havemybloodchild
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Posts posted by havemybloodchild
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2 hours ago, WildeThing said:
I have been refreshing my email for the past two hours but even if emails are personalized I don’t think Wisconsin would tske this long so i guess it’s another L. I was hoping that my implied rejections could he explained away as they are private schools and maybe I would fare better with big public schools. Seems like two of the acceptances are in my field too, so the odds are not good. Right now I’m bracing for another painful year of shut-outs, but at least with Wisconsin out of the way I am not expecting to (not) hear anything until next week with BC/Vanderbilt. I can pretend not to think about apps for a few days, then!
Right there with you. The dread is real.
There are no wrong emotional responses to this process. It’s not self deprecation, it’s recognition of the exceedingly low acceptance rates of humanities programs. Dread of not being accepted is often (and definitely for me) coupled with dread of low job prospects and being not in my 20s anymore. It’s okay to feel sad and defeated already. Just as it’s okay to feel optimistic. We’re all in this together. We all have our own ways of processing this process. Very happy for all who have been and will be accepted. Also standing in solidarity with those of us who are very afraid of what the next month or so holds.
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1 minute ago, SomeoneAcceptMe said:
Anyone else see that their checklist thingy has disappeared from the UChicago application portal?
Yes, same here.
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6 hours ago, jr246 said:
if my OSU still says pending but some people have gotten accepted…I assume that's…bad news????
That’s how I’m feeling, yeah ?
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23 minutes ago, rxing963 said:
i think we're all being a bit too harsh on ourselves and a little bleak...
Lol this is basically my entire personality but + memes because I’m a millennial and that’s how we roll ?
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@dilby your statement seems incredibly strong to me, thanks for sharing this portion of it. What you want to do is so crucial, in so many ways. I wish you the best of luck.
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10 minutes ago, Ranmaag said:
Honestly been thinking this for my apps tbh.
I haven't yet received any official confirmations from any programs but I don't think my SoP or WS were strong enough to make the cut, especially since I applied to mostly name-brand programs. My test scores on both the general and literature (especially the literature test, which did not go well) I should've taken as signs that I should've applied much more wisely instead of letting ambition take the best of me in the form of app costs... I am grateful for the process (for round 2, I now have a much better idea of articulating fit), but it really does take a lot out of you and forces a deep, inward look into your scholarship and interests. Even with a lot of the sunk costs (those app fees...), I'm grateful for the things that I've learned throughout this process.
Beginning to think academia may be one of those things that I'll never be cut out for. I've dreamt of this opportunity for a vast majority of my undergraduate career and dedicated the last two years into building my profile for PhD applications, but now... I'm just thinking it's probably not meant to be. I love researching and reading poetry and I can't imagine doing anything else, but I think life is slowly telling me to take a detour or to pivot directions into another path.
I'd be grateful for one acceptance, but at this rate... A shutout is all but guaranteed (I've applied to seven, and a vast majority I'm feeling are implied rejections already knowing the crumbs of information that programs put out for the profile of an accepted student)
I'd really encourage you to try again next year if you are shut out. This is my second round, and I can tell you my applications this time are much, much stronger. There is so much to this process, I think the first year should pretty much be viewed as a practice run. If you don't feel strongly about your materials, start revising them now. Just having been through the process has taught you so much, I'm certain. You'll have more tools in your tool kit next time. If it's your dream, I think you owe yourself another try, personally. Good luck!
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I started writing my 2019 SoP today.
Anyone else already lost their entire mind and any shred of hope it ever contained? ?
