bumbleblu

Will be attending UD for Fall 2018! The amazing campus visit sealed the deal!

Still waiting on two programs, but that's fine, since I already accepted UD's offer. Good luck to everyone still waiting and deciding!

I officially accepted an offer from IU-Bloomington! It's so hard to believe that the process is finally over.

AAAAANNNd a Fordham rejection wraps it up for me! Absolutely thrilled and so fortunate to be going to UConn next year! Good luck to those still waiting to make decisions!!
Off to check the schedule for the women's b-ball tournament!

I understand, @sheriberi! Traveling with cats is so stressful (but worth it!). Whenever you need to have your cat out of the carrier, just be sure to keep the leash around your wrist and have a good hold on your cat. 
Have you tried putting the harness on your cat yet? With my younger cat it works as a 'calming vest' by which I mean he basically stops moving until we take it off again. 

@sheriberi I wasn't too worried about the plastic snapping, and one of my cats is very strong. Also, I don't think there was ever a time where I was really relying on that bit of plastic -- we carried them through security, and the rest of the time they stayed in their carriers. (Though of course we kept the leashes attached, just in case either of them decided to do a runner.) 
 

Are you trying to which stipends are livable wages for their respective cities? I used a few different calculators when I was doing that:
Living Wage Calculator - tells you the hourly wage needed to support various household sizes in different cities
Cost of Living Comparison - let’s you compare two cities. I used this to compare new city and current city, and also potential school cities to each other. 
Sorry if that’s not what you were looking for, though.

I received an email this morning from UNC Chapel Hill to inform me I was admitted off of the waitlist! This is one of my top choices and I could not be more thrilled. It also means I’ll be turning down the waitlist at IU Bloomington, so hopefully someone moves up in the ranks there! 

Accepted at WUSTL.

A request for rhet/comp texts: 
I'm not really familiar with the field, but my research is definitely going in that direction (specifically: queer rhetoric, autonarratives, and the connections of language and identity). So, can you recommend a/some good introductory text(s)? Or journal titles? Not necessarily related to my specific interests -- I do have some articles recommended by a POI, but I feel like I should also start with the basics. Imposter syndrome has already set in, but it might help if I didn't show up totally unprepared in the fall...
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
 

I am currently in the process of declining my offer (including a TAship) at Temple University. I hope this means good news for another Temple applicant! 
Edit: I had no idea how hard it would be for me to send that email! Even though I know that I wouldn’t pick Temple over my other options it felt awful letting them go. I feel like I selected each program with such care and put so much into every application that it’s just terribly difficult to say “no.” Anybody else feel this way?
The only thing that got me to hit send was the fact that the sooner I declined the sooner someone else got good news. ?

Hi there! Congratulations on your decision on a gap year. Obviously, different strokes for different folks, but I am just so glad I took time out before applying to PhD programs. I have actually been out for about three years. When most everyone in my master's program was applying for PhD programs, I felt very uncertain about that decision--and also very overwhelmed at the thought of applying to schools while also scrambling to write a thesis and do coursework and teach two full classes. My son had a school he was happy in and my husband had a job, so we decided to stay here. 
I was lucky to get a research assistantship that helped with part of the summer after graduation, but I did feel the need to scramble and get whatever job as quickly as possible. I was disappointed at how few teaching gigs I found, and knew I wanted to do something at least vaguely related to my degree, so I scoured the staff job postings for my university and the nearby colleges. I had sooo many misses, but ended up landing a job as a secretary in the office for academic affairs at my university. It was pretty tedious and frustrating, but I gained a hell of a lot of insight into the inner workings of a large state school. I left pretty quickly after getting a job as an editor for one of the university's research institutions. 
All the while, I found myself longing for academic life. I missed being around people who cared as much as I do about literature and writing and "the life of the mind." I also discovered how much office life bothers me--the rigidity of the office structure drives me crazy. My time as an editor had a huge role in motivating me to apply to PhD programs. Not only because I was working with faculty and wishing I could be generating more of my own work instead of editing theirs, but also because I started seeing some real connections between my academic interests and conversations taking place in the field I'm currently in. That helped me to narrow my scope of focus in a way that I am really excited about and that I think paid off in my applications. 
Balancing a full time job and applying to grad school, not to mention having two kids, was incredibly challenging but definitely doable. I spent a lot of my lunch breaks reading/writing, and would work until I couldn't keep my eyes open most nights after the kids were in bed. It was painful, but I guess I survived. My work performance wasn't great, but oh well. 
Overall, I'm very happy I took this time out from academic life. I have an assurance that I lacked before about my fit for academia and about the satisfaction it can provide me compared to other career choices. I also think that holding professional jobs as a non-student has given me a maturity that I didn't have before--another quality I think showed in my applications and I am sure will pay off as a doctoral student and, later, as a job candidate. 

I've finally heard back from all the schools I applied to (minus Berkeley, which I assume is a rejection at this point), so if campus visit days go well, it looks like I'll be off to IU-Bloomington for PhD!

