snorkles
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Posts posted by snorkles
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On 12/8/2021 at 7:22 AM, Glasperlenspieler said:
The process is likely going to vary substantially from program to program. A philosophy professor who has frequently served on the grad admissions committee at Rutgers recently did a write up of what the process looks like there. While it's a different discipline and other departments are likely to do things differently, I think it gives some useful insight into how your application might be read: http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/1011404/28477892/1635443782310/Tips+for+applying+to+PhD+Programs+in+Philosophy2.pdf?token=DbN71X3m2lBFlti4y2w3rbeCk6o%3D
I'd like to emphasize the parts about developing faculty relations and getting eyes on your materials. Good luck to everyone!
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This whole post comes across as just another form of proselytizing. I am truly sorry that academia disappointed you as it will many others, but please consider that the people here are intelligent enough to question these issues without needing to watch someone sell their brand in a TED talk.
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20 minutes ago, brockdenbrown802 said:
I am also a first gen and first time applicant, so I don't know the process/etiquette here at all.
This was me. I went 0/7 first cycle and 6/10 my second. It's a frustrating reality that presentation counts for so much. As much as I want to believe the quality of my thinking developed between cycles, it was mostly just how I presented my ideas that mattered.
- letsgetgaslit and onerepublic96
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37 minutes ago, missmarianne said:
What is access privilege? Sorry, I googled and tried to use context clues but I don't know what it means.
I'm thinking of a pretty capacious definition. Access to resources is one way to think about it. For me that means anything from spheres of knowledge, opportunities, guidance. Take admissions for example: Many people have mentors helping to shape their application. Some people have been guided on this path since high school.
- Hard times!, R Westy, j.j.pizza and 3 others
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3 hours ago, jjmcgu19 said:
Yeah, as someone who has gotten a fair number of rejection letters so far, that Vandy letter is pretty typical. There is a lot that is actually rude, cold, and unethical about this process (exorbitant fees, emphasis on institution prestige, LORs, access privilege, etc.), so I feel like the form letters aren't exactly the best place to focus our energies!
As a nontraditional student, I'm learning more and more about the depth of access privilege. It doesn't end with admissions.
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To preface my advice, I'd like to mention that programs in general are admitting smaller cohorts this year. I wouldn't be surprised if this trend continued beyond 2021. If you're thinking about PhD programs with the job market in mind, you'd be better served by focusing your efforts elsewhere. It was already near impossible to land a tenure track position. Now, things are looking very, very bleak.
The best thing you can do is refine your interests and develop questions about them. You aren't expected to be an expert in a field when you apply, but you should be somewhat conversant with one. Write a good (that is, relevant to your field) thesis and use it for your writing sample.
Conferences and publications don't hurt your application, but they take time. The same is true for library work and volunteering. In my opinion, you're better off spending your time researching and writing. Develop relationships with faculty to help you along.
The application process is expensive and grueling. I'd heavily consider whether you want to pursue this route, because a lot of the labor that goes into making yourself an ideal PhD applicant may also prevent you from developing your marketability in other avenues.
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You seem to be focused on boosting your CV, which is insignificant at this stage relative to the time investment. Publishing in itself isn't noteworthy. It's the work that matters, where a published paper is a sign of good work. Keeping in mind, too, that not all journals are equal. Publishing is not a prerequisite for graduate school. I haven't published anything. I would work on refining your interests and developing faculty relationships. And keep honing your writing. Also, do lots and lots of research on the state of the field and its future. Are you comfortable with 6-10 years of work without a job waiting for you at the other end? The work itself has to be enough to sustain you. Another question you might think about is whether an MA is the best route, or if you'd be better off applying straight to PhD programs.
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Get a feel for the culture of the department and decide from there. I suspect your department doesn't have a student union (recognized or otherwise), but if it does then I'd go there first.
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2 hours ago, Bopie5 said:
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).
Like you said, no one knows what is going to happen, and each program will respond differently. But I suspect admissions will be in a strange place for a while across the board.