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@swarthmawr thanks for the feedback! I hate theory (I know, I'm a bad English person) so I didn't incorporate much, really relied on criticism and sources from other fields. The trickiest bit was justifying making an argument about Black masculinity when the protagonist in the novel is white, but I found some wonderful sources including a book called Playing in the White that were really helpful. I read a ton of Trudier Harris-Lopez (always a pleasure for me!), and incorporated some (I think) interesting pieces, including a passage from "Chickamauga" to argue that American masculinity and the image of the white "conqueror" have always been intertwined, and an article about fallen women in Victorian novels (I argue that Giovanni is treated similarly in GR). I looked at some psych sources about Black masculinity and fatherhood, particularly transmission of values. Also Cleaver's commentary on Baldwin in Soul on Ice and a lot of Baldwin's own essays. I also posited that the protagonist's view of femininity had a lot of Gothic elements, that was probably the most "fun" but of the paper to me. I feel like his construction of femininity was like a dangerous black hole, more about being not male (lacking, haha, I see you Freud, but I still hate you) rather than anything else.
I feel like there's so much, I'm not really communicating it clearly...this grad app stress-induced hangover probably isn't helping ? Anyways if you want to see my sources or chat further let me know, I could geek out about this forever, I love GR so dearly!
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13 hours ago, pdh12 said:
waaaay outta left field...but all this iamb got me wonderin if we should just....write songs?...here? it seems we're collectively odd enough to conjure such a phenomenon
(i secretly have a too-strange bandcamp of weirdness if anyone feels inclined to be disturbed)
Disturb us.
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14 hours ago, arbie said:
Thanks!! It’s very early days still so the odds are definitely in our favor! Wishing you much success!
(Though, it is nice to have three days where we don’t have to constantly refresh our email lol)
Lol I checked the results page immediately this morning and then had conflicting feelings of relief and impatient desperation. Still feeling that feeling.
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Y’all make this process so much better.
It’s fucking horrendous.
But y’all make it better. Thank you.
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2 minutes ago, placeinspace said:
I feel this so hard right now.
Sammmmeeee
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- These fu**ers referred me to the MAPH program. Lol, you think I want to suckle at the teat of UChicago so badly that I'd get another Masters and pay 50k for it? I would have preferred a flat-out rejection. Get bent, scu*bags
- jriveracal, TwirlingBlades and mememe_
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10 minutes ago, placeinspace said:
I’m still ruminating on this whole thing and I’m pretty bummed. Last week I reached the conclusion that if I don’t get into Chicago, I’m not going to go to school, regardless of other acceptances, so this is kind of a very sudden and definitive thing for me (I’m an older applicant and Chicago had just the right balance of everything I would need, both academically and in terms of lifestyle). I’m sort of relieved to not be stressing about it anymore but also am sad about what might’ve been. Anyway, that’s all I got. And congrats to all of you who received an email!! That sounds like I just tacked it on at the end but it’s very genuine. You have a shot at an amazing program and it is very well deserved!
This makes me sad to hear.
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I did not receive this email.
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Just now, SomeoneAcceptMe said:
Thanks for the suggestions! I've heard a lot of people love Giovanni's Room, so maybe I'll start there
My pleasure! GR is a really quick read but so beautiful and layered. I hope you enjoy it!
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Just now, SomeoneAcceptMe said:
Much to my shame, I've never read James Baldwin! Any suggestions for which of his works I should read first?
No shame! I was able to take a class on his work in undergrad and fell in love.
If Beale Street Could Talk is excellent and there's now a movie on it that I highly recommend.
Giovanni's Room is my favorite, I wrote my undergrad capstone on it, and Go Tell it on the Mountain is excellent (his first novel and semi-autobiographical).
He also wrote a billion essays which are phenomenal, there's one in particular about his good friend Lorraine Hansberry right after she died called "Sweet Lorraine" that is just lovely.
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Your UPenn SoP says "Penn State" (to which you are not even applying) three times and you just barely catch it in time to delete the one you uploaded and replace it with one that actually has the correct school name in it.
When one of your SoPs says "additionally" twice in the same paragraph.
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28 minutes ago, SomeoneAcceptMe said:
what books do you guys turn to cope with the world?
The Chronicles of Narnia, Matilda, and Harry Potter, my Norton anthologies and Pushcart short story collections, Jane Austen, James Baldwin.
How do you spend the days?
in Waiting it Out
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Reading at least two books a week and working a lot. Sleeping a lot as well, although I keep having dreams about rejections and waking up on the verge of a panic attack. Super fun.