Best feeling ever. 

I'm having this problem with one of my schools as well, and I'm glad (?) I'm not the only one. Between my acceptance at the end of January and this week, I had heard nothing from the DGS (despite having emailed him). He called me yesterday to tell me about my funding offer, and the phone call lasted less than 4 minutes and felt really rushed (we had scheduled a time to talk according to his schedule). It's put a really bad taste in my mouth regarding this school. I've had good interactions with some students there (and they've had good things to say about the faculty and DGS), so I'm wondering how much I'm reading into this.
All my other schools (including the waitlists) have been very responsive and communicative, and are making it clear that they want me there. 
It's definitely starting to influence my decision-making process as well.

Husband officially accepted Harvard's offer! I'm so excited!!!

We still have to hear back from a few places, but I'm about 99% sure husband will formally accept Harvard once we get the funding letter in the mail.

I've officially accepted at Pitt! It was my top choice, so I felt confident signing on the dotted line before a visit. Now I'm reading up, looking at apartments, and gearing up for a biggie transition this summer. Wut wut!

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself  any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...
 
 
So: Where are you going? What factors are influencing your final decision? What criteria for assessing the best fit have emerged during this decision making process? How are you sharing your decisions with programs, family,  employers, and that old psychic woman from the results thread? 

I am thinking about declining my offer, but also my area is gender studies/theory, so I don't know that it'll be any use to you. :/

I posted this a year ago and recently rediscovered it:

Big News? You're alive.
-There are currently seven billion people alive today and the Population Reference Bureau estimates that about 107 billion people have ever lived.  -Having just a few coins makes you richer than most people on Earth.
-You are unique and nobody in the entire world is like you are
-The opportunity to attend school is something many people don’t have. (Which makes having a college degree even greater!)
-Most people lack a bed of their own to sleep in
-Many people on earth lack access to clean water.
-Cell phones make talking to loved ones easy.
-You can enjoy pizza. Or Ice Cream.
-There are people in your life who love you more than you could ever know -The Internet, n'uff said?   But in all seriousness, try not to compare yourself to others. We have a tendency to look at how great the lives of other people are going without realizing the stresses they're hiding. There may even be people looking at you and saying, isn't it great that Shaun or Rachel are taking chances to pursue what they want no matter the cost? They don't realize that you're refreshing your e-mail every minute waiting for news.
 

So, last year I was rejected from every PhD program that I applied to. My thesis advisor presented me with two options: give up on academia, or commit to some serious reading over the course of the year. What he told me to do was simple: read the past five years of the major rhetoric and composition journals. 
Obviously, you don't have that much time. My recommendation is to read as much of CCC (College Composition and Communication) and College English as you can. These journals are the most prestigious in the field, though they're not specified to a particular sub-discipline within rhet/comp. Once you understand the general outline of the discipline, ie. the major debates scholars are still arguing about, you can specify the journals you're reading into those tackling only your specialty, such as those dedicated to queer rhetorics, etc. 
If you can show up on day 1 and make references to the major theorists in the field (Burke, Elbow, Flower....), imposter syndrome won't be quite so resolute. 

haha!  It would definitely be okay for you to post the questions list, but here it is.  Also, I'd just be honest with the programs, especially since the money they're giving you won't be enough to cover either visit individually.  
 
-PLACES TO STUDY AND WORK
-Where do most people do their writing and reading?
-What study spaces are available? Do students get a carrel? Do those who teach get or share an office?

-LIBRARY
-What is the library system like? Are the stacks open or closed?
-What are the library hours?
-Are there specialized archives/primary sources that would be useful to my research?
-Are there specialist librarians who can help me with my research?

-FACULTY
-Are the faculty members I want to work with accepting new students? Are any of those faculty members due for a sabbatical any time soon?
-Are professors willing to engage you on a personal level rather than just talking about your work?
-Are there any new professors the department is hiring in areas that align with my interests?
-Students’ relationships with their professors – are they primarily professional, or are they social as well?

-FUNDING
-Is funding competitive? If so, do students feel a distinction between those who have received more generous funding and those who haven’t?
-How does funding break down among the cohort? i.e., how many people receive fellowships?
-How, if you don’t have much savings, do you make enough money to live comfortably?
-Are there external fellowships one can apply to? If so, what is available? Does the program help you apply for these fellowships? How does receiving an external fellowship affect internal funding?
-If people need more than five/six years to finish, what funding resources are available? (For instance, Columbia can give you an additional 2-year teaching appointment.)
-Do you provide funding for conferences or research trips?
-How often is funding disbursed? (i.e., do you get paid monthly or do you have to stretch a sum over a longer period of time?)

