havemybloodchild

I got into Texas A&M's English PhD program today! I received an email from the DGS.

Congrats on the Duke acceptance, @poeticdweller—certainly starting things off on the right foot!
As for me...I just got an acceptance email from Ohio State? At this point I thought at best they’d give me a slap on the wrist for double-dipping since it’s the same institution where I got my MFA, but wow wow wow, I’m excited! Taking a course with Jim Phelan is what convinced me I wanted to study narrative theory and pursue an academic PhD in the first place, so this is all very nice and poetic and all that—but mostly it’s just unexpected and I plan to be freaking out about it for quite some time!

Just got back from Notre Dame's recruitment weekend, and I had an amazing time.
I wasn't sure what to expect honestly, but they surpassed my expectations by far. The director of graduate studies was absolutely amazing and transparent about everything. She's very dedicated and involved with the students, and there was so much praise coming from the students of color (something of particular importance to me as a black student). She has everyone's back and that extends to the professors as well. I even had someone tell me she made them believe in allyship again— just wow. 
The professors I spoke to were also amazing! I wasn't expecting to receive that much praise regarding my work (this is usually me with praise in general though, LOL). What was really touching and super important is that fact that they were professors who genuinely want me to succeed. It's a pretty close knit department which I also love. The desire to be there for their students came across as truly genuine. I even had a professor tell me he had office hours for 6 hours just to accommodate for his students. I definitely feel like I could go cry in their offices without judgement if it came down to it. 
Overall, it was an incredible experience. Everyone was transparent about what it was like being a student of color there, as well. I was aware that my experience at a PWI will heavily be affected by my being black and a woman regardless of what school I end up at, so what I was really hoping to figure out was how supportive the department was.  I was told by various grad students how supportive the Late American/Contemporary professors were, and how they stuck up for them on various occasions. I honestly wanted to cry because that warmed my heart so much to hear. I would love to attend and my faculty interviews went super well, so fingers crossed! If there's any other questions I could maybe answer for someone then let me know! ?

Not finishing a thesis, but finishing up my last semester of undergrad. Trying to focus is hell. You would think the fact that I can't attend grad unless I finish undergrad would be enough, but nope. ?

I'm glad I found this thread, it's making my 4 rejections feel a little less painful
 

A 5 Mar 2015   Nice letter, but overall pretty disheartening. GPA is MA, excellent recs, years of teaching experience, publications, national conferences. Maybe it's because I haven't been knighted yet, and my martyrdom is still up in the air.

just was accepted to Duke English PhD!!!!! emailed to check status portal 

I just checked the OSU portal after I saw your post & see that I've been offered admission as well! No official communication or any information about funding yet, but still very exciting.

Hi all! I was accepted to OSU today via the online portal so I created this chat so we can all announce our acceptances and celebrate the accomplishments of ourselves and of each other! Best of luck everyone

Yes we do!

If your promotions aren’t directly tied to you area of interest re: graduate study I don’t think they’re relevant, especially not relevant enough for your SOP. I’d include them in your CV though.

I suggest looking at current scholarship you like and seeing where the authors graduated (if they did so somewhat recently). If they’re producing scholars who you’d like to emulate, you know they likely have the resources to support you. Good luck!

Ascertaining identities is, indeed, a difficult and complex task. Luckily there has been quite a lot written on the subject from many perspectives, with Michael Omi being one good example. However, the fact that this step is difficult does not mean that the whole process should be thrown out.
I am going to respond to the rest of your points here and call it a day on this thread, since this response shows a clear fracture in how we perceive reality. As the climate "debate" has shown, there is nothing to be done when we fundamentally disagree on what something is, as it inhibits any discussion of what can be done. To reiterate one last time: identity is always an issue, has always been an issue. Marginalized identities have been, and are, discriminated against in hiring practices, including in academia. The concept of diversity hires (leaving aside methodology for a second) is meant to counteract this discrimination. You interpret this as discrimination. This is why privilege has been sounded: to interpret measured for equity as discrimination necessitates a view of the status quo (with its discrimination) as normative.
I reject your premise that Jewishness and whiteness are inherently a binary - yes, Jews have historically been considered non-white but reducing the complexity of identity to white and non-white is precisely what true adherence to the ideals of diversity would sway you against. Similarly, why do you assume how anyone here would interpret this hypothetical man's identity? Either way, you're assuming that this candidate would be rejected because of his perceived whiteness, despite having no evidence that this is how hiring committees function (your argument is based on the lack of transparency, to which you then impose malicious intentions, even though most identification practices are based on self-identification). As has been said MULTIPLE times, you have decided that candidates are being turned away because of their identity - that identity is the determinant factor - rather than the possibility that it is one of many factors. Similarly, you assume that diversity is a simple presence/absence (because, as many of your arguments have shown, you operate on an assumption of whiteness vs. non-whiteness), rather than it is a complex spectrum, wherein one department might value your straight Jewish man to be offering more diversity to their faculty than someone else who you feel it is easier to label as non-white.
Really? Because I have never heard of a hiring (or admissions) committee providing a breakdown of why one candidate was selected over another. You realize that this is GradCafe right? Where half of the posts are about attempting to decipher the nebulous nature of such committees, which are apparently open now.
 
