Bopie5

Hi! I also applied to University of Washington but didn't get the January 25 email. Did you submit the "Teaching Assistantship or Fellowship Consideration" form with your app when you applied? I was wondering if that potentially had something to do with it. Could be wrong though! It could also just be that I'm out of the running at this point (aka, not in the top 15% or whatever that post said!). Sending good energies your way--I hope good news comes soon!

Has anyone had any good news from UC Davis English? On the results page there are a few rejections but no acceptances, which is interesting. In past years Davis has sent rejections after acceptances...probably another effect of this year being so weird, but I'm also curious if acceptances have gone out to people who aren't on this forum. My portal still says submitted!

Omg the amount that I relate to this. Last night I spontaneously made banana bread because I was like "I have to do something with myself that's not writing my thesis, refreshing GradCafe, or marathoning Mad Men" lmao

I wonder if the winter storm will delay things for east coast schools. In my area, all the schools and local government offices are shut down. Can't imagine it would be a significant delay, but it might throw things off a few days for schools in the Northeast (especially in/near New York, Philly, DC, Boston, etc).

Granted, I'm on the east coast, and granted, neither of these are in English...but I got my rejection from Berkeley at 10pm and my acceptance from Michigan at 1am lol!

Okay, with the disclaimer that absolutely everything I am about to say is total conjecture (aka, I have little to no data, quantitatively or anecdotally)... I think that because of our near-total lack of information, it's actually pretty easy to make the case for either side here. For instance, one could argue that the programs who paused admissions for this cycle logically make this cycle more competitive (more or the same number of people applying to fewer programs). However, there's no way to know if programs pausing also led some applicants to pause, which might balance it out. Right now, we have a sense of how many programs paused admissions, but there's no tangible way to map how that impacted the applicant pool (yet). Like @kirbs005 says, the pandemic caused some people to apply to fewer programs (1-5 instead of 10-20), whereas I ended up applying to more programs than I anticipated I would last April (14 instead of 5-6). Similarly, if we go off 2008, we might be able to reasonably assume that unemployment and other pandemic-related issues will push more people to apply to grad school. At the same time though, I know a few people who are not interested in applying until they can be sure that they'll be able to safely start their program in person. I think there's a bit of an apples-to-oranges element there. One could also make the argument that more applicants does not necessarily actually make the pool more competitive. Obviously, numerically it does, but I think it can also depend on your subfield--an influx of c19 applicants might not impact you that much if you're a medievalist and not many more medievalists apply. This also isn't even considering applications that don't make it past the "first round" (if that's how the program does their admissions process). All this to say, I think we can speculate on this, but we truly cannot know anything until schools share data, if/when they do so. I think there's certainly reason to believe that this cycle is more competitive, like@DanArndtWrites suggests. I think it's also likely that this application cycle will simply be weird. Essentially, I think there's no way for us to know, and the lack of data makes it easy to make a convincing case either way. I don't know if this is comforting or stressful, but as others have said, please remember we are not our results! As a friend of mine currently in a program told me, an acceptance is personal, but a rejection isn't. Wishing us all good luck, and hoping everyone is managing the anxiety of these next few weeks!

Transcendent Kingdom was so, so good! I particularly enjoyed the lyrical way Gifty's scientific research for her PhD was presented. About halfway through the book I started tearing up and I was teary for the entire rest of the read, haha. In general, as I wait for results I've been finding myself drawn to novels about grad students, adjuncts, and other precarious populations in or adjacent to academia. I'm currently reading Want by Lynn Steger Strong (the main character is an English PhD who works as a high school teacher and an adjunct prof, and is now filing for bankruptcy ?) and I'm eagerly anticipating Christine Smallwood's The Life of the Mind (also about an adjunct English prof) which comes out in March...can't tell if this amplified tendency is cathartic or masochistic!

I'm so sorry to hear about your job! I can't imagine how stressful that must be. I'm jealous of your puppy though. Feel you though--I've been focusing a lot on my yoga practice, and I'm writing my master's thesis, and that's pretty much my entire life right now. Have you tried embroidery? It's not active necessarily but it's easy to pick up and nice to do something with your hands while watching tv. I've also gotten really in to tending my houseplants (I have over 25...). I've gotten much more in to reading for fun over the last few months. A few I really enjoyed recently were The Idiot by Elif Batuman, Memorial by Bryan Washington,10:04 by Ben Lerner, and Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi. What have you been reading lately?

First of all, love your username. Second of all, this is so real and relatable! I thought I’d feel better once I got them all in, and in some ways I do. But I’m feeling like, phantom deadlines, imagining there are things due that I’m forgetting.

This is definitely daunting to think about! Now that all my apps are in and there's nothing more I can do, I've found that my thoughts keep getting sucked into random things adjacent to the idea of getting into a program (trying to guess whether the pandemic led to more or fewer applicants, looking at apartments in all the cities even though that is definitely a waste of my time, lurking around academic twitter, reading endless articles about the dire state of the job market/the humanities in general, etc). None of these things provide much in terms of peace of mind, but I can't stop myself from trying to find whatever information I can, no matter how tangentially related. Once next semester actually starts and I'm busy writing my thesis, it will be better! Wishing luck to everyone. It's a strange season, but we have done all we can, and even getting apps in is such an accomplishment given the circumstances. I hope there will be a lot of good news going around this forum in a few months!

Happy new year, all! How's everyone doing? How are you planning to weather the next 2-3 weird months of waiting?

I sent all 14 of my apps on Sunday and Monday, and all four of letter writers got their letters in, which is such a relief. @lilgreenblatt I loved reading your SoP, and I’m really hopeful for you! I’m going to project good things into both of our futures. Wishing you (and everyone else) the best. I’m sure this forum will slowly dissolve into worry/anticipation/anxiety over the next few months, but for now we should all celebrate the accomplishment of even getting our apps in given the circumstances!

Submitted 6/13 of my apps today. Going to do 4 more tomorrow, and then the last 3 next week. I can't tell if I'm relieved or even more anxious now that they're submitted. How's everyone else doing?

@EffervescentMoon I'm done with everything but the personal statement, and it is giving me hell! It's only required for five or six of the schools I'm applying to, but right now it feels like the insurmountable last hoop to jump through.

Hey friend! I'd be happy to swap if you're looking for more readers.

Just a check in--how's everyone doing? How are you all feeling about your applications? I'm about on track for where I wanted to be (3/10 SoPs fairly finalized, all LoRs requested, currently working on excerpting my WS, since about half of the programs I'm applying to ask for a statement that's 8-10 pages). Crazy to think there's only two months left in the applying part of this season. It doesn't seem like enough time!

Just venting. Writing SoPs SUCKS. I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole--every time I solve one problem, it creates a whole bunch of new ones.

Seconding @Glasperlenspieler on this--that's a great place to start. Also, the first person who came to mind (for me) when you mentioned multicultural YA lit was Ebony Elizabeth Thomas at Penn. Obviously, Penn isn't taking anyone in Arts & Sciences this cycle. But if you're waiting on applying, she might be a good person to keep in mind. Her book The Dark Fantastic could be a great starting place to find more YA lit scholars. She definitely focuses more on race in YA lit than queer theory, but YA lit people in general are harder to find than say, a Shakespearean or a 19th C Americanist. So just as @onerepublic96 suggests finding queer studies scholars and looking for intersections from there, you could also find a YA lit scholar and go from there.

I don't know if you have already considered this, but I would strongly consider applying to Villanova's MA. We have two Romanticists in our department (Joe Drury, who mostly focuses on science/technology, sexuality, and the Gothic, and Evan Radcliffe, who focuses on politics (especially the French Revolution), revolutions, and philosophy), and both of them are wonderful. While neither of them are a perfect fit for you, I think studying with either/both of them could be beneficial to your project. There's also a few other profs who work with 18th/19th century British, Irish, and European lit, directly or indirectly. Echoing @sarahchristine, the MA is a great time to both expand upon your context and refine your particular interests. And, Villanova historically funds many of their English MA students, which is uncommon for MAs in the humanities. If Villanova doesn't seem interesting to you, here's a link to a spreadsheet listing funded English MAs in the US: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XZ7ejtJETaRH7ufh2O1S21HOeTTy9EYgi7Z5vUHCRLI/edit#gid=0. Hope this is helpful. Feel free to PM if you have any questions about Villanova, or going right from undergrad into an MA program.

PM'ing you now!

(To not pollute the "accepting apps" spreadsheet or thread...) As of today (9/16/20), here are the PhD programs (in English, Comp Lit, and other adjacent fields) that have announced they are officially NOT taking applications for Fall 2021 admission, based on email communication I've had, website updates, and posts both here and on reddit: Brown American Studies Columbia English Michigan Film Studies NYU Comp Lit NYU English UChicago Cinema and Media Studies UChicago English* (limited admissions, Black Studies scholars only) UChicago Linguistics UChicago Comp Lit UOregon Comp Lit UPenn All Arts & Sciences Programs UPittsburgh English UPittsburgh Film and Media Studies

@jadeisokay, do you want to make a new thread with this link so that @Warelin can pin it? Also, I added a column for app date deadline, since I noticed that Northwestern's is a bit earlier compared to the others. Northwestern's deadline is usually early, but I think that's the first November deadline I've seen!

I'm in the midst of a pass of revisions but I'd be happy to look over yours, and then send you mine once I finish this rework!

I wonder if it might be helpful to make a collectively edit-able spreadsheet, and then put that in a thread we can pin at the top of the forum...thoughts?

I'll send you a PM!