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Congratulations! St Andrews is paradise on earth. I was going to do my PhD there, but for this and that reason I'll be going with an American programme. If you have any questions about living/location/faculty/etc., please don't hesitate to DM me. What took you there?

Thank you! Yes, I've had a few interactions with the school—and I could see myself happily there—but I'm about to accept another offer. I wouldn't want to name names, though. Scout's honour and such... Perhaps the easiest to inform was my old alma mater. Congrats to all receiving and accepting offers; and to those of you still waiting—don't give up hope! Dum spiro spero and so forth. If nothing comes through, wait another year. It's gruelling and terrible to think about, but I did wait a year, and at long last a bit of sunshine has been restored to my grubby street life.

Does anyone have any advice on how to write a thoughtful letter rejecting an offer? I've got biting anxiety thinking about it. (Including the what if the school I'm saying yes to changes their mind??? syndrome.)

This is the criminal elitism of academia at its most problematic. The faux liberal classicists smacking themselves on the asses with #ClassicsTwitter always want to talk about reframing classics' status quo. Yet they encourage it. Firstly, they require official transcripts for applying which costs even more money. They require the GRE. All of these cost money to take, let alone report scores. Then, they punish students with immense potential because they're lacking a year of language. They encourage a master's or post-bacc, both of which cost unseemly amounts of money and are utterly useless in an American system since 2 of your 5 years are technically to earn a master's degree. It's bollocks. And it rewards students who had the money to go to fuck-knows-where to take fuck-knows-what course simply because s/he had the $$$. I earned my master's in G+L after a BA in English and Latin. Supplemented it with a year of Greek, giving me four of Latin and two of Greek. I was told by every school that I didn't have enough language training. So I sat out last year and did a third year of Greek, as well as any extracurricular non-credit courses I could simply to show my enthusiasm. It paid off this year, but it cost me money I'll never be able to pay back. Some interesting reading: https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/12/05/how-was-the-expensive-classics-event-income-inequality-and-the-classics/ There was a twitter thread which leaked the notes of a PhD admissions panel from a Californian uni (can't remember which—USC?) and it said that they find "MA students" are often "too rigid" and don't perform well because they're not as open to new teaching. The point: academics can be persnickety, hypocritical, and pedantic. But businessmenwomen are even worse. As someone who just took a year out working with my local uni to get cheap classes and watched it pay off, I strongly urge you to consider a way to make it work. Feel free to DM me if you'd like.

Figure I'll chime in: I've heard from Boston and was told I'll be contacted presently (hopefully for an interview). I interviewed with Rutgers last week and Johns Hopkins on February 1st. I was accepted by Hopkins informally from the chair via email two hours after that. That is my first choice because of their strong burgeoning Neo-Latin programme, and I'm elated to work with Shane Butler. I'm waitlisted at UVA and UCLA. The latter is a tempting prospect. Still nothing from Cornell or Chicago. Sounds like others have heard from both of those schools, though, so I'm not expecting anything positive from those. All in all, I'm fairly sure I'm going with JHU, but I'll have a better idea when I visit in March. Good luck to all. This process is hellish, but not as hellish as a job outside of academia.

Yeah, to the PhD programmes, but of course in the USA that means "straight into an MA for 2 years followed by 3 years of working on your PhD". It's a frustratingly long time to insist upon job training for a field that people are quick to say has no jobs—but if one gets into the right programme, then I think it sounds nothing short of delightful to have five years of job training in a town one enjoys surrounded by people who love classics, love research, etc. I hate applications, though. Utterly nerve-wracking. I have an ominous feeling that the schools at which I would be happiest—and who are doing the research I most admire—might be the ones who slam the door.

St Andrews, Boston, Cornell, Rutgers, UNC, UCLA—was thinking about Michigan but emails I've sent have been met with responses that felt somewhat like I was a fly being shooed.

Same. Childe Roland to the dark tower came. Let the season of dread begin.

What circle of hell are we in here, I wonder?

Any word from Michigan or Boston?

Aye. The only thing I'm sitting on is my thumbs. I think I overestimated myself and underestimated the unis. Michigan and Boston are my last hopes and I've heard nothing but crickets from both schools. I signed up for Telepaideia classes and a Living Greek summer programme just to take my mind off of things. It's not helping. Do you know why? Because 90% of Greek literature is melancholic. But I feel you, comrade. The last thing I want to hear you write is Passer mortuus est. I don't want to relay to my parents, tutors, professors, and former classmates that I was rejected by all of the schools I applied to. I felt like the King of Caledonia three months ago. Right now I feel like I was born into the House of Atreus. Let's hope that some bona fortuna comes nobis post-fucking-haste, my friend.

That is good to know. I thought I put a damn good chunk of my time into my applications—particularly trying to tailor them toward American universities. In doing this, I focused less on research goals and more on projects I had worked on, as well as faculty members I admired, and how their specialties aligned with my interests. Next year, since I'm assuming this year will return no harvest, I'll shove in more research proposals. In the UK, that's all they want. In the US, well, I figured it was less important since they make you wait a fucking century before you become a proper PhD candidate. Oh, but all this begging and pleading. I feel like Michael Keaton in Birdman. What do I have to do to get these people to look at me? I got top prize in my class at the University of St Andrews and I supposed that would help in some way, but nyet. C'est la miserie. I hope I get into a school. If not, I suppose I'll join the navy.

Any word from Boston or Michigan? Now is the winter of my malcontent. It's the end of February and all I have to show for it is an elevated heart rate and a half-empty Xanax container. What a gruelling waiting season.

When Yale gets back to me, I'll have my poisonous snake nearby, ready to let it bite my arm.

If my application fails, I'm going to take some advice from my amico italiano at NYU: "Just join the navy." I would do a post-bacc programme. I would also look into living language programmes. Some people say they're bollocks, but that's bollocks. Immersion is a fantastic way to learn a language and the best Latinists and Hellenists I know speak the languages fluently.