Yes, when you display a mentality derived from privilege and I identify it as such I am being reductive, yet you refer to everyone as having a leftist ideological bend and that is... true? Your implication that "we have come a long way," as if we have achieved equality, is patently untrue and mimics gaslighting so well I can smell the propane. Again I recommend Derrick Bell Jr.'s "Racial Realism."
Lastly, again, no one is presuming that they are able to define and judge identity. They're just not giving up on diversity as a result. But hey, since this clearly does not work, how would you suggest we achieve better diversity in our institutions?

Yeah so this is basically: cisgendered heterosexual white men are being “screwed” in academic hiring practices. As if diversity considerations aren’t trying (and often failing anyway) to counter a systematic structure that has homogenized academia for years. As if the point of considering diversity is not to counterbalance the obstacles faced by their beneficiaries. As if equity and justice are lesser goals than equality or impartiality. As if gainful employment is a right one can be screwed out of (yet that this is not the case for the historical bias of academic hiring). As if a lack of diversity doesn’t plague most universities. As if a lack of diversity is not a disservice to the ideals of higher education. As if, even if every single new hire for Fall 2020 were a diversity hire, faculties nationwide wouldn’t stay primarily white and mostly male (and heterosexual, cisgendered). As if, in a hiring pool where everyone is supremely, a diverse candidate is inherently a lesser candidate. As if, in that context, someone’s minoritized identity is less important than having 3 instead of 2 articles. As if faculty identity has no bearing on their interpersonal relationships with students from similar backgrounds. As if identity does not give an insight into the lived experience of English, scholarship, or academia which might be relevant for an educator.
As a cisgendered heterosexual white male (able-bodied, mid-to-upper class, non-religious) who has never been in any graduate cohort (out of, so far, 4) where the majority - the immense majority - did not share those identities (except for gender): boo hoo.
To be clear, if being rejected in favor of a diverse hire worries you: you are not worried about getting a job, you are worried about your privilege. If you want to worry about someone “screwing you out” of employment, maybe worry about all the non-diverse people who are gonna do that by virtue of all the access and opportunities they outnumber you with.

I'll ask again, but slightly differently: have you had any experience navigating the job market or academic institutions as a scholar of color?
I think that the use of identity as a basis for hiring and advancement is common knowledge at this point, and has been for decades among people coming from communities that have historically been excluded from academia, doing research in fields that have been dismissed as narrowly identitarian and unimportant from their inception, or didn't receive their degree from an "elite" institution due to a host of systemic barriers. I think all faculty of color have known this for a long time, and by extension, the marginalized students they mentor as well.
Can you please clarify what you mean by "the diversity regime"? Is this following from Ahmed, Ferguson, or someone else? Because I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to get at, and at the moment your posts read like a bad-faith effort to draw attention to diversity and inclusion efforts as some kind of scapegoat for people's ire in response to the gutting of the humanities.

I'm not sure if it would be beneficial to mention waitlists from previous years. I think the admissions committee changes each year and each one will look for different things to fill in a cohort. I also think there are far more valuable things you can talk about in such a small word count.

I scored in the 16th percentile and it was just fine. 

I had the same problem as @Cryss during my app cycle (apologies OP; this will be a little less helpful to you). All of my programs wanted 20-25 except for one (Yale, ironically) which wanted no more than 15. The thesis chapter I wanted to use for the WS came in at 29. I tried various cutting/condensing strategies, but ultimately what worked best was completely rewriting the chapter. I created a new document and just started writing again, occasionally copying and pasting passages but for the most part trying to express every idea with fewer words, fewer sentences, better and more efficient moves. It was hard as shit, but also sort of fun and I ended up getting it down to exactly 20.
At this point I did not have the energy to do another rewrite and get it down to 15 for Yale, so I said "Fuck it" and cut it at a section break 14 pages into the paper. I ended up writing a bolded, bracketed summary of what I did with the rest of the chapter. It felt reeeeally slippery at the time and I was positive that I would not get in, but here we are.  hopefully this will come as some relief to all who aren't sure what approach to take just yet.

