havemybloodchild
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Posts posted by havemybloodchild
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@Warelin At first I thought I'd be bummed to be stuck in Oregon (was in Ashland for undergrad) but at this point I would pop about 1000 bottles of champagne if I got in ?
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@Warelin true, that's the one MA I applied to since it was fully funded. I didn't realize they didn't have a PhD though. Guess that answers my question.
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@toasterazzi Can I ask if you're at Ohio or Oregon (or some other "O")? I applied to both.
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1 hour ago, pdh12 said:
How’s everyone feeling about the dread/hope of interviews?! So many of the schools do it, but then others don’t. I interviewed with CUNY Grad Center when i first applied and their first question was (paraphrase): “aside from everything you said in your SOP, what would you research?” totally threw me off.
I think Chicago is the only school I applied to that does interviews and frankly there is no chance one will be extended to me, so I'm just not worrying about them.
Except when I allow myself to hope and then am filled with panic that I might face a question like the one CUNY posited, haha. Isn't this process grand?
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Has anyone done the optional video interview for SMU? I'm planning on doing it tomorrow and wondering what I'm in for.
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On 1/4/2019 at 9:31 AM, merry night wanderer said:
Were there SoPs any of you used as a model? I'm pondering this out, and I think what i'm lacking are some examples of what to go for.
I used the one offered by Berkeley, and also a couple one of my professors sent from previous students whose graduate applications had been successful.
My research interests are very intersectional and therefore could be construed as too broad for PhD study, so my SoPs all listed specific research by current professors and correlated their interests to mine/how their research has impacted me personally and my work. I mainly focused on feminist research, as that's the main thread of my own research that sort of ties it all together, but looked at professors who layered feminist issues with other issues of marginalization, as I plan to do.
My advisor did caution me about being too specific in terms of faculty in case I mentioned just one and, unbeknownst to me, they were going on sabbatical or retiring, etc.
I also mentioned specific opportunities at each school such as GSWS certificates or Disability Studies courses that I would benefit from. I mentioned schools' successes in creating fine educators and placing them in jobs.
I feel like no matter how much research I did it would never be enough...
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Got a very generic email from U Chicago about their MA program today...wondering if they've already cut me from PhD consideration (wouldn't be surprised), or if this is a regular email they send to every applicant? Anyone else get this email?
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1 hour ago, conraddy said:
Also, re: decision dates, I know the Duke English department says on their website that they shoot for the January 19-23 window to have all decisions sent out. *nervously* No I don't have a countdown on my phone... why do you ask?!? Other than that, all the programs I've applied to say February-early March.
I may or may not have gone through last year's results pages to see when each of my programs were likely to get back to me, and added that information to my grad app spreadsheet. And then color coded the spreadsheet depending on those dates...anything to make myself feel like I'm doing something!
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11 minutes ago, Bopie5 said:
do you have any tips on how to healthily process rejections? What helped you persist and try again without being too discouraged?
My professors helped. They were all wonderful, so I knew my applications were the best effort I was capable of, after all their assistance with my materials. Also, they were shocked on my behalf, and said some very sharp things about departments which rejected me, and that took care of some of the initial sting. Just knowing they cared and believed I deserved to get in was very helpful.
They also went through my materials with a fine tooth comb yet again after I'd heard back and helped strategize changes for this go around. Having people you respect in your court and a plan for how to persevere is the best way to process, in my opinion.
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13 minutes ago, WildeThing said:
so let me tell you what happened to me last year:
In the spirit of mutual panic, here's my story from last year, which was my second go around. The year prior I applied to an MFA at Uni Glasgow and was accepted, but declined after talking with my professors and getting a better idea of what I wanted my career to look like.
I applied to dual MA/PhD programs at Ohio, Cornell, UW, and Amherst, and an MA at University of Denver. The first school I heard back from was Ohio, my top choice, which waitlisted me for their PhD program. That was January 29th. I was then rejected from Amherst, Cornell, and finally UW. The last I heard back from was Denver, an email to check the portal, which told me I'd been accepted to the MA program with 50% tuition remission. I considered the offer but ultimately turned it down. Although I had specifically stated in my SoP that I was looking for GTA/RA opportunities (I found Denver's website kind of vague about whether this was an option), I learned in a phone conversation with the director of the program that this wasn't possible for MA students. With that all my eggs were in the Ohio waitlist basket (more of a wet old envelope, really). I contacted them in the end of March for an update and they'd only had one student accept their offer and one decline, so there was really very little movement. Eventually I heard from them on April 17th I think, saying I hadn't been accepted.
All of my decisions were communicated through the portal, not in the email from the school telling me a change in my status had been made.
I was really naive last go around, I didn't do nearly as much research as I should have done and I didn't understand the process nearly as well. It made the process more pleasant, but hopefully less successful than this year will be.
- Bopie5 and mandelbulb
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1 hour ago, WildeThing said:
Also, I have been obsessing over these apps now that we're in 2019, which, in case you didn't realize, is the same year we would be starting our PhDs, should we get accepted. Like, holy shit. In similar Panicville news, it's fucking January 2019. First responses could be out in about two weeks (I've got Emory down as a mid-late January interview notifier). Most if not all the places I've applied were done notifying acceptances by the end of February, which is NEXT MONTH. Why is no one else here? Panicking?
Last night I woke up at 1 or 2 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep for about 4 hours because all I was thinking was that I'm going to get 20 rejections and I'll never get in and I'll never be a professor and I'll just work at a coffee shop or something until I die, bookless, catless, exceedingly grumpy....
The panic is oh so real.
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14 hours ago, Bopie5 said:
Ugh this is beyond true. Since it's holiday break, and I don't have as much to do, I've been spending far too much time on here, and I can't tell if it's quelling or exacerbating my nervousness and stress! But it is comforting to know all of you are experiencing some of the same feelings I am, especially since none of my friends are pursuing graduate school right now, and don't totally understand the visceral anxiousness this process can foster.
This. No one in my life quite gets what I'm going through - a friend of mine told me I shouldn't be anxious about my applications because the anxiety isn't "useful." ?
While I definitely feel anxious reading through these threads, it's also so helpful to see I'm not the only one feeling such terror and joy awaiting the results of all of our hard work.
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On 12/28/2018 at 11:38 PM, flungoutofspace said:
It's currently a toss-up between Columbia and Chicago. On one hand, there's Marianne Hirsch at Columbia; on the other, there's Lauren Berlant at Chicago... How to choose, how to choose — as if one could even be so lucky to be offered that choice in the first place. To be honest, I think I'd be more than happy at all the programs to which I've applied, though Duke does present a slight challenge since I've always been more fond of living in (or at least, close to) a big city. But who knows, I could like North Carolina after all.
At this point, all I'd like is an acceptance (just one will do!!), because I don't really have a satisfactory Plan B, except to proceed on to do a masters at my current university. I could go back into journalism or take up a gallery internship, and maybe do some language courses on the side, but I'm just afraid the pause will lead me to stagnate.
A) Lauren Berlant
b) JUST SOMEONE LET ME IN
I just relate to your comment so hard
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On 12/27/2018 at 5:38 PM, sugilite said:
@Mumasatus Not sure if you came across this already, but Michigan doesn't require GRE scores
Or U Nebraska Lincoln or Stanford!
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8 minutes ago, WildeThing said:
Seems like Chicago is the top stop for many people here. Hope that means at least some of us will be very happy in a few weeks (Chicago was my first official rejection last year, so I'm expecting to hear from them (or Emory) first).
I have been working hard to prepare myself emotionally and intellectually and (lets be honest) physically and spiritually to not get an interview in the middle of next month and then just flat out forget the school exists.
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On 12/28/2018 at 3:47 PM, mandelbulb said:
so what is everyone's dream program and why?
U Chicago. I would kill to work with Lauren Berlant, I love the city, rent is cheap, the funding is amazing, and with the current state of the job market graduating from a top ranked program would provide some comfort. Also my favorite professor and advisor from undergrad, her son goes there (she lives in Oregon), and I would just love to be her spy to let her know he's okay and eating and paying his electric bill ?
I would also DIE if I got to work with Suzanne Bost at Loyola. About half the funding of U Chicago but I swear I've read everything she has published a dozen times and I just find her inspiring as heck.
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On 9/17/2018 at 8:43 PM, Bopie5 said:
In my graduate study, I'm looking to pursue Feminism and/or Gender and Sexuality, focusing around ideas of embodiment, intersectionality, and identity. My writing sample is a Kristevan reading of Chaim Potok's My Name Is Asher Lev, focusing on the maternal body as a site of suffering that resists sign/signifier/signified relationships, and my current research surrounds the ways in which the 'evil' or villainous body is visually coded as "other" in Western animation. Also currently pursuing a full length theatrical project utilizing the poetry of T. S. Eliot and Anne Sexton as the basis for a devised piece of poetic theatre exploring the human movement towards the divine.
We're applying to a lot of the same schools with similar interests and I have to say I would be very excited to have classes with you! Your research sounds fascinating
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On 12/27/2018 at 7:16 AM, beardedlady said:
I'm now reading Baldwin's Go Tell it On the Mountain
I LOVE THIS BOOK! And everything James Baldwin ever wrote. I did my senior capstone in undergrad on Giovanni's Room. James Baldwin is amazing.
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On 12/27/2018 at 8:19 AM, Bopie5 said:
Big agree here! Little Fires Everywhere is also excellent, but there's something about EINTY that really just immersed me.
SUCH love for this book as well!
This year, I think my favorite reads were Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho, The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.
Currently reading The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter by Kia Corthron, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, and The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid!
Loved LFE as well but, like to said, there was something about EINTY that just completely grabbed me.
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I need this thread to come back to life!
Recently read Cats Cradle, always a fun one, especially for an ongoing existential crisis like myself. Reading Cat's Eye now. What? I like cats AND great literature.
