punctilious

I can't handle the anticipation!

YES. I'm not the applicant, my husband is, but I'm going insane. I've been reading Harry Potter and watching Jane the Virgin as a distraction. I also start three college courses next week in addition to my full-time communications/design job, so I'm pretty busy. Yet I still manage to obsessively check the results board and forum... I wish I could get a puppy. We have two adorable cats that are a source of joy, though! He has an interview with Maryland tomorrow so we have been extensively preparing for that. And then we're planning to have a movie night to get our mind off of everything. I just wish we could fast forward!

I went to UVM for undergrad. Burlington is quite cute, but it will feel VERY small if you're from Chicago. It depends on if you're into that? It's of course beautiful, and very liberal, but cold (I'm sure you're used to that). Great for outdoorsy types, as there are plenty of winter sport opportunities close by, and the lake/hiking/biking in the summer. It's also decently close to Montreal and Boston if you're looking to visit bigger cities. Personally, even though I'm from a small Vermont town, I'd never move back. It just feels too small for me. UVM itself is a great school, though that of course varies by program/department.

Frankly, when I visited College Park, I didn't find it to be the most appealing place in the world. It seems that many, if not most, students commute from other areas, such as Hyattsville, Silver Spring, D.C., etc. My husband has an interview there and if he were to end up going to College Park, we would 100% not live there. We'd stay here in adorable Old Town Alexandria, VA. Personally, I would check out the campus, which is truly beautiful, and maybe visit other areas rather than sticking around College Park. Just my two cents!

Same, and I’m not even the applicant, which is rather sad...

It looks like Brandeis had the same deadline last year according to Wayback Machine. I was confused with BU because my spreadsheet had December 15 but then their website said January 5. I thought I had written it down incorrectly, but Wayback Machine confirmed that they did in fact change it.

As an addition to this thread, my guess is that Boston University won't get back as early this year since they changed their deadline to January 5 (it was previously December 15).

His letter writer was having a very hard time submitting to one of the schools, and so the professor had to email the letter to the graduate coordinator. The professor forwarded the email to my husband as confirmation. The letter was actually attached to that email but my husband resisted the urge to read it. However, I think he spelled my husbands name wrong in the email or in the title of the letter.

Pretty sure that my husband's letter writer spelled husband's last name wrong in his letter, considering he ALWAYS spells it wrong. However, this professor absolutely loves him and is almost over-the-top about how wonderful my husband is, so hopefully that outweighs the error (plus it's always just one letter off and maybe not super noticeable). He also has a tendency to forget what classes of his my husband was actually in, and mixes up which classes I was actually his student in (like I was in a class with him about author 1, my husband was in a class with him about author 2, he is obsessed with both of us, so he decides that we are one person and therefore my husband was in author 1 class as well). Oh well! We love the professor anyway. Haha.

I did see a bit about the Chicago interview spots not actually being guaranteed--it seems very bizarre. I don't understand why they would do that.

You rock, @Warelin! I didn't expect that we might be hearing back from Boston College and Boston University this month! My husband is really hoping for a Chicago interview invitation next week. We'll see what happens! Good luck to everyone as the decisions kick it into overdrive!

Awesome! Let me know if you need any help with this or any of your super helpful projects.

@Warelin, did you happen to create an updated version of these projected acceptance dates based on last year? I'm wondering if there were any significant date shifts in comparison to years prior.

As an additional alternative, March 21 is Naw-Rúz, the Bahá'í new year, if you still need time!

For my husband, his other major was history. He was particularly involved in Holocaust Studies. However, he seemed to feel like English literature gave more freedom--plus he is an avid writer. But likely his top choice outside of an English PhD would be an MFA in Creative Writing. He's an avid fiction writer and will have a short story published for the first time within the next month! He also has had a book review and a history paper published. If he couldn't go on in academia, he'd probably just continue trying to pursue writing on his own and likely apply to writing-related jobs, as he's not a huge fan of his current career path.

Thank you all so much! It just feels really validating to know that someone thought his application was good. He doesn't have an MA and was a double-major so we kind of weren't sure if he had enough of the English literature 'experience' that PhD programs were looking for.

Okay so this isn't an acceptance but my husband just received an email saying that he is on the "short list" for the University of Maryland and inviting him to a Skype interview next week! We are local to the school so he's going to offer to go in person (not sure if that's an option) but I AM SO EXCITED FOR HIM! P.S. Any PhD interview tips would be super appreciated!

My husband has already submitted all of his applications, but a fiction story he wrote was just accepted in Quarterly West--is it worth updating his CV with the forthcoming publication? He's applying to PhDs in English Lit, not Creative Writing.

Edit: oops wrong forum!

My husband has a BA and is only applying to PhDs. However, he knows he wants a PhD and has had a couple years of ‘real life experience’ outside of school to think about this. We’ll see what happens!

Hooray! Husband is applying to the following schools: Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis, Brown, Columbia, CU-Boulder, Harvard, Tufts, UMD-College Park, UChicago, Delaware, and Yale.

Ooh no he hasn’t, but actually UMD is his last SOP he needs to write so if you have particular scholars in mind in that field, it would be great to hear! I think right now he was planning to mention Lee Konstantinou and someone else I forget.

My husband's research interests: Postmodern/Contemporary U.S. Literature | Material Culture | Thing Theory | Pynchon, Wallace, Franzen, Barth, DeLillo, Nabokov, Egan

Similarly, my husband has three letter writers, and we had forgotten until now that Brandeis only wants two (thanks for reminding me to double check that column on my spreadsheet--it's the only school with a requirement of two on our list)! Should he tell one of the letter writers to not submit their letter? One of them already has submitted, but the other two haven't yet.

Good luck to everyone this month—I know it is probably a super busy one! My husband has finalized his SOP and is just in the process of writing each individual school paragraph. We’ve sent out his GRE scores to all of his schools and sent out all of the LOR requests—one of his letter writers already submitted everything! All letters should be in before Thanksgiving. His WS is also nearing its final draft. My fingers are crossed for all of you!