a_sort_of_fractious_angel

Welcome and HUGE congratulations!!! Those are such fantastic programs! It sounds like you'll have a tough choice to make.
Maybe we will catch you around the Cambridge/Somerville/Medford area?

If you blast Destiny's Child loud enough and scream-sing along to "Survivor," the nausea kind of goes away.

Thank you so much @WildeThing, @a_sort_of_fractious_angel, and @maengret! It's tough because we don't want to prevent other students from getting a chance to attend if they are on a waitlist/secret waitlist. And it's unlikely that husband would choose Delaware over Harvard (especially since he wants a job in the EU/UK after). But his POI there is phenomenal so we don't want to burn bridges (she may not attend the visit day as she's on sabbatical, however). Ugh! This is tough.

I personally wouldn't rule out a program just because they are not 100% thorough and transparent about post-grad job placements. As you might imagine, it is quite hard to keep track of everyone who has graduated, especially beyond their first post-grad position. Even when a department tries to keep track, whether they are successful depends on the willingness of their alumni to respond to surveys and such.
Something like Princeton's chart would be amazing but even that chart can only show people who have self-reported. Looking at the recent Dissertations, about 6 students graduate per calendar year. I don't know what the expected number of years you would be on the market in your field, but if it's N years then one might expect there to be 6 times N candidacies listed. Otherwise, there are people missing, which are likely people who aren't interested in academia any more. So the absolute numbers on these charts are good, but the percentages aren't great. Also, there seems to be 83 students on the department webpage but if only 6 dissertations per year, then maybe something is happening to them (or maybe the listed students are probably in other departments too and/or include Masters students so they might not have their dissertation listed on this department page).
In any case, I would also be concerned about a department having a chart that appears to be thorough but is incomplete or hiding some information. And these charts often do not distinguish between graduates who are interested in academic positions and those who are not (and whether they became not interested in academic position as a result of the job market or not).
For small enough programs, the current students are the ones that best know where their cohort has gone, so ask them about it too. And I find that asking professors about the students they have advised will get you much more accurate information (graduates are more likely to stay in contact with their advisors than the department). Some profs put info about their students' current positions on their CVs too! 

This may have come up previously, but is anyone here prepping placement questions? I keep trying to formulate a few but I'm not sure I'm asking the right stuff or in the right way .... I'd be happy to chat on here or via PM about it (if anyone is also trying to figure out how to phrase these kinds of questions). 

My question with those numbers is how many of those rhet/comp folks are hired as tenure-track professors? There seems to be this common knowledge that a rhet/comp degree is marketable, but there might be a failure of communication as to why. Is the demand for established professors who’ll teach special topics on rhet/comp, or is it to snag experienced lecturers or non-tenure profs for writing center posts and first-year rhet/comp classes? 
At the end of the day, I don’t know how you could get through an MA (much less PhD) in an area that isn’t your primary interest. If career stability is dictating which program, go into admin or a career that is actually stable. Grad level course work and teaching is exhausting, with the only rewards being enjoying teaching and getting to explore the ideas that fascinate or haunt you. If you chose a discipline (or go to a poorly fit program) that doesn’t actually capture your interests, all you have left is the joy of teaching. You don’t need a PhD for that, or even an MA if teaching high school.
All this is to say that, while rhet/comp seems to be expanding well, you shouldn't go for certain PhD degrees on the basis of job security. There is no real job security, just slightly less awful placement numbers. Even if the numbers continue to grow for rhet/comp, you’ll struggle to finish a dissertation and put out research, if you aren’t especially interested in it beyond the level of interests most lit folks have. Go to a program that will match the interests that will drive you to pump out book after book, article after article. Even with interdisciplinary programs, if the fit and reputation is there and it’ll best suit your interests, I vote go for it (though having a discipline focused MA or postdoc in addition to an interdisciplinary PhD can arguably be an asset in finding jobs in discipline focused departments).

For sure! I have several friends working in industry around the area - if you end up definitely deciding on Delaware, I'm happy to share what I know in terms of employment. It's a great area! 

This shouldn't surprise you or anyone else. No one is going to be talking about their research in anything other than vague terms on their departmental website. The specifics come in conference papers and publications. If you just post them anywhere on the web, you're at risk of being scooped and/or seeing your ideas in print with someone else's name as the author(s). This is even more of an issue for grad students because they often have little recourse if this happens other than restarting their dissertation. You don't have to like it but it's the way things work.

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. 

I might take you up on that once the rest of the dominos fall, but as a foreigner my payment avenues are very limited so it just might not be feasible, regardless of whether it is practical.

Hmm, that is a tough one. That could leave a pretty steep price, especially since it's New York. I think there are some people on this forum who could speak more to whether it's worth it to pay for an MA (@a_sort_of_fractious_angel?).

Thanks for your response @a_sort_of_fractious_angel. The visit isn't until the end of March, so I'm just feeling super itchy eager. But I decided today, over a burrito and beer, to just wait until after the visit to officially accept. Because, broom closets and 3-headed dopplegangers!

