The Wordsworthian
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Posts
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Posts posted by The Wordsworthian
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24 minutes ago, WildeThing said:
Officially going to UVA!
Thanks to everyone who has helped with advice, information, and just generally making this community the supportive place it is. I've been here for 3 years now and I'm glad to be moving on to the next stage finally.
Congratulations, so happy for you!
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1 hour ago, hgtvdeathdrive said:
Has anyone turned down larger funding offers for a better fit? It's gonna hurt so much to turn down the extra $4,000 per year plus 3 years of summer support (out of 6 summers) plus better health insurance at UMass but the fit, program, and approach to study at Buffalo is what I reallly, really, really want. So little time to decide
I did! Turned down a school that was offering me $4,000 more that ended up offering me an additional $8,000 in fellowships for my first year. Fit was way more important to me—remember, you’ll be at your program for the next 5+ yrs. Good luck
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Congrats! It looks like a few people have declined Michigan so fingers crossed for you!
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@amphilanthus I'm currently in the same boat, ugh! Which school did you end up narrowing down to?
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16 hours ago, mandelbulb said:
you really think it's worth it to pay $160 for a two point increase? wow lol
Gonna pop in here and add that I had atrocious GRE schools and got into two great programs with full funding. Focus on WS and SoP and use the money to apply to more schools rather than a retake.
Edit to clarify also that my scores were lower than yours (with exception of Verbal, I scored 158V, but I was lower in Q and Writing).
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3 hours ago, kendalldinniene said:
Thank you everyone! To think 24 hours ago I was walking the campus feeling absolutely certain I'd flunked the interviews ?
Super happy for you. You've been such a beacon of light on this forum
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7 minutes ago, trytostay said:
Listed a professor emeritus in one of my faculty paragraphs of my SOP...oops
I also did that... sigh.
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Wrote the wrong GPA by accident on half of my applications and realized as I was reviewing the application proofs AFTER submitting them. Then proceeded to send 5 frantic e-mails to the respective departments in hopes of rectifying the stupid blunder. Still got into two of those programs, so I guess the mistake wasn't as tragic as my anxiety drove me to believe!
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40 minutes ago, whatislife69 said:
Wouldn't have wasted $$$$ to retake GRE!
I FIRMLY second this. I retook the GRE to score only two points higher on my Verbal section. I am still reeling from that.
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When I applied, I was working 30-40 hours a week while balancing a full-time course load. I won't sugarcoat this experience at all--it was extremely overwhelming and stressful, and I had to make a lot of sacrifices for it. I did not get much sleep, which definitely wore me out by the time I finally submitted my applications, and my social life was nonexistent. My advice to you would be to take advantage of weekends, as Friday/Saturday/Sunday were the days where I got the most work done. Not sure what your summer is like, but I was lucky to be only taking classes part-time and I worked about 35 hours a week so I had a bit more "wiggle room" to get ahead on my apps.
I also made a schedule for myself with deadlines based on where I wanted to be with my WS and SoP, and started opening my actual applications about 3-4 weeks before they were due, and tried to have them submitted a 1-2 weeks before deadlines in case something went wrong. It's not easy but you will get through it if you want it bad enough.
Best of luck to you!
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@MetaphysicalDrama Congratulations! So happy this came through for you.
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@Amelia75 That's awesome. I unfortunately won't be able to make it in April so I'll be visiting in mid March.
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@Amelia75 Awesome, thank you so much! Congratulations to you as well. Which program did you get accepted to? Maybe we will connect sometime if we both end up in the area.
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6 minutes ago, kendalldinniene said:
Yes. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this process it’s that it needs to be standardized. As a humanities person I know saying that is basically heresy, but it’s true.
Agreed! The pure chaos of applying and hearing back has taken about 10 years off of my life. It also feels really shitty to put so much into an application and spend such exorbitant amounts of money to have your application totally disregarded and to be strung along by schools! The only schools who sent out rejections in a timely manner (that I applied to) were Cornell and U-M, for which I am extremely thankful.
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11 minutes ago, grandr said:
Hi everyone! I posted this on the acceptances board but this might be a better place for it. I'm looking (preemtively) at a shut-out application season and I'm trying to gauge what happened/what I can do differently next year! I'm not sure if I just got unlucky with a lot of people applying with the same general interests as me: does anyone else do 20th/21st century Irish literature? Thanks and congratulations/good luck to everyone!
Sorry to hear about that. This thread is a pretty good place for what you're dealing with! Best of luck in future cycles
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14 minutes ago, snorkles said:
In at Brown. Email to check portal.
That's amazing! Congratulations.
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@tacocat211 You're welcome! Let's hope this week has some news from the State College area
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Was recently accepted to UW and offered a pretty good package. I'm visiting Seattle in a few weeks to check out the school and the city.
Wondering how I go about housing? Anyone have any advice about moving here (I'm from the Northeast--New England)? Anything I should know?
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@backtothefuture You're welcome! Best of luck to you with your applications.
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3 minutes ago, backtothefuture said:
Has anyone heard anything from Penn State? Are they still making decisions?
I called them early last week and they said they were still making decisions and sending out notifications. The woman I spoke with on the phone said that acceptances/waitlists would be notified via phone call or e-mail. She gave no timeline as to when they'd have everything out by, but if you haven't heard yet, don't give up hope as they haven't notified everyone yet (as of last week, at least).
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@amphilanthus Congratulations! Did you receive a call from your POI?
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9 hours ago, Ranmaag said:
Another anecdata point here. I applied with 158V and 142Q and walk away from this cycle with 1 acceptance and 1 waitlist (unless miracles happen tomorrow or next week). However, I will also say that it was a very risky proposition to barely clear 300 total on the GRE general. I'm grateful that my GRE didn't shut me out, but an admissions committee that was taking a first glance purely at the data (definitely most of my East Coast schools, since I have little to no academic connections there) I will definitely admit I look like a very shaky proposition. I can't discern how GREs play into the decision mechanics for private schools, I know for public schools that utilize campus-wide fellowships for funding, it can definitely play a part. As far as I know, a department will almost always want to fund its students from the larger graduate school funds than utilize department resources (I know Buffalo had a 313/4.5AW minimum to be considered for fellowship consideration from their College of Arts and Sciences). Every department and every school will of course be different, and definitely don't be afraid to check out GRE policies if your schools list them.
I'm in a similar boat although my Q was significantly lower given that I skipped through the Quant section (and I'm also waiting to hear back from 4 schools). As of current, however, I have one acceptance and one waitlist. I agree that I'm lucky my GRE scores didn't earn me a complete shut out; this was my very first cycle and a few weeks after officially submitting my applications I actually had a horrible anxiety attack over the scores and for the past month I've been a nervous wreck, terrified that I completely screwed myself over. I think that a solid WS/SoP/other credentials can help override a poor GRE score, but given how competitive these application cycles are, you don't want to give admissions committees any reason to reject you. In any case, here's to hoping that more schools start waiving the arbitrary GRE requirement over the next few years.
Switching periods?
in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
Posted
I switched from 19th C to Early Modern for my applications and got in at one of my top choices still! Totally feasible as long as your research objectives are clear in your WS/SoP.