madamoiselle

@frenchlover Good question, I've always wondered that myself! I think it's also because NYU has so many students in its unfunded masters/cross-disciplinary masters that they aren't struggling too much for money in that field. The IFS is enormous! The Maison Française also seems to be doing pretty well with hosting and fundraising!

@frenchlover True! It's possible department-wide funding choices are potentially made together. Either way, like you'd mentioned, I'm sure you'll hear (hopefully good) news soon!

On a similar note, "So... when does anybody really use inversion?" and a French person once responded to me, "Quand l'interloc, c'est Elizabeth II!" (When the interlocutor is Elizabeth II )

@Saltshaker @awhiterussian Best of luck to both of you! Since the most recent interview (saltshaker) was told 2 days, they probably made decisions faster than they thought, and that would be the updated time. AH! Crossing my fingers for y'all! @Carly Rae Jepsen Chicago is an RLL department -- not just French, right? If so, then if Spanish is getting results, y'all should be too!

I can fully say that there have been many times where I've read one page of Proust and retained none of it haha

Just off the top of my head... (French) "I will never understand québécois French in my entire life" "Do you wanna go to a café this afternoon? I know a place, super cool, like... actual French coffee, not our American jus de chausettes." "Yeah, I saw the Mona Lisa. Total letdown. To really know Paris, you need to avoid the tourist areas. I hate the Eiffel Tower" "Are you applying to TAPIF?" "Wait, you haven't read Sartre?" "So what exactly is the difference in sound between ou and u?????" "Oh no, we don't have to pronounce any of those letters at the end.... or the ones in the middle. Oh, sometimes, you also don't have to pronounce that first letter." "Ok, so it's like... you have 20, right? And then multiply it by four, and then you have 80, and then you just add how much you would need to get the end number. So 98 would be 20 times 4 plus 18. Is that clear?" "So they're older than me, but they're super cool, but they're also a teacher in a different department, but I've also met them before... Should I use tu or vous?"

That's such awesome news @Monsieur Vénus!! Congrats

Bonjour (hola!) from the French board Figured I'd pop over and see how this board was doing, just to say hello, and am pumped that so many of y'all are thinking about UT Austin! That was my alma mater (for French, naturally), but if you ever have any questions about the city or campus, please let me know. I know the language departments like the back of my hand, they're great -- and I miss ATX a bunch!

@awhiterussian I'm hoping the best for you and Columbia! I'm certain that you'll have a nice crop to select from, the French PhD lottery still poses pretty good chances

@Carly Rae Jepsen I totally feel you about having to choose, even though I've only been admitted to one as well! I think I may get into one or two more, and it's already going to be a tough call :-/

If anybody has any questions about Texas, that was my alma mater! Austin is an awesome city and I know the department by heart, please feel free to PM

Congrats!!

Coming in here also asking if anybody has any helpful hints about Berkeley. I just got into their PhD program and its one of my absolute favorites, so I'm trying to do as best I can to plan for the price of living in the bay. I actually love bigger cities (have lived my adult life in Austin/Paris), and I would absolutely prefer not to bring my car. Additionally, anybody have any input on graduate housing? Manville, Ida Jackson, etc.? Any input would be greatly appreciated

Nail on the head, this is what Cal is doing. And they typically do everything in your power to help you get in-state!

@Carly Rae Jepsen I don't think it matters. I believe all schools' funding will include a tuition remission and full coverage!

@Carly Rae Jepsen if money's the issue, the school should cover your visit costs, just like they do for interviews And understood -- looking back, I realistically only had 3 or 4 schools that really fit academically and environmentally.

This is a very valid concern! I had a friend make a tough choice between two schools (one great school with a meh fit, one less-prestigious school with a near-perfect fit) and she was advised to go to the better fit (she was just about neck and neck with location/funding). She ended up going and she is having an awesome time, she loves all her classes and I'm super happy for her! Her work so far has been outstanding. Definitely do campus visits once you are accepted; that's where you will absolutely get the best feeling of fit and community, which is another vital factor.

Buongiorno and bienvenue to the board! Kick your feet up and feel free to wait it out with your equally-as-anxious Mediterranean neighbors

@Carly Rae Jepsen I think as long as your general trajectory is aligned and you are confident that you have the skills and resources at a graduate institution to build upon the basis you've established (and continue to have a very serious passion in this basis), you are ok. One of my advisors told me that it's better to add -- get more intersectional in your studies -- than to take away or make a shift. I struggled with this as well. I like philosophy, for example, and it was prominent in my thesis -- but I don't consider myself so much a philosopher, instead more of a psychoanalyst/modern gender studies theorist with a philosophy zing; I had a really hard time passionately writing statements for certain philosophy-heavy schools because of this. This said, your pitch isn't set in stone, and you are allowed to explore, of course -- we will all continue learning in grad school! You just have to keep that original grounding that inspired you to continue graduate work. I'm sure you'll be fine if you're pushing areas you've established a basis and are very, dissertation-level interested in! Additionally, area and environment are also incredibly important to me as well (I didn't apply to two well-fitting schools for this very reason), so I totally understand that consideration! Definitely smart to apply to wherever you'll be the most comfortable for the next 6-7 years haha

@awhiterussian yes, absolute best of luck on your interview!!! @Green.Mango I would also throw Yale in for this because, if I'm not mistaken, they have a joint PhD in Film Studies/French (with a great colonialism department). Corbin Treacy at Duke is also really awesome at Northern African film (post-colonial at Duke is pretty good in general, from what I understand.) Actually, my Alma Mater (UTexas) has a few students working on African post-colonial culture and film, but the department is mainly linguistics-based.

@awhiterussian Columbia is AWESOME for post-colonial studies and the francophone world in general. I believe Yale does really well in that field as well, and Duke.

^^ This is it. One of the best posts on a thread I previously read is that French is such a small subject, that every single department has an incredible, distinct flavor. All of my advisors and prior professors could have told me just about every detail and nuance of each program just based on their circle of colleagues and the intimacy of conferencing in small departments. Some programs, like Duke and Penn, tend to have a greater spread than others, but grad school is so ridiculously idiosyncratic, it kind of makes my head spin. As I've mentioned before, feminism is my personal hot take and off the bat, feminism is generally large at Harvard, Penn State, UConn and Berkeley. But even a topic such as feminism is so nuanced over libidinal psychoanalysis (obscenity? Maternity? Freud?)/sociopolitical history (MLF? 1968?)/philosophical periods (modernism? Postmodernism? George Sand? Christine de Pizan?) Each and every department has their own little niche that they're trying to recruit minds into in order to create a more rounded, interdisciplinary program whilst maintaining their areas of strength and influence. My advisors told me that rankings can be somewhat ~*important*~, but to really look at what's being published out of the department, faculty, interdisciplinary opportunities, placement (of course) and which seminars are being held. If a department can't answer these questions or create a fit for you, even if they're number 1, your work will not be as high of quality. In departments like French, and many humanities, fit is absolutely imperative. I kept convincing myself to apply to Yale because it's such a good program, but it was merely impossible with what I want to study. That's, in my opinion, the largest distinction between grad school/undergrad. Saying whether or not something is the best is difficult to put a finger on and can't be as numerically tangible as your general college (or other, larger fields, especially in STEM).

@Carly Rae Jepsen @frenchlover California is absolutely STUNNING. One of my favorite states in the whole continental 48. You're gonna love it; March in northern California is still kinda cold (that's actually when I'm going as well, but on the 18-19th!) The Bay is incredible and the state as a whole is a natural sanctuary.

@Carly Rae Jepsen OH HELL YEAH!!!! Huge congrats to you, Stanford is phenomenal! Who knows, maybe I'll see you in the bay!

I live in Paris as an English teacher, and took a little weekend trip to Barcelona with the sole intention of running away from admissions decisions (didn't bring my laptop, turned off email notifications, etc.) Well I guess I didn't turn off notifications for my second gmail account, which happens to be my graduate school account, so at 3 AM in a hostel bunk, I got an email that said "Congratulations" in the subject line. I honestly didn't think much of it, I was delirious and super exhausted with a flight in 5 hours, so I opened it absentmindedly and THERE IT WAS! It wasn't until 5 lines down that it explicitly said "Berkeley" and I absolutely lost it. Once I saw that, I started hyperventilating and shaking because I was trying not to wake the other people in the hostel. I may or may not have started sweating? It was a complete blur. Fast forward five minutes, I'm in the 3:10 AM Barcelona streets in my pajamas and socks with no jacket, calling my mom and crying!