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MaoistTowelette

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Posts posted by MaoistTowelette

    2021 Applicants

    in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition

    Posted

    The UI-Champaign rejection letter was the kindest I've seen, and I've seen 'em all. 

    But, weirdly, it says that they accepted under 20% of applicants. Isn't that a way higher application-to-acceptance ratio than everywhere else? 

    That means if they accepted 5 people, they did so out of a pool of 25 applicants; if 10 out of 5, and 10 seems like a high yield this year. 

    What I'm saying is that for those of you playing this game again, IUCU sounds like an excellent program that hardly anyone bothers with.

     

    2021 Applicants

    in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition

    Posted

    3 hours ago, 1 Pint of Ricotta said:

    Hey, just wanted to share here that I'm an early modern person rejecting all but the Stanford offer below this weekend. So, hopefully some movement will come from that!

    Indiana University

    UWisc Madison

    UIllinois Urbana-Champaign

    Ohio State

    Rochester

    I'm an early modernist and I tanked at most of those. If you would ever feel comfortable sharing your SoP and writing sample I'd be grateful; I clearly do not know what to aim for, nor the right stance to take. Plus it's just plain fun checking out other folks' work ?.

    2021 Applicants

    in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition

    Posted

    1 minute ago, helloperil said:

    For what it's worth, I also received acceptance letters from my POIs but I didn't contact them before submitting an application; they were simply given my name because their interests aligned with mine and they sent an email and offered to chat on the phone as part of the recruiting part of the admissions cycle. I guess, personally, I wouldn't read too too much into getting acceptance letters from POIs, they're pretty much just given a list of admitted students to reach out to in order to woo them to accept. 

    I want to make clear that I don't think there's any harm in reaching out to POIs but myself and fellow cohort members who have gone through the admissions cycle just don't really see any correlation between reaching out and acceptances/rejections. If you have the time to do it, that's great but if you're pressed for time, I wouldn't worry about it. 

    This is a wholly reasonable response, which I thank you for. 

    I reached out during a couple cycles myself, not to every school but just here and there, and my application went no further. 

    2021 Applicants

    in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition

    Posted

    28 minutes ago, helloperil said:

    As someone who's on the other side of the cycle (phd candidate in a lit studies program), I really don't think reaching out to POIs has any bearing on admission. I contacted zero professors in my admissions cycle and was admitted to several PhD programs. I've also had conversations with faculty about the admissions process and they literally have never mentioned a prospective student reaching out to them as a factor in admissions. It really just boils down to the writing sample, LORs, and the SOP. I suppose if a POI could provide feedback on an SOP or writing sample that would be helpful but I doubt most, if any, have the time to do that. 

    Fit, of course, is important to convey in the SOP but honestly you can find out way more about fit from reading a professor's recent work than from a short email exchange (especially when profs are already so overwhelmed with email from current students!). 

    There is sometimes the scenario where a professor you might want to work with is on medical leave or sabbatical or close to retiring and some people encourage reaching out to get more information about those situations. But I also feel that's not necessary because if there is just ONE person you want to work with in a dept, it probably is not a great fit honestly. In hindsight, the programs I was admitted to were ones where there were several faculty whose work aligned with mine. IMO, it's really important to make sure there is more than one faculty whose work aligns with yours; I've seen people who come to work with one star faculty and then find out they're never around or their advising styles don't vibe. 

    Hope this is helpful — please feel free to message if you want to chat more about this or the admissions process! It is a certainly a frustrating and mystifying process but I really do think time is better spent working on admissions documents rather than reaching out to professors. 

    Sure. But any number of people on here claim to have received acceptance letters from POI.

    Perhaps in these particular instances these particular professors are, just temperamentally, quite eager to contact applicants whose friendly exchange they remember months, and hundreds of applications, later. It sounds to me, however, like a relationship had been built; how, I do not know, and if I admit that I suspect that the applicant's mentor reached out to a friendly colleague to put in a word on that student's behalf I do so without bitterness. And in any case this is the last time around for me. But just for the sake of knowing I would be interested to know what goes on, as would, I'm sure, other older or working class students who may be throwing hundreds of dollars out the window on chances they, as outsiders, just do not stand. 

    2021 Applicants

    in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition

    Posted

    18 minutes ago, beefalo said:

    current buffalo phd student here: acceptances have already been sent out. the department only accepted 4 students this year. i don't know the status of the waitlist.

    sorry if this wasn't the news you were hoping for; here's hoping there's news about the waitlist, or that you have other acceptances waiting for you! 

    best of luck--and also, your username is great.

     

    Thanks for letting me know, I'll cross that one of my list!

    2021 Applicants

    in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition

    Posted

    If you haven't applied to McGill you should do so in the future: you get an email telling you to check your portal, and then you have to click not a "View Decision Letter" key like at a normal school, oh no, you have to click on a key that says "Read Refusal Letter." 

    Kinda got everything I needed from the headline! Oh well, my French is terrible and I hate puppetry. Canada's loss, the poor dears. 

    2021 Applicants

    in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition

    Posted · Edited by MaoistTowelette

     

    24 minutes ago, mashatheicebear said:

    THIS^^^^^! I took a gap year between my BA and my MA because I needed to figure out my next step. I was then able to do a killer MA program that I might not have considered if I rushed the process. 

    Since then, it has been 12...let me reiterate...TWELVE YEARS since I was in school. I had a career in retail/restaurant management, started my family and have been running my own business from home for the last five years. Doing all of that made me a better me and will definitely make me a better professor. It may have limited my options for my education, but it DID NOT take me out of the running. That said, trust your instincts, y'all, and do what is right for you.

    And, if you don't get in this time around, don't give up! This year is weird. With so many funded programs not accepting applications (or accepting fewer students due to limited funding), I am sure many programs had a much larger applicant pool than they are accustomed to with fewer spots to fill, making competition even stiffer than usual. 

    I honestly had no idea how being a (MUCH) older student would affect my chances, but I think it really comes down to finding the department that is the right fit for you. You want to join a department that is excited about YOU; your research but also you, as an individual. So, if this year doesn't work out, take the experience and learn from it so y'all can kick ass next year!

    Fellow thirtysomething here. It's a lonely age to be in academe. 

    My work experience is similar to yours, only shittier and not meaningful on any grad school application. We may have outlived our chance at a PhD. That's alright., life is bigger than a university--unless you're that John Barth novel.

    This is not my first application season, but it will be my last, regardless of outcome. Too expensive, too stressful, and frankly I'm getting too old and crotchety to sit around batting flies away from my face as I blankly refresh school portals. Plus I really ought to take care of this fly problem. Reasons to be hopeful, of course--I'm no nihilist.

    Acceptance: I get to go to graduate school! Rejection: I don't have to go to graduate school!

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