you got the first academic job? Because Ivy schools tend to hire very promising PhD graduates and make them work for 6-7 years but don't really offer them tenures at the end, but the assistant professorship is like a prestigious, extended "postdoc" that once completed will open doors to tenured positions at lower ranked schools. Ivy schools tend to offer tenured jobs to established professors at other universities.
@costevens, you remind me of the poet Yang Xiaobin 楊小濱 (http://www.litphil.sinica.edu.tw/people/researchers/Yang, Xiaobin) and you will be his 學弟 / 師弟 / 後輩 soon if you end up at UC Boulder! He wrote so many poetry books: 
楊小濱：《穿越陽光地帶》（詩集），台北：現代詩社，1994。（獲1994年現代詩社第一本詩集獎）
楊小濱：《青春殘酷漢語·詩歌料理》（詩集），《新詩》叢刊11輯，烏魯木齊，2007。
楊小濱：《景色與情節》（詩集），北京：世界知識出版社，2008。
楊小濱：《為女太陽乾杯》（詩集），台北：傷物，2011。
楊小濱：《蹤跡與塗抹：後攝影主義》（攝影+詩集），台北：傷物，2012。
楊小濱：《賓至如歸指南》（詩集），《詩歌EMS》周刊總第161期（2012年9月）。
楊小濱：《冷乒乓主義》（詩集），《詩歌EMS》周刊總第239期（2014年4月）。
楊小濱：《楊小濱詩 X 3》（詩集《多談點主義》、《女世界》、《指南錄·自修課》），台北：秀威，2014。
楊小濱：《到海巢去——楊小濱詩選》，台北：印刻，2015。
I can imagine you becoming a (published) poet!!
楊詩人 is not only a poet, but also a researcher at Academia Sinica so that's also an academic path to take -- becoming a professional researcher at places like Academia Sinica which can make use of your literature knowledge, without the stress of getting tenure. I would love to read your poetry books so please let me know when they are published in the future! 人生得意須盡歡，莫使金樽空對月。/ 天生我材必有用，千金散盡還復來。 / 烹羊宰牛且為樂，會須一飲三百杯 [...] / 與君歌一曲，請君為我側耳聽。[...] / 古來聖賢皆寂寞，惟有飲者留其名 (!)  -- 青蓮居士李太白!
Alternatively, if you're a perpetual student, you can consider both grad school and law school (caveat: NOT recommended unless there is a full scholarship! All the attorneys I know even from the top schools are in greater anguish than PhD's!!! Cannot emphasize this enough), and do the JD/PhD program at Harvard. I am acquainted with one person who did the JD/PhD there and passed their state bar. I don't know if the financial incentive is still there, but if you do the JD/PhD it usually takes 9 years (3 years Law and 6 years grad school) but the Law School tuition is waived. Harvard Law now takes the GRE exam so you don't have to worry about taking the LSAT -- as long as your GPA is 3.8+ and GRE is in the 99th percentile you should be a strong candidate at Harvard Law, as their admission process is more number intensive than grad school admissions... http://hls.harvard.edu/dept/academics/degree-programs/special-programs/jdphd-program/
So that's also an option, but make sure you do the joint JD/PhD that is totally funded for both the law school and the grad school portions; I know someone who did a PhD first and then a JD but since he did it separately, he had to pay for the JD portion and is now regretting the massive student loans even though he has a very high-paying job (more than 99% of Americans). And I imagine with a JD and a PhD your tenure options are extended -- you qualify not only for academic jobs in the EALC departments but also at law schools teaching East Asia related subjects, like Chinese Legal History or something like that! And you can consult for Chinese nationals wanting to immigrate to the US under the EB-5 investor category, not just educational consulting.
Oh and I should mention that publications in EALC are peer-reviewed, but publications in American law journals/law reviews are STUDENT-reviewed and run. Some professors were able to publish their articles in student-led law journals and still count those for their tenure application, and they got promoted to associate professors -- although they teach in Asia, not in the US, so maybe the tenure standard is not as stringent. University of Pennsylvania's Asia Law Review is an example of a student-led journal relating to East Asia. But it's ideal to get published in a peer-reviewed journal in the field...as low-quality publications will come back to haunt you later. 
And there is a Cambridge PhD holder (in Philosophy...) who ended up founding an education consulting and I think a lot of the clients are from Asia, so yeah if you are entrepreneurial and love education that is a good option: https://menlocoaching.com/team/
One PhD pointed out to me that the CEO of Palantir Technology who has a net worth of 1.6 billion has a PhD in German sociology and studied under Jürgen Habermas in Frankfurt and so that's an inspiration story for non-academic jobs in technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Karp
Sure, languages will definitely help with non-academic careers. There's a Comparative Literature PhD from Stanford who commands 7 languages (mostly European as they are more or less related, for example Romance languages are similar to each other)https://dlcl.stanford.edu/events/best-decision-ever-thriving-business-humanities-phd http://arcade.stanford.edu/blogs/utility-humanities-21st-century
Many kind people gave me advice so I'm just regurgitating...
PS: I'm also tempted to repeat a professor's advice: The PhD is about pushing the edge of human knowledge, so you will be expected to read A LOT of books (both original sources and secondary scholarly writings) and to come up with something NEW and ORIGINAL to say -- i.e. pushing the edge of the existing human knowledge even further. That's why it takes such a long time. So the professor told me to find something nobody has done before. Someone I know who read 20th century literature decided to drop out of her PhD program after 7 years because even after reading all the literature currently available on 20th century literature, she couldn't find anything new to say and so just ended up with a terminal MA. 
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Oh and @spicyramen -- I've just remembered something! How good are you at technologies? If you get an interview, of course come with a few questions of your own, but also express your being comfortable with technologies, such as digital humanities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities or  10,000 Rooms Project: http://digitalhumanities.yale.edu/projects/ten-thousand-rooms or Stanford: https://news.stanford.edu/2017/12/14/humanistic-inquiry-digital-technology/ or  中國哲學書電子化計劃: http://ctext.org/zh
A friend at Harvard who is in the MA program right now told me he is learning a lot of methodologies using Big Data (such as mapping of literary references, what this author and 5 other authors say about this work etc.) and he thinks it will be very useful for him if he wants to get a job outside of academia in the future. (For example, beyond academia, there was a PhD grad from Princeton with a focus in Japanese literature who went to a boot camp in coding later to become a computer scientist). So express an interest in learning those technologies or better yet if you know how to use them already bring that up in your interview! If your interviewer uses such technologies in his/her research, he will be like "wow, this sets this candidate apart! I can use you for my research assistant!" The faculty thinks long-term, and so they want someone who can help them in the future and digital humanities is the cutting edge technology right now. Maybe they will need you to help them with HarvardX online!!!
Just an idea!
PS: And bring up if you have German or French proficiency as well because either one is a helpful language for research in Sinology, and I think for Japanology, Chinese and Korean in addition to German or French are helpful. Again, some professors told me the more languages, the better in academia. This professor is very impressive, with 15 languages!!! http://www.bu.edu/wll/files/2017/05/CV-Denecke-Winter-2017-FOR-WEB-1.pdf%20
"Language skills: German (mother tongue); English; French; Spanish; Italian; Norwegian; Hungarian; Chinese (Mandarin); Japanese; Korean.  Read: Greek; Latin; and classical languages of China, Japan (bungo and kanbun), and Korea (Middle Korean and hanmun)."
 
 

"but PhD is a "vocational" training, with many "petty rivalries, intellectual dead-ends, disillusions and disappointments, self-doubt and self-reproach", so the admission committee is more likely to admit someone who they think is well-prepared for the storms ahead." 
@NaitoBaron I can't tell you how many professors have admonished me about the dismal state of the academic job market (especially in the humanities!) It's almost like they're trying to dissuade me from going into this field. Several professors at different universities expressed similar pessimism and cynicism surrounding the path to a PhD. The other week, I sat down for a lunch with a few friends in Boston who are STEM graduate students visiting from the West (we even ate 小笼包和麻婆豆腐) and had quite a productive conversation on the matter. 
I figured out the only logical path for me right now is getting a PhD. I understand the job market is abysmal, but I'm not completing a PhD in Humanities to get a job--I'm continuing my studies in EALC because it's something that I love to do and it uniquely informs my creative process as a poet. I'm aspiring to complete a PhD because it was one of the only avenues that allows me to spend a bulk of my time reading and writing and sharing my enthusiasm for literature through teaching. And coming from a low-income family, I really have nothing to lose. I understand this a romantic ideal, and I'm neglecting to acknowledge the chance that I might not cut it in a scene filled with "petty rivalries, intellectual dead-ends, disillusions and disappointments, self-doubt and self-reproach," but I've already dealt with a lot of that stuff and any person (whether your an academic or a laborer) goes through these kinds of hardships. 
Furthermore, there are plenty of other job opportunities for EALC grads right now. One is not condemned to the academic job market. Just graduating with a BA in Chinese, I have found plentiful opportunities to use my language skills in education consulting and tutoring for Chinese nationals, and I'm sure these could be lucrative endeavors in the future. 
I guess these professors are trying to dissuade people who are on the fence about heading into graduate school, but for someone like me, it's the only career move that makes any sense. I think I have an adequate response next time someone cautions me in this vein  
 

Congratulations on all the interviews, folks! 
加油！

Whoa, that's wild @lordtiandao! It's interesting to hear about your interview experiences...I'm sure it'll be helpful to anyone else who has interviews down the road. Thanks for sharing! It can be hard to know what the adcoms are thinking about sometimes...
Very cool, @costevens! Buddhism is so interesting (and Shinto, too!). I look forward to learning more in grad school. I expect I'll be learning some Chinese eventually too...and I'd love to study Korean, just because.
And I agree about the thread! I was worried it had died there for a bit, but I think we were all just busy getting our December apps in--and then recovering from it all, haha! I stalked the old EALC threads for several years before it was time to apply myself, and it's so great to have others to talk with! I can see us all crossing paths at future conferences

@costevens I heard the same, too! Professor Anna Shields' book One Who Knows Me , or 《知我者》(http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674504370) is actually on my reading list. I'm fascinated by the romanticism of the Tang. "海內存知己，天涯若比鄰!"