caeiro

I might be speaking from a place of survivor's bias, but this didn't seem to work against me this cycle. (For what it's worth, I'm pursuing a doctorate in Romance Languages and Literatures -- not English, Rhetoric or Comp Lit.) I had two letters from accomplished poets whose creative work engaged critically with the broad research topics I want to pursue. I was fortunate to have developed a close relationship with a well-known professor in my field during undergrad who was more than able to credibly fill in anything the other letters possibly could have lacked. I do think if you go this route, my advice is to ask your two "uncredentialed" letter writers to speak to your intellectual appetites and aptitudes beyond the context of your creative writing, to the extent that they can do so honestly. Or to at least identify the academic strands in the work you've shown them. Remember: there aren't hard and fast rules in graduate admissions, and anyone who tells you that any aspect of your dossier will be automatically disqualifying very rarely knows what they're talking about. I'd like to think your strongest case for admission is your most honest one.

18 months would mean telelearning throughout the first year

can you elaborate on h's being "culturalist" — curious to know more.

And for peninsularists?

Anyone still nervously awaiting Harvard?

Terrified! Especially since my one acceptance is in an incredibly expensive city.

just checking in to confirm that no one has heard anything from Harvard RLL as of now. If grad café results are anything to go off, in the past, the department has seemed to stagger acceptance and rejection notifications. I was unclear if all decisions would be released in early March, or all remaining decisions (i.e., rejections/waitlist). Does anyone have a sense of how many students the program takes each year?

@hanxiaobojing still no word from Columbia ILAC on your end?

Thank you!

Not a student of French, but applying for another language pair in Harvard's joint track RLL. I doubt that all decisions for French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese would all be released at the same time, but I thought I'd try asking here anyway: Has anyone applying to Harvard French heard back since their interview? Radio silence over here. The Harvard RLL site states that decisions are typically released during the third week of February.

Same! Did you have one or two interviews? (In years past, it seems applicants went through two rounds of interviewing.)

Also, would anyone like to claim the Columbia offer?

anyone waiting on Harvard?

No email, but updates posted to Yale account. Good luck!

Does anyone have a sense of which programs are the strongest for students with a dual interest in Spanish and Portuguese?

Interesting. I'm a dual US-EU citizen, with a strong desire to work on both sides of the Atlantic, so this is a major question for me — and a very hard one to answer at that.

Some of my "favorite" programs haven't updated their lists in years — doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence. Am hoping that, if accepted, they'll be able to give me access to internal lists. And even those that make this information easily accessible are often posting only a fraction of their student outcomes, due to poor tracking over the years.

This seems to be a recurring theme across disciplines in the humanities — and a truly fascinating development.

When you're considering prestige at the graduate level, do you look primarily to the reputation of the given department, the institution as a whole, a bit of both? I'd think to defer mostly to placement record, which is sort of an index for prestige? I ask this because there are obviously brand-name schools with relatively weak comparative literature and national language/literature departments. EDIT: especially curious when you're considering teaching internationally, where the prestige of a program might not survive the transatlantic voyage.

Have exactly the same question!

Does anyone know what I might be able to expect out of Berkeley as far as stipends go? Campus-wide VS. departamental, years of funding guaranteed. UC funding scheme very arcane to me...

All accepted applicants will have been interviewed, correct? Thanks!

Not sure how to read my interviews — definitely could have prepared better answers, but faculty seemed pretty friendly. Hard to know how decisive a factor these will be in the admissions process.

Congratulations, and thanks for the update! It is indeed a great program. Fingers crossed for your interview! The consensus is that Yale CPLT interviews all eventual admits, correct? And that invites to interview typically go out within a few days of one another? Trying to recalibrate expectations.

Wonderful info, @ztshin! Anyone want to claim that interview on the results board? ?