Bopie5

Yay, sounds good! Shoot me a PM whenever you have your early draft going ?

Does anyone want to do an early-stage SoP draft swap (emphasis on early-stage draft...)?

For sure! It's so hard to balance how to think about adcomms/applications when the process is so obscure in a lot of ways. But I'm glad you're applying and we can all commiserate or congratulate each other this spring ?

HA! lol this I think is one of the funkiest elements about being in grad life. My parents/friends are like "why are you so pessimistic?" and I'm like...you gotta understand...I'm actually being optimistic lmao

Hi! I'm currently in Villanova's MA, planning on applying to PhD programs for 2021. I also graduated from an extremely small (~1200 students, undergrad only) private Christian college--so small that almost none of my current cohort or professors at Villanova have ever even heard of where I went to undergrad. I can't speak to PhD acceptances (I was rejected from all 7 programs I applied to for Fall 2019 admission, although I have a strong suspicion this had more to do with the vagueness of my interests and project at the time, and almost nothing to do with my undergrad degree), but for what it's worth, I got into Villanova with full funding. My advisor here did say that it may help me in the long run to have my MA from Villanova, a place that will be more recognizable/legible to adcomms, but that it's unlikely to be a deciding factor. Ultimately, we can't change where we went to undergrad at this point! And I think in the scope of the wider application, one would hope that this wouldn't be a determining component. I think regardless, even if adcomms do take undergrad alma mater into consideration, I doubt it would ever be weighted as much as the statement of purpose and writing sample. I don't think where you graduated from in undergrad should deter you from applying to MA or PhD programs. There's lots of reasons not to apply (the general instability of the grad school lifestyle, the particular instability of the humanities, the absolute waste land that is the job market, the unpredictability of the future of academia in the wake of the pandemic, the competitiveness of the pandemic app cycle and inevitably the next few cycles afterward, I could go on and on...) but I don't think your undergrad should be one of them!

Hi! I'm not sure about any of your schools specifically (not much overlap in our choices haha) but a lot of schools haven't posted anything yet. I've been reaching out to either the Admissions Chair, the Grad Studies Assistant, or the head of the department depending on who's listed on the website, and so far everyone has gotten back to me within a day! So if you're worried you could try that.

UC Davis is taking applications for this fall season. Northwestern has not yet decided whether they will accept applications, but they anticipate having that decision public on their website by early-mid September.

Yeah, that’s part of what makes all of this so hard! Making major life decisions while trying to be safe in a global pandemic, while also in a national crisis of our career field, while the entire job market is also destabilized, while also trying to finish grad school...I’m supposed to start planning my thesis ASAP and while I have a fairly clear idea of what I’m going to do, there’s just still so much work to be done...

@Lighthouse Lana This is a great idea; thank you for sharing this information. I'm going to email multiple programs tomorrow morning and will share what I learn here as soon as I learn it.

@jadeisokay I'm thinking of emailing my top 10 places, seeing who (if any) is taking anyone, and from there narrowing down to 3-5 places. Currently, the tentative plan (barring any further global disasters) is to apply to 3-5 places in December, get the results by March, and then if that's a bust, to start applying to jobs in April/May to start once I finish my MA. Hard to know if that's the right choice, but it's a choice, haha. After talking to my advisor, it seems wisest to spread my eggs across as many baskets as I can, so to speak, rather than directing all my energy toward only one outcome.

To see programs starting to announce that they will not accept PhD applications for this season is disappointing, although relatively understandable. Definitely making me re-evaluate my course of action. At this point, it's looking like I'm going to throw my hat in the ring in a variety of related or adjacent fields (junior/community college teaching, publishing/editing, journalistic ventures, TESOL/EIL (which I do have a background in), professional tutoring, adjuncting, library science, etc), take 1-3 years off to see how things go, and potentially try again sometime in the future ?

@riverbender @cassidyaxx @Dann Sorry for the delay in response here, but I'd be happy to swap materials with anyone. My WS is on its third or fourth round of revisions, but my SoP is still very much a jumbled/incoherent first draft (complete with many parentheticals saying things like "This isn't how I want to say this" or "I want to say [xyz] but don't know how to"). PM me if anyone wants to share drafts at any stage!

I know this thread has been a little dormant this summer, probably in part because it's early in the season, but more likely because there is no one whose life hasn't been interrupted, derailed, confused, or unsettled. But I just wanted to check in and say I hope everyone's doing all right (as much as is possible). Was curious to see where everyone's at as the fall approaches. Are you all still planning on applying, or are you delaying (or changing) your plans? What's the upcoming semester looking like, for those of you currently in programs? Hope everyone is well--happy to swap materials with anyone still aiming to apply!

