Dogfish Head

I accepted Syracuse's offer yesterday! OSU is not taking anyone off their waitlist this year, and I got the official "no" from Virginia on Monday. Is anyone else heading to Syracuse in the Fall? If so, feel free to reach out to me! I won't be checking this site as much now that my application cycle is over, but good luck to everyone else who is still waiting to hear definitive news or who still choosing between programs!

Thank you and thank you! I was slowly but surely losing hope.

Just got into Syracuse! Hyped!

I also have been waitlisted at UVA. I'm excited, but having two waitlists with no acceptances is definitely not an ideal situation. Oh well, hopefully it will all eventually work out. Is anybody else on the waitlist at UVA or OSU a 19th century Americanist? I work with most pre-1865 texts, and I was just curious.

This is great to hear! Thank you so much for the information and congratulations on your acceptance!

This is nice to hear. I have also heard nothing from UVA, and I was not %100 sure how to interpret my lack of news. Has anyone heard anything from UNC-Chapel Hill? I saw two acceptances and a waitlist on the board, but that seems to be a small amount of notifications for a relatively big program. Does anyone have any insights?

Does anyone want to claim the single UNC-Chapel Hill rejection on the board? They usually don't notify until a good bit later so I am curious. Is there anyway that it was a Greensboro rejection that was just accidentally entered incorrectly? I know they notified yesterday.

OSU's website says that they split up applications by subfield so there is a chance that subfield specific review panels are not finished yet. My Application Portal for OSU still says "Pending," but I would hope that if your Portal says "Accepted" they won't take that away, they probably just can't make it official yet.

Whose still working on applications? I have one left to go for Syracuse which requires a teaching statement that I have been agonizing over. I hope everyone is doing well in their post-application/pre-waiting malaise, or is finishing their last couple of applications strong!

Huh, mine are still not showing up. You are probably right, it must be a by individual thing, and I assume Wisconsin probably got a ton of applicants so it will probably take a while for them to match all the GRE scores to each applicant.

Yes, mine are still marked as missing as well on the portal if that is of any comfort. I also submitted mine well over a month ago. If we are both experiencing this hopefully that is a sign that the adcomm pairs GRE scores with the applications when they are about to begin the application review? It makes sense from an administrative perspective to sort the one item not submitted through the primary application portal once the application reviews begin, but, unfortunately, from an anxious applicant perspective this is a bit unfortunate.

I feel like all of my fanciest, for sure won't get into but might as well shoot my shot programs' application deadlines are on the 15th. Is anyone else having this experience?

Sick. Thank you. I think you are right. I just got very anxious about my Professors getting autogenerated emails that were like "Your Professor Dogfish Head is requesting a letter of reference from you," which they probably would have found funny so I don't know why I got so stressed. Thank you again!

This may (most likely is) an insane question. While filling out Letter Writer requests I have to put in "Relationship" for my UNC application, but it does not say whether the relationship I am specifying is my relationship to them (their student) or their relationship to me (my professor). It is just the word "Relationship" and nothing else. Thoughts? It is a required field, unfortunately.

I do not know much about the program, but I have met grad students in the English department who were happy with the program. Also, Albuquerque is honestly a great city. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Wowowowowow, I have been lurking on this forum since around 2015. Was an occasional poster when I was applying to MA programs (and some PhD programs unsuccessfully) in 2017, and now, finally, a thread has been started for the application cycle where I will be applying to PhD programs. This is so exciting! I am still narrowing down my list of programs, I have some ideas about my SOP (none of which I have written down), and as for my writing sample: I have a term paper I like, that is in my field, and that I will presenting at a regional MLA, or, who knows, I may use part of my thesis (if it is ready in time). Super excited to talk about apps with all of you! This is gonna be great (and stressful)!

