placeinspace

^realness. at the end, we should do a live booze-in commiseration sesh, reflecting on our battle wounds.
edit: (maybe a vigil outside Uchicago admissions building???) 

I should note this thread is like 6 months old and I know way more about how PhD admissions work now than I did then. It's all a hot mess of luck and who knows what really matters in the end!

@jonnyboy Thank you for your super useful insight! Though I don't know if I can handle this extremely high level of delusional hope so early in the morning...

@jonnyboy Thank you for your super useful insight! Though I don't know if I can handle this extremely high level of delusional hope so early in the morning...

Longtime lurker, just making an account to reply to this. A professor of mine was supervised by Berlant, and this professor told me Chicago would not interview candidates they were certain they wished to accept; doing so, after all, would be a waste of resources. She said that the candidates who are interviewed are candidates which the university is "on the fence" about—candidates with, say, a lower GPA or GRE, but an interesting SOP. (Or vice versa.) Hence why, on another forum, an individual who called Chicago said something along the lines of "interviews don't indicate application standing. They're for extra questions about projects."
This is all to say: the candidates that the University of Chicago accepts are not always the candidates that are asked to interview, or who receive interviews. So, don't fret if you have not received an interview; if you have, good luck. Rejections are rejections only when they're finalized. 

@effietheant Yes, at least according to the results page for the past couple of years!

Hey! Also a lurker, finally decided to join the conversation. If only to talk to someone in the same boat as me. It has become increasingly difficult for me to do anything else. Anyway, I just wanted to revive this earlier discussion on the thread regarding the importance of interviews. Someone had posted about it being necessary if and only if the adcom people seek clarifications on your profile etc. I mean, why do all the interview programs never mention it on their websites? I mean, why would you want to keep it out? I understand the bias angle that seeps in once you let a face to face interaction decide qualifiability. However, if you're protecting yourselves, you're also going against some basic principles of transparency in the admission process in the first place! I don't know. It just seems unfair to be thrown into this purgatorial abyss where you don't even know what to make of these developments! An implied rejection is just as heartbreaking if not worse. With Chicago taking it upon itself to make it even more ambiguous, all my angst is getting channelled into this rage against the helplessness of it all. I remember this post from last season(?) where someone got accepted to Columbia and mentioned how surprised she was since she didn't get an interview! Really? What do we make of this? Do interviews imply a shortlist of sorts? Any clarity on this would be highly appreciated. 

UC Davis English, PhD (F18) Rejected via E-mail on 23 Feb 2018 A 23 Feb 2018 report spam Rejected but I got into a higher ranked university so actually I guess my application was competitive.  If only rank wasn't an arbitrary concept that has little to no impact on grad admissions standards for English!

omg thanks y'all! this is seriously just the beginning for this thread, and i sense in a Big Way. Even just from our quippy posts I can tell it's a room full o genius.
n then the funny sobering comes...cuz..i wonder if the funding makes it a struggle at UCSC after all...info to come, apparently
edit: side-note just to say, this feels extra crazy because none of my family has ever graduated high school.

I applied to WSU -- they have the digital humanities component I long for. 

I've never related to a post more in my life.

Even though I have all of the email addresses for the schools I applied to marked so they won’t go to my spam folder, I still end up checking my normal inbox and also my spam folder, several times an hour. Even though I’m not expecting to be notified for a week or two from my schools! Just forever waiting for That Email!

For those of you applying again next cycle, maybe prioritize your programs based on how early they notify so you find out in early January. ? This waiting is the worst part!

For those of you applying again next cycle, maybe prioritize your programs based on how early they notify so you find out in early January. ? This waiting is the worst part!

For those of you applying again next cycle, maybe prioritize your programs based on how early they notify so you find out in early January. ? This waiting is the worst part!

For those of you applying again next cycle, maybe prioritize your programs based on how early they notify so you find out in early January. ? This waiting is the worst part!

Just jumping in to say I 100% agree with @Matthew3957 about the merits of taking some time off. It really puts things in perspective and opens your eyes to things outside the academy. For me, it did affirm I wanted to give academia one last shot, but also lets me pursue hobbies like reading for pleasure, travel, etc. that would be limited if I had gone straight into a program and never had an outside job. If you do end up shut out, just know there are so many options for non-ac jobs with an English degree, and a few years off might really benefit you!

I agree with @rxing963 I woke up to this thread being very down on itself and it's the not the time for that yet imo.
For starters, we've had like 5 schools give our acceptances/interviews. More importantly though you have to remember that getting shut out is not the worst thing that will happen to you and if you're coming right out of your BA it might be good. When you've been in an institution your whole life it's sometimes hard to see/live/think outside of it, a couple years can be good for you. As someone who took 6 years in between BA and MA, and applied to History PhDs in year 2 of that break and got shut out, my suggestion is stay positive because your apps are what you had in you this go around and now they're out of your hands.  We will find out in the next month probably. If it's good news then all the worrying energy was pointless and coulda been used elsewhere, if it's bad that's not the worst thing either. 
Also side note on the whole UCSC lit vs HisCon talk: I second that. I applied to lit for this reason and did my undergrad in the department. It's a good place. Berkeley's rhetoric is usually thrown into the same category of programs as MTL and HisCon so that might be worth looking at too. 
Sorry for typos morning eyes. 

To appreciate the job and opportunities I've had outside of academia.

Me too! I’m already planning my move and future travel with no regard for budgeting for living on a stipend next year anymore. Honestly, kind of liberating haha.

As an FYI because someone I know just changed careers because they were denied, only 1% of those who applied for public service loan forgiveness were accepted, so I agree with @lincoln.hawks to not count on any program, etc. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/09/24/public-service-loan-forgiveness-rejected/#611c62b61824

Someone from last year had suggested sending a pen from the school they decided to attend, which is what I'm going to do. A small gift but probably very useful to an academic, and thoughtful!

Thank you so much everyone. I wasn’t expecting such lovely and supportive replies and I really appreciate it. 

this isn't the end! no one can be absolutely sure of what is a perfect fit from the outside. you could've gotten an acceptance and realized it's actually very far from what you would need. hang in there ❤️ 

This one is my favorite of hers: https://onbeing.org/blog/the-pond-a-poem/
Plus, all of Dog Songs.