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On 4/22/2020 at 4:44 PM, FiguresIII said:
Just wanted to give some info about how the covid crisis is affecting graduate schools and future admissions. In Yale's case, what we know now is that individual departments will have autonomy when giving year-long extensions to current students, and will decide whether to give blanket extensions to everyone, on a cohort basis, or on an individual basis. Every extension of funding given out, though, comes with a trade-off: for six extensions of funding given out, the department will have one fewer admission slot to offer. This will probably play out over the long term, buying many current students extensions by taking two or three fewer students each year for a number of years. It's all in flux right now, but know that this will likely make admissions even more competitive (or it may even out with fewer applications overall, who can say?).
I'd also like to emphasize how dire things are. Everything is indeed in flux right now, but I've heard rumblings of even more severe measures. This is to say, I would not wait for the 2022 cycle to apply. And only apply with the expectation that you will not land a tenured position at the other end (not that this is news).
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1 hour ago, killerbunny said:
Imposter syndrome is real. Remember your programs want you to succeed and are (literally) invested in your doing well. In a way, the adcomm are able to see better than you that you are no imposter. They waded through all those applications of stellar candidates and said "yes" to you, and they likely have the experience of previous cycles to make solid predictions about who will do well in their program. Between their expertise and self-doubt, go with the former. And ultimately, now especially, grad programs need you more than you need them. One other general tidbit I have is don't let imposter syndrome cause you to clam up from fear of looking unknowledgeable. I've seen this in my masters' program: people who I know are capable but too timid to talk in seminars; it's such a lost opportunity because this is the time to ask a million questions so you and your instructors can figure out the gaps in your knowledge. And chances are other graduates have the same questions as you and will be grateful someone has the guts to speak up.
I like this a lot. I had something longer written out in response, but I decided it was a bit of a bummer. In short, I've learned in my first year the truism that one should not compare oneself to one's peers is crucial for one's mental health in graduate school. Setting your own metrics for success is important, especially for those coming from nontraditional backgrounds.
- killerbunny and karamazov
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23 minutes ago, meghan_sparkle said:
Have ... people seen this?
Not English but I just about burst into tears at the prospect !!
Have decided the last few days that unless programs begin on campus and in person in the fall that I'm deferring -- and am asking the DGS's of all programs whose offers I'm very seriously considering whether they would allow me to defer in that circumstance. It sucks because it's the last conversation in the world I want to be having, I'm ready to start my PhD tomorrow, but ... I've worked from home for a year and know it is really not great for my mental health and the richness of my intellectual life, and the last thing I'd want to do is waste 1/6 funded years that way.
It's a terrible situation all around. I'm starting to consider the possibility that I may have the fall and winter quarters online. It's too early to tell, of course, but I don't see this thing going any anytime soon. I've had one class session online, and it wasn't so bad. It definitely limits things socially and intellectually though. The writing has been the worst part of it so far for me. Getting tunnel vision quickly that's hard to shake off while sheltering inside.
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14 minutes ago, WildeThing said:
I am pretty sure offer letters are signed by someone in the graduate school, at least in my experience. That said, I am sure there are mechanisms in place to change binding contracts in case of financial necessity. It would be up to student representatives/unions to fight against them, though it sounds like the Chicago thing was probably negotiated to some degree, since some groups gained money.
Also, re: 2008 crash, is this the same magnitude? I am not an economist so I don’t know but either way, if we’re talking 2008 crash then everything is fucked for years anyway (my country was still not fully recovered from 2008...) so while academia will certainly suffer it will suffer no more than other sectors (in fact, it will probably suffer less).
This is sounds more likely. Those who had significant changes to their contract were given various options, to either sign on or not. I don't recall the details because they didn't affect me very much. The point still stands though: They have far higher degrees of freedom than we do regarding the contract.
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1 hour ago, meghan_sparkle said:
oh yeah, I should have put in a phrase saying that the Chicago changes didn't seem life-altering or ominously bad–and it's worth saying as you do the stipend stretches further in a place like Chicago than it would at other similarly-ranked schools. this is good context ty! though I have to wonder: how is the offer letter not legally binding? I mean clearly it isn't because I keep hearing of stuff like this happening but ... the letter with financial stipend details is proposed as an offer, which is then accepted and signed ... I mean ... I am not very bright and definitