[Fall 2018 French]

YES I am on the reddit and I did reply to your thread! It is a very helpful subreddit and I really enjoy browsing it, but it can also get irritating because their admissions standards seem so different with thousands of applications, and it's not nearly as idiosyncratic as the humanities process. Almost nobody can give humanities advice, especially for small majors  Oh well, all of my applications are in at this point, so the wait has officially begun and we'll see how the programs decide! 

Masters in France are definitely shorter to finish and are also much cheaper (although, of course, the visa paperwork is a lot and CampusFrance is a nightmare). I'm coming up on my second year in Paris and I know a ton of people who stay for their masters; not too shabby of an experience, from what I understand! I worked at a French university as a research fellow for a while, and the programs are very good, but are also much more standardized (oh, France!) No matter the outcome, we have a number of options, so that's nice

[Fall 2018 French]

^I am in TAPIF right now, and I absolutely love it! I'm in the Paris region. If I don't get in, I'm eligible for a second year and my school has already asked me to re-apply (of course, if I get into a PhD program, I'd come back to the states). If I do a second assistantship year, I think I would do a masters in France and then re-apply in the U.S. for a PhD. 

If you have any questions about TAPIF, please ask!! I've had a great time so far and I think it's an awesome experience  

 

[Fall 2018 French]

I applied to UPenn and they were pretty nice! I'm not expecting to get in, but it would be a remarkable honor. UPenn comes out by the end of January, interviews for other schools are sent out around the end of January/early February, and most will come out in the first half of February. Fingers crossed for everybody!

Do any of y'all have any backup plans just in case? I know it's not the funnest thing to talk about, but I was just wondering since language specialists have such a wide breadth in gap year(s) experiences and I'm curious! 

[Fall 2018 French]

Thank you so much, good luck to you too! Agreed - Stanford is a phenomenal program, but it's also arguably my most competitive school, so I'm not placing my bets. I am remaining hopeful, though! Their philosophical depth is outstanding, and I LOVE their offering of a philosophy minor.

Orientalism/Francophone studies is such a cool (and very up-and-coming) field of research! The schools you applied to have super strong departments in that area, so I'm sure your fit will be great

[Fall 2018 French]

That's so awesome that you're finished -- I'm jealous! I'm wrapping mine up this weekend. I'm applying to literature PhD programs, more specifically. My entire research body has been 20th century feminism and philosophies, so I'm applying to pretty theory-heavy schools.

The current list is Illinois, Berkeley, Northwestern, Harvard, NYU, Penn, Stanford, and Penn. State! I'm incredibly nervous, but am relieved that the application process is almost done

[Fall 2018 French]

Me! Just turned in the first application (Berkeley) and I'm already stressed, lol. Best of luck to everybody! 

[UW Madison French?]

@Bleep_Bloop No problem at all, this is all super useful information! A very similar thing happened at my undergrad institution (UT Austin, a humongous political mess), and it has hit the humanities the hardest. Hate when corrupt politicians intervene like that, but what can ya do in the public school system . Thanks for the heads up! 

[UW Madison French?]

I've personally heard a ton of really awesome things about UW Madison and it always comes highly recommended from my advisors. The community seems great, the maison Française is very integrative, and all of my colleagues who have conferenced with UW candidates say that they're overall a very strong cohort. 

1) Did the person have awesome research and recs, publications/conferencing, or a great personal statement? If that's the case, GPA and GRE are actually a lot less important than one may think. I once knew someone who got into a top humanities PhD with a hair over 3.0 because they have an outstanding C.V., just as I've known someone with a 4.0 get rejected from the same school.

2) Also want to know a little bit about this, so I'm following for updates

3) One of the only qualms about UW that I've heard is the very short time to graduation, since it implies that you may not be able to get a lot of teaching experience, which is pretty necessary for post-doc positions. 

[Warning Against UT Austin French]

Whoa, UT on the board! UT was my undergraduate alma mater and I really wanna jump in on this convo. 

I really only heard one or two inappropriate faculty rumours as an undergrad, but they were there and it was a weird environment. I think a lot of it springs from the fact that a lot of my lecturers and teachers were really young. Of course, most of these people are graduate students and that blurs the lines and makes it complicated, but it also seems like grad students didn't get a lot of pedagogical training. If I'm not mistaken, there is no intense teaching seminar like some other graduate schools. Also, UT went under a massive legislative funding hit, most likely because of it's political sway (blue school, red state... not great.) For this reason, nobody - from professors to admin - is getting hired, and a lot of programs, namely liberal arts, are being super cut. Yay, Texas!  Finally, UT is a giant - I mean giant - school. The largest concentration of French classes is, of course, in the core beginning and intermediate classes. Grad students don't ever seem to stray out of these classes, which is typical, but can stink if you're wanting to more speciality TA. UT also started making the shift to online beginner and intermediate classes, which might either appease you or turn you off. 

But UT does have one really big strength, and it's linguistics. UT's program doesn't really boast a singular "strength" when you look at their site, but I had some phenomenal linguistics classes as an undergrad, and I'm not even a linguist. French linguistics faculty is much larger at UT. One professor I had is kicking ass with media linguistics and teaching materials all over the nation. You can do literature or culture, but there's really only one professor per era and they are indeed packed with meetings and other students. One of the literature professors advised me and he was absolutely phenomenal, but I always felt for the guy because he always seemed to have a line out his door. Africa/Francophonie professors and 1960s-on is almost completely non-existant, but a lot of people do Arabic/French linguistics. Essentially, If you're into linguistics, UT isn't a bad option, it seems way more flexible. Repeating what tom said, the professors who are good (most of them) are outstanding. But again, you may have to deal with the massive shortage UT is facing. 

ETA: HOLY GOD 24% retention @misterdog?! I had no idea it was that low! I did hear some candidates left, but wow...