As for favorite books I've read this year, I would say The Round House by Louise Erdrich, Bearing the Body (can't remember the author's name right now), and Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng- one of the most gorgeous books I've ever read. Also always love anything by Ana Castillo.
Please distract me with your faves, folks!
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Is anyone else dying to know what their recommenders wrote about them? Is there any kind of established protocol for asking to see recommendations after the admissions cycle is completed or is this a total no no?
I think I may need the pick me up come April ?
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What did you end up doing? This is such a good question, I'd love to know the answer!
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Now that all of our application materials are done (I hope, but bless ya'll who may still be working), I'm wondering if anyone would like to swap their SoP? Considering how much of our lives we've spent crafting these, I thought it would be fun to compare, compliment, and commiserate. I'll go first! Here's my SoP for UChicago (my top choice). Can't include my UIC one because I used the word "additionally" twice, which I will probably never forgive myself for.
Kendall Dinniene Meador
Personal Statement
“Look for where women try to wrest control from others to tell their own stories, to tell what has not yet been told.” It’s a note on page 41 of my densely highlighted, underlined, and scrawled on copy of Ana Castillo’s So Far from God, a book which has influenced my development as a student of literature, and illuminated the intersectional interests which propel me toward graduate study. All of my work engages with a feminist lens, however in researching for the paper I ultimately wrote on Castillo’s novel, I found that complicating my initial responses to the text with Indigenous, queer, and differently-abled perspectives was crucial. In my paper, I argue for the faithfulness of Fe, a character rarely mentioned in existing published scholarly work on the novel, and never described as living up to her namesake. My argument relies on considering the various layers of marginalization this character faces, and in understanding her methods for working within, and attempting to escape, those oppressions. Intersectionality has always been important to me, particularly as a queer woman from a rural, working class background. However, the experience of interacting with Castillo’s work further cemented my desire to look to where marginalized people are telling their own stories, with an emphasis on the layered identities from which those stories emerge.
Since then, my papers have consistently returned to representations of people on the fringes and their negotiations of power. I have explored how Edith Johnstone’s impoverished Irish twins in A Sunless Heart use classist ideology and gender role swapping to combat their status as racialized Other within Victorian Britain. I have written about Marge Piercy’s Chicana mother in Woman on the Edge of Time, specifically how that character creates a complex identity through her experiences with Catholicism, pain, and disability. My senior capstone project on James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room argues that the novel’s central figure partners with darker-skinned men, and uses transactional heterosexual encounters, in order to recuperate masculinity and abate a femininity which threatens to swallow him. These multi-faceted investigations provoked and enthralled me throughout my time as an undergraduate, and I plan to continue this work as a graduate student.
I am eager to begin the next phase of my academic career. I would like to continue to focus on texts which examine the experiences and contributions of those within marginalized communities, particularly women, and people of color. Expanding my understanding of cooperating oppressions is one goal that I hold for graduate study. However, while I have always enjoyed learning for the sake of learning, my ultimate goal is to gain the knowledge and skills I will need as a professor of English literature. I am therefore intent on acquiring teaching experience, and began doing so as a college senior. At Southern Oregon University, I served as a Teaching Assistant to my advisor and Chair of the English department, Dr. Alma Rosa Alvarez. This position allowed me initial practice grading papers, developing lesson plans, working with students in the writing process, and leading class discussion about topics that I would like to teach one day. For instance, I asked the class not only to question elements of Euripides’ Medea, but also to query how Luis Alfaro’s gender and sexual identities may have impacted his contemporary Chicano reimagining of that play, titled Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles. Observing how intersectional discussions of texts led to deeper understanding of the material, and increased engagement amongst students from many backgrounds, was remarkably impactful. It reminded me of my first day as a student in an English Literature classroom, when I realized how much my professor cared about the subject, and what an opportunity I was going to have to discuss and learn. I want to spend my future giving students that same opportunity.
The University of Chicago’s English program appeals to me for several reasons, particularly its commitment to creating excellent teachers and researchers from incoming PhD students. Furthermore, I am very excited at the prospect of learning from U Chicago’s own exemplary faculty, specifically Dr. Kenneth Warren, whose publications on African American literature I admire, and Dr. Lauren Berlant, whose work on gender, sexuality, and embodiment in culture fascinates and inspires me. I feel that my interest in layers of marginalization with a focus on a feminist perspective make me a good fit for your existing program. Additionally, I believe that U Chicago will provide the challenging and invigorating academic environment I am looking for, in order to achieve my purpose as a scholar, and to prepare me for my next steps.
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I'm having a hard time not panic applying to a few more programs. Anyone else having this issue? Like, why didn't I apply to any schools in Canada? I love Canada! Why did I disregard the entire South (US)? Humidity isn't that bad!
You'd think 20 programs would be enough, but apparently not. I'm terrified that I won't get in anywhere and then I'll be 31 reevaluating everything. AAAAAAAAAAA.
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in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
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@sugilite Happy to!
https://ls.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/statement_of_purpose.pdf
Let me know if you have issues with the link.