-COHORT
-Do students get along with each other? Is the feeling of the program more collaborative than competitive?
-Do students in different years of the program collaborate with each other, or are individual cohorts cliquey?
-How many offers are given out, and what is the target number of members for an entering class?
-Ages/marital status of people in the cohort – do most people tend to be married with families? Are there younger people? Single people? What sense do you have of how the graduate students interact with each other socially?
-Do people seem happy? If they’re stressed, is it because they’re busy or is it because they’re anxious/depressed/cynical/disillusioned?
-Is the grad secretary/program administrator nice?
-What is the typical time to completion? What are the factors that slow down or speed up that time?
-I’ve read that there are two kinds of attrition: “good” attrition, in which people realize that the program, or graduate study, isn’t right for them and leave early on, and “bad” attrition, in which people don’t finish the dissertation. What can you tell me about the rates of each, and of the reasons why people have chosen to leave the program?

-JOB MARKET/PROFESSIONALIZATION
-What is the placement rate? How many of those jobs are tenure-track?
-What are examples of institutions in which people in my field have been placed?
-How does the department prepare you for the job search? Are there mock interviews and mock job talks?
-Are the people helping you navigate the job search people who have recently gone through the process themselves?
-If you don’t get placed, is there anything the department can do for you? (e.g., can you stay an extra year?)
-How does the department prepare you for and help you attain conference presentations and publications?

-SUMMER WORK
-What is encouraged/required?
-If there separate funding/is the year-round funding enough to live on during the summer?
-Do people find themselves needing to get outside work during the summer in order to have enough money?
-Am I expected to stay in town in the summer, and what happens if I don’t?

-LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT
-What is done to help people who don’t have language proficiency attain it? Does the university provide funding?
-What is the requirement, and by when do you have to meet it?
-Given my research interests, what languages should I study?
-When do you recommend doing the work necessary to fulfill the language requirement? (i.e., summer before first year, summer after first year, while taking classes, etc.)

-LOCATION REQUIREMENTS
-How long are students required to be in residence?
-How many students stay in the location for the duration of the program? (i.e., how many dissertate in residence?)
-How is funding affected if you don’t stay?

-Incompletes on papers at the end of the term: What is the policy, how many students take them, and how does this affect progress through the program?

-TEACHING
-What sort of training is provided?
-What types of courses do people teach?
-Does teaching entail serving as a grader? Serving as a TA? Developing and teaching a section of comp?
-How are students placed as TAs? Is there choice about what classes you teach and which professors you work with? Do classes correspond to your field?
-How many courses do you teach per semester/year?
-How many students are in your classes?
-How does the school see teaching as fitting in with the other responsibilities/requirements of graduate study?
-How do students balance teaching with their own work?
-Is the department more concerned with training you as a teacher/professor or with having cheap labor to teach their classes?
-How, if at all, does the economic downturn affect teaching load/class sizes?
-What are the students like? Can I sit in on a course a TA teaches to get a sense of them?

-METHODOLOGY
-Is a theory course required?
-What methodology do most people use?
-Where, methodologically, do you see the department – and the discipline – heading?
-Is interdisciplinarity encouraged, and what sorts of collaboration have students undertaken?

-Typical graduate class and seminar sizes

-What should I do to prepare over the summer?

-Ask people I know: What are the questions – both about the program itself and about the location – I should ask that will most help me get a feel for whether this is the right program for me?

-Ask people I know: What do you wish you knew or wish you had asked before choosing a program?

-Is the school on the semester or the quarter system, and how does that affect classes/teaching/requirements?

-What is the course load for each semester, and how many courses are required?

-What kind of support is provided while writing the dissertation? I worry about the isolation and anxiety of writing such a big project. What does the program do to help you break the dissertation down into manageable pieces, and to make the experience less isolating?

-What do writing assignments look like in classes? Do they differ based on the type/level of class and/or based on whether you intend to specialize in the field?

-Ask professors: what have you been working on lately?

-Ask professors: What is your approach to mentoring and advising graduate students?

-How long are class meetings?

-How often do professors teach graduate courses?

-Are course schedules available for future semesters (10-11, etc.)?

-Can I see the grad student handbook? Are there any other departmental documents – such as reports on the program prepared for accreditation – that I can see?


-QUALITY OF LIFE
-Prices – how does the cost of gas, milk, cereal, etc. compare to other places I've lived in?
-Cost and quality of typical one-bedroom apartment.
-What does the university do to provide you with or help you find housing?
-When (i.e., what month) do people start looking for an apartment for the fall, and where do they look?
-Is it easy to find a summer subletter?
-How close to campus can—and should—one live?
-What grocery stores are there in town?
-How late are cafes, bookstores, malls, restaurants typically open?
-What do people do to make extra money?
-Does the town have more of a driving or a walking culture? What is parking like near campus (availability, ease, cost)?
-Where do most English grad students live? Most other grad students? Most professors? Where is the student ghetto? Do most students live near each other, or are they spread out far and wide?
-How far does the stipend go in this location?

Happy venting!
Our CFO has given the go ahead for me to work remotely! That means I get to keep my job! I'M SO HAPPY!

Ah, you were so young and naive then...in the good old five hours ago.