There are so many funded MA programs from good schools that any sort of unfunded MA program just genuinely makes me nervous. Beyond that, most (though not all) funded MA programs will let you (and teach you how to) teach English composition classes for multiple semesters. A lot of us will have to teach English composition courses occasionally at *insert university where we god willing get a TT position* so learning how to teach those sorts of classes (or maybe even teach at all) is imho crucial. Funded MAs are also (in my experience) not incredibly competitive to get into if you have a good undergrad record and a solid application. Take this advice with a grain of salt because I, in general, think that universities charge far too much in general (particularly private universities) for tuition and usually that tuition cash goes to pad the pockets of various deans and presidents (for instance, my current institution just hired a president who is earning an over $600k annual salary which is a salary that no one ever should have).

I also want to second this. People you are close to (who may be well meaning) who are unfamiliar with how graduate study in the humanities works will just see a university that they know is good and therefore must have a good grad program in English. These people are also usually unaware of how precarious the job market is (even for people with degrees from elite institutions). I had to have a lot of conversations with well meaning people who care about me about why I wasn't applying to elite school x or y, and instead was applying to universities that they were less familiar with (or completely unfamiliar with). These conversations always stressed me out a lot because they are usually with the people who care about you the most and therefore think that you should be going to a "prestigious" university.

I'm currently in a fully funded with stipend MA program and turned down offers from other MA programs that offered funding on a competitive, yearly basis from universities that could be considered more "prestigious" than my current institution. The stipend and the teaching experience that come with it are invaluable in my opinion because you will have worry less about money and by getting to teach a college class early on in grad school you can get to see what a job teaching at a university may look like. When I was looking into MA programs funding and the programs placement into PhD programs were what I mainly looked at, but I actually, in retrospect, see that it was kind of weird to look into PhD placement for MA programs because even if a program has a good track record of placement into top programs that may not be because of the program and could be because of any number of reasons (too many to list). Place is also important because so much of your grad school success is dependent on your happiness so consider that as well. There is this weird idea that people in grad school should isolate themselves and study constantly, but that is a genuinely unproductive (and unhealthy) idea. Sure, grad school is a lot of work, but it is also life.

Incredibly helpful! Thank you so much! I will definitely PM you if other questions arise. I have always kind of heard to not include anything that they can learn from your CV (teaching, awards, etc.) would you say that is true? That makes sense, I would hate to stand out in a bad way lol.

I'm a current MA student with questions for current PhD students because I will be applying to doctoral programs this Fall. My biggest question is how did you decide to market yourself? Sure, being genuine about your interests is important, but what rhetorical strategies did you use to construct a narrative of your past academic work that shows promise but also shows an openness to researching new things/working with faculty that maybe don't directly align with your current theoretical investments, historical period of study, etc. Beyond that, how did you make it so that your SOP was not "brown nosing" the program/faculty, I assume that most grad programs know that they are good programs and don't really need to be reminded of that by every application they receive so how did you avoid this in your application materials? Also, if anyone is comfortable with sending me an SOP of theirs that would be incredible, I have found some online but not many. I would be incredibly grateful. I am also concerned with contacting grad program directors: What do you ask? Is there such a thing as too many questions? What is appropriate and what is not appropriate to ask? Should you even contact a DGS if you don't have any burning questions/just want to show face? Etc. Thank you so much for any info on these two questions, I am sure that I will be back with more. If anyone has any questions for me about doing an MA (particularly doing a funded MA) in English please feel free to ask me too.

I'm bumping this old thread because I am about to leave to go to Southwest PCA 2019. If any GCers are going to be there feel free to PM me.

Yes, Bucknell and the University of Vermont are accepting applicants until February 1st. Both are good, fully funded programs. Someone else may be able to weigh in with more.

I'm not applying this cycle, but I am currently enrolled in a fully funded MA program. Some funded MA programs are still accepting applicants, and I had really excellent luck with applying to funded MAs last cycle (got into 4/5 MAs, full tuition waivers from each with varying degrees of stipend sizes/teaching experience). If anyone is still considering applying to funded MAs (especially after the post-all applications have been submitted dread sinks in) please feel free to message me! I have done a lot of research on funded MA programs and would hate for it to go to waste.

I had a professor during undergrad who was doing an unfunded MA, and after one year of the MA applied to PhD programs and had a successful applicant cycle. It is definitely something I have heard of happening so I wouldn't shut down the idea, also the fact that you are in an MA will look good on PhD applications if you justify leaving for financial reasons.