I agree with @midwest-ford - Temple changed my portal over a weekend and I heard from the grad school that Friday. Buffalo took a day or two between grad admittance and dept contact. It's hard to wait but they will reach out soon!!! And likely have all sorts of good information for you!

Temple changed my portal on the 11th (or maybe earlier, I had stopped checking) and I have yet to hear from anyone in the English department. I got a letter in the mail from the university but that's it! I wonder if I should be reaching out? Or maybe not because I have other programs I am more strongly considering.. 
Edit: Though I'd be interested in hearing what they had to say to you @a_sort_of_fractious_angel if you're willing to share! 

I think it's important to be aware that those applying this cycle are your fellow academics and scholars. These are the people who you'll be interacting with at conferences.. These are the people you'll have the opportunity to form early connections with. These are the people who very well may help one of your future students get into their program and vice versa. These are the people who would be the most willing to copublish together. These are the people who will be serving on similar committed as you. Build love, not hate.

Congrats to today's UVA admits and future-congrats to those accepted tomorrow! I did my MA there, so if you'd like to chat about Cville or the program, shoot me a PM! 

I don't know, but I am asking myself the very same questions!! Both in the past have notified over the course of a few days, but this year, they both seem to be more centered on a single day. If I don't hear anything from them tomorrow, I am chalking them both up as rejections.

i love how its from feb 20 and its feb 19, at least where i am. is this acceptance coming from the future? is yale that powerful??

In at University of Arkansas, with a solid paying fellowship offer to boot! It's decision time! AAAHHH!

I'll throw my vote in for not a necessary step. I'm very happy with how I've done this season, and I only contacted one POI, who turned out to be very busy at the time and referred me to another faculty member. After I was accepted at that school, I got the chance to have a great discussion with that same POI. Maybe it was an unfair extrapolation from one experience, but I kind of inferred from my pre-acceptance exchange that faculty aren't always the most thrilled about being contacted by prospective applicants. Their time is already divided among so many projects and students (both current and past!), and since admittedly one of my chief anxieties is 'imposing on people' or 'taking up their time,' it was convenient for me to take this as a universal principle and not reach out to any more POIs... I kind of think that as long as you have a strong sense of your POIs' research interests and are able to link those interests convincingly to your own project in the SOP, you've accomplished the main thing that emails to faculty try to accomplish: your interest in and fit with the work going on in the department. Just my experience; YMMV!
 

Hi! So, I found some useful nuts and bolts kind of stuff, like
- The semester-by-semester breakdown of expectations for the average time to completion 
- The semester-by-semester breakdown of expectations for an accelerated time to completion
- when & how the department evaluates satisfactory progress
- policies re: coursework such as distribution requirements, the transfer of MA coursework, and coursework outside the dept/university
- dissertation policies (for example, can an external faculty member sit on the diss committee and, if so, what are the rules for that)
- department-specific requirements, such as language requirements or special paper/presentation requirements
- specifics on teaching load, preparation, and timeline
 
 

Hi! So, I found some useful nuts and bolts kind of stuff, like
- The semester-by-semester breakdown of expectations for the average time to completion 
- The semester-by-semester breakdown of expectations for an accelerated time to completion
- when & how the department evaluates satisfactory progress
- policies re: coursework such as distribution requirements, the transfer of MA coursework, and coursework outside the dept/university
- dissertation policies (for example, can an external faculty member sit on the diss committee and, if so, what are the rules for that)
- department-specific requirements, such as language requirements or special paper/presentation requirements
- specifics on teaching load, preparation, and timeline
 
 

I'm mostly a dabbler Americanist - let's just read all of it, dammit! - but I lean pretty heavily into contemporary Southern and Western writers from the Modernist period to today. I did my MA thesis on really contemporary Southern Gothic authors (like, post-2010 contemporary) who live and write about characters outside the traditional South. At the PhD level, I'd like to do something with Appalachian literature, which almost nobody discusses and which really took off in the 1900s.
My theory background is pretty weak, so I hesitate to align myself with any particular school of thought.  *severe Imposter Syndrome begins to kick in*
Fun fact: When you announce to a room full of other English students that you do things with Southern Gothic, there's always this one Brit Lit specialist who really wants you to know how much they hate William Faulkner. Never fails.

Flight to Delaware booked! Can't wait for March 11-12! 

I was at a conference this weekend and talked with some phd kids at a few schools about what advice they had. The first thing they all said was FUNDING. Go where the money is, they said. Inquire if the stipends increase as you get further along the program/with inflation.
One person said they wish they had other people in their field in their cohort—something which I found super valuable for my masters.
The other thing was faculty engagement, for which they said to ask current students about.
This is all very repetitive, but hearing these from current students from various schools hammers in what we need to be thinking about!
Personally, I'm thinking a lot about money, as one place is offering me a substantial amount more. It's throwing me off!