Are you at liberty to say what these rumblings are? Always trying to get my finger closer to the pulse of what's going on (though I don't think anyone could really predict what will happen).

@cassidyaxx So good to see you back on here! Fingers crossed for both of us for this upcoming cycle.

Thanks so much for this info! This is really helpful. I was thinking of making a "Tangible Ways COVID-19 Will Impact Future App Cycles" thread on here where we could keep track of this kind of thing and other similar info (like Chicago accepting P/F and S/U grades as equivalent to number or letter grades)--a thread that only included the concrete, tangible, official information that we know at this point. Do you all feel as though that would be helpful? Or would it just be depressing haha.

@ArcaMajora Hello! Yes, so long. Villanova is going as well as possible given the circumstances--I truly love the program, although things obviously have been much more difficult over the past month or so. I'm definitely going to apply to UCI English or UCI Culture and Theory (or both, which surprisingly is allowed?). I'll DM you!

This is exactly how I'm feeling. I learned so much from my failures in the 2018-19 app cycle, and have learned even more in my MA program. My project and interests are more specific, my knowledge has increased in depth and breadth, I have a much greater sense of the realities of the academy...and yet, it could be $1500-2000 down the toilet.

Yeah, I'm wondering how GRE, ordering transcripts, TOEFL, and other similar usually-in-person elements of the application will be affected. I know Chicago has already publicly stated they will consider P/F and S/U grades equivalent to letter grades when evaluating PhD apps. But that doesn't answer what will happen with standardized test requirements. And we can't totally know yet how this will affect other parts of the admission process. Two of my advisors have said that they predict this coming cycle to be very competitive. It seems like most people are anticipating that there will be more applicants, less funding, and fewer spots. However, for what it's worth, I know (from a friend who works there) that Berkeley's business school is very concerned that they won't have enough applicants for Fall 2021 admission, at either the grad or undergrad level. Business isn't the humanities, so in some sense this is comparing apples to oranges (or maybe more like apples to lawn chairs). But it is interesting to know that some grad programs have the opposite concern that most of us seem to have. I don't think we can draw any conclusions from this, other than "no one knows what is going to happen."

Thanks for making the thread @jadeisokay! I don't know about anyone else, but I'm definitely already very anxious about the impacts of COVID-19 on admissions, funding, etc, etc...freaking out extremely...it's fine!

Oof, I have around 18 programs in my longlist--hoping to cut down to 12-15, we'll see. I actually have a consulting call with one of my advisors about this tomorrow! But the big change is that I'm applying not just to English PhDs, but also American Studies and Ethnic Studies.

Oh congrats! I'm so glad to hear that. Oof. Guess we'll both be losing our minds (again) even more in just a few months. Do you know where you're applying for the next cycle? (Maybe we should start a 2021 applicants thread to stop polluting this one?)

@jadeisokay hi!!! good to see you on here again. how's chicago? villanova has been great--in retrospect, this was absolutely the right path for me. are you going for phds again for fall 2021 admission? would be fun to be on the same cycle again!

seconding this, please!

I'm seconding @killerbunny's point about independence. While I haven't taken any courses directly in my fields in the MA I'm currently attending, and there are no profs who are in the exact same area of interest as me, I've been able to adjust seminar papers to fit my interests in all six of my courses so far. This may just be a feature of the program I'm in (which is wonderful and supportive), but being willing to do some extra research and spend a lot of extra time reading has allowed me to still pursue my interests while receiving guidance and feedback. For example, in a course on Contemporary American Lit & US Empire, I asked my prof if I could write about whiteness and settler colonialism in horror film instead of writing about a piece of contemporary AmLit, which she was actually really excited about and supportive of! In this way, my MA has actually really expanded my breadth of knowledge, via the course readings and seminar discussions, while also allowing me to pursue my own interests and write the kinds of papers I can submit to conferences, via the final seminar paper. And actually, taking classes not in my field has actually helped me refine my research just as much as taking classes closer to my field. For the thesis, I wouldn't underestimate profs in other departments, as @killerbunny said, and I also wouldn't underestimate faculty's secondary interests! Sometimes, you can make up for not having the ideal reader for multiple fields by having two or three readers who can cover the fields between them (e.g. someone from your theoretical specialization who doesn't primarily work in your period alongside someone from your period who doesn't primarily work in your theoretical lens). Obviously it's not totally ideal, but it can work. For the PhD, I would stress the fit a bit more (from what I have heard/read). But personally, I think in the MA it's slightly less of a concern, depending on what your ultimate career trajectory is. Overall, I would say, in the context of an MA, courses in your field are definitely less important than funding, but I think it's up to you to weigh how much courses matter when compared to other factors (location, distance, assistantships, cohort size, relative prestige, etc). Hope this helps!