Here's one full example and a guide for selecting/writing one. I remember coming across another example, but can't find it now. Will PM you if I find it. 

@ everybody in this thread, imposter syndrome is normal. They've accepted you, they spent a great deal of time figuring out if you are ready. You're ready. Your cohorts might seem more impressive, but I guarantee that they're going through same thing (if they aren't, there's a good chance that they're in for a rude awakening).
 

Santa Cruz has History of Consciousness, Berkeley has Rhetoric, San Diego has Literature. If you do a search in this forum you will probably find them, as others have asked this in the past.

First of all, I wasn't really surprised by anything in this article. If this comes as a shock, then you probably aren't paying enough attention.
 
If by 'commendable' you mean 'deserving praise' then I don't think that a graduate program doing a minimal amount of work to support their graduate students should count as commendable so much as the bare minimum for qualifying as a ethically responsible program (which is not to deny that many programs fail to meet this bar).
I'm not as familiar with Kramnick and Cassuto as @wordstew is, but this point by Cassuto strikes me as a bullshit excuse for not doing anything:
"But limiting enrollment can present its own problems, said Leonard Cassuto, a professor of English at Fordham University who writes about graduate education for The Chronicle’s Advice section. If colleges trained only enough graduate students to replace retiring faculty members, you’d lose out on all kinds of racial, socioeconomic, and intellectual diversity, he said, and “I don’t think anybody wants that.” "
First, he seems to assume that minorities and individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are weaker applicants, who would not be accepted were programs to accept fewer students. Furthermore, it suggests that even if that were the case, departments wouldn't or couldn't do anything to correct for these concerns. I'm not really sure why we should accept either of these concerns. (This isn't to deny that discrimination occurs in the admissions process. I just doubt that reducing the number of admitted students would necessarily make that situation any worse). I think the refusal to take seriously the idea that cohort sizes need to be reduced in the humanities is either naivete or willful blindness and both are irresponsible. Likewise, the failure of programs to provide complete placement information on their websites is dishonest, deceptive, and unacceptable (but also very common). Any program that doesn't (minimally) address these two issues is responsible to perpetuating this system.

This article is yet another disturbing example of blunted and unhelpful reporting in the CHI on the collapse of the profession. Kramnick and Cassuto frequently appear in the pages of the CHI and they both have asinine and clueless perspectives on the state of the profession. Kramnick looks out from the protection of his New Haven Tudor castle to offer commentary on the state of the job market that is about as informative as groundhog day. And Cassuto keeps deluding himself that misinformed ideas about work outside of academia have any currency or relevance to the various industries and institutions that he feels confident to pontificate about. It's all nonsense, and it's all an example of the lazy ease with which privileged academics assuage their guilt and culpability when they watch the young starve. Here's the situation as it currently stands: there are virtually no tenure-track jobs in English that a young scholar can obtain. Even the adjunct positions in literary studies are drying up. You wouldn't know it from the foolish nonsense posted on this web forum by uninformed people who are struggling to gain entry into these deluded places. But it's clear that people who have suffered these realities can admonish prospective students until they're blue in the face, and it will just make them feel that an opportunity--that doesn't exist anymore--is being denied to them. If Columbia was serious about addressing the fact that most of its prized PhDs will no longer find gainful employment in the academy, it would have to dramatically curtail the resources it puts into graduate education. And that's something that will continue to be met with deep resistance by the likes of Kramnick and Cassuto and their colleagues who will do anything to convince themselves that their genius can only be realized (and worshipped) in the graduate seminar full or eager disciples furiously studying for their under(or un)employment. 

I actually asked a version of this question to one of my POIs at an institution where I was accepted. Their advice to me was:  "as far as American Studies vs. English, it’s much better to get a degree from an English Department rather than an American Studies Department, since there are many times more faculty jobs in English.  That said, an English Ph.D. with an American Studies concentration is optimal for anyone studying American literature and culture, since many American lit jobs want to see someone with interdisciplinary credentials (American Studies particularly).  The book market also privileges interdisciplinary work, since they can pitch it to different fields simultaneously (straight-up literary criticism is much harder to get published these days, as even the academic audience is relatively tiny)."