a_sort_of_fractious_angel

Accepted to SUNY-Buffalo. Got an email from the grad school - department email forthcoming. 

I've spent today thinking about if I'd rather be rejected outright or waitlisted at my dreamboat school. I can't figure out which would be less scary.
And HOW is is sTiLL January. Ughhh. There's more of it tomorrow! WHY!

I've spent today thinking about if I'd rather be rejected outright or waitlisted at my dreamboat school. I can't figure out which would be less scary.
And HOW is is sTiLL January. Ughhh. There's more of it tomorrow! WHY!

HI! Awkwardly smooshing into this conversation to say Light in August is especially fantastic. I'm not a Faulkner scholar outright but I looked at LIA in my BA thesis and one of my MA projects draws on A!A! (I do hemispheric/transnational American stuff) and I got really excited to see that you, too, love Willy Faulks!
 
 

WOOHOO! CONGRATS!

To follow up on this, I was told to consider conferences at this point to be mostly for my own benefit (i.e., professional development, an opportunity to see how it's done, etc.) and less so as something that makes me a better candidate for a PhD. As for publishing at this point, I have been told emphatically by experience faculty not to worry about publishing at this point. It may be a different story in different fields, but for the most part publishing in Literature at least is expected only after you've had the chance to hone your skills and your research through graduate study. The only exception to this that I've heard is among those who disagree as to whether or not PhDs should be working toward a publishable dissertation.

I have a gut feeling that Berkeley will be Friday, but it could just be my gut hoping for a first response...

Yes, the 9th circle of hell is actually just waiting to hear back from graduate schools. No updates at all. No "we'll be alerting in early February." No "we're still reviewing applications." Just continuing update a portal that says "Application under review" or "Awaiting decision."

Yeah, I'm waiting to hear back from a few schools so I can best weigh my options, but I'm pretty sure CMU is the one.

Congrats to every one who got in this past week!! 
A special congrats for those of you who had been shut out previously. I'm so happy for you! 

Accepted to Carnegie Mellon's Literary and Cultural Studies PhD. When I stop shaking, I'll call back and let you all know what I find out! 

Hahhaa, that won't happen! I'm sure more good news is on its way! You gonna say anything to anyone at OSU in the meantime? I'm guessing their visit is a few weeks away, too.

I saw these numbers on a Facebook post the other day:
Recent numbers on the academic job market for American and Brit Lit and rhet/comp/tech comm)
Doctorates Earned (from the 2017 Survey of Earned Doctorates, which reported on calendar year 2016):
American Lit: 342
British Lit: 414
R/C: 212
MLA-JIL Ads for 2015-2016
American Lit: 107 tenure track (184 total)
British Lit: 120 tenure track (197 total)
R/C: 159 tenure track, (249 total)
Tech Writing: 49 tenure track (90 total)
 
I would say at least for rhet/comp it seems a little more optimistic than some might argue. However, I suppose we should recognize that these tenure positions are most likely going to more experienced scholars than new graduates at least the numbers aren't as harsh as the lit ones*
 
*Disclaimer: please don't attack me lit ppl, we're all in this together

Hello. I am new and I have six applications out
...and in the last two weeks I have checked my spam folder so often that I'm starting to think that, yes, maybe those Russian ladies really do want to meet me.

I think that covers it.

I don't want to be a boner (@Yanaka playfully raised this point in the Backstreet Boys thread), but having an acceptance does make things better. Work on Thursday was orders of magnitude better knowing that I'll be saying adios motherfuckers in a few months (or earlier -- I hope). 
That said, I'm still pretty anxious about the rest of the decisions. I've got nothing bad to say about OSU -- I'd be honored to study there -- but I kind of want to leave Ohio and the Midwest. I've been here for twenty-three years -- my entire life -- and I'd very much like a break. There's a whole world out there, after all! I want to eat freshly caught fish and smell the ocean spray; I want to live near a city with more people than I can fathom; I want to hear noise past 10 p.m.! 
But I'm still quite nervous, and I have a feeling that the next month will be a long one. 

Of course! What else what would I be doing? Cleaning my house? Working on my thesis? Something productive? No! I have to worry and obsessively check statuses that are not going to change on Saturday night!

YAS! DO THE THING! WOOHOO! 

As an Eagles fan, all I am armed with is Crisco and an anger that can't be channeled in a positive direction. Also, batteries, but only if you're dressed like Santa Claus. 

Transparency please! We wouldn't grade our students without giving them rubrics or providing them with prompts, why do we treat the SOP like a mystic formula. Not everyone has the time to contact every graduate director for the inside scoop. 
 
Academia is full of required "volunteer" service activity used to justify tenure, pay raises, work, ect. We review articles for free, we do university service for free, serve on committees, etc. It's not fair, but that doesn't mean we should use unethical practices to lower the labor. Instead we should be changing the expectation that the work should be done free. It's not an applicant's fault that departments don't pay the admissions committee money for reviewing. That's the department's fault, maybe budget a few less pizza days or find althernative ways to honor and thank admissions committee members- but no program should use that as an excuse to enforce instutional bias against poor people.

Sorry I’m just being a bit anxious and delusional due to my sickness! What we know for sure is that they said he was “shortlisted” (edit: they said he was on the short list when they invited him to interview). What we understand from other sources is that MAYBE they interviewed candidates based on period/area, like 2-3 candidates per slot. But really we know pretty much nothing. 
Waiting on the official Chicago rejection. No clue what will happen with the rest. I am just PRAYING that he gets an acceptance anywhere. 

PREACH!

I figured this link/article is perhaps OK to drop in this thread - I discovered it in another, earlier GC thread. Props to that OP. 
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/06/new-book-reveals-how-elite-phd-admissions-committees-review-candidates
The article's introduction: in 2016, "Julie R. Posselt, the author and an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Michigan, obtained permission from six highly ranked departments at three research universities to watch their reviews of candidates, and she interviewed faculty members at four others. All the departments were ranked as among the top programs in their disciplines. To obtain this kind of access (not to mention institutional review board approval), Posselt had to offer complete anonymity." I was intrigued and bought the book - I think the article does a great job of summing up the text, so the book definitely isn't necessary to get to the significance.
The interviews reveal that adcoms (the ones she interviewed at least) rely more heavily on the GRE than applicants are led to believe (upsetting but not entirely surprising.) In addition, Posselt touches on questions about bias and diversity and elitism - all questions everyone here has brought up. The anonymity seems to offer pretty secure protection to these adcoms, as I don't think the conversations are exaggerated.
They are, however, troubling and indicative of an urgent need for change/the development of a transparent admissions processes. 
And since we're all academics here (FWIW, the assumption that the academic identity requires a current institutional affiliation really grinds my gears since I spent 2 years as an "independent scholar") who have bright futures in education/culture regardless of this year's results, I figured this might be interesting/cool/able to confirm That Feeling That All Is Not What It Seems.

Well, it looks like I'm relaunching my Tinder tonight and tryin' out these beauts. 

Any time I'm out with friends and they use the selfie-function on their phones to check their makeup/hair/teeth, I make a faux pithy comment about their inability to develop past the Mirror Stage. No one ever laughs but me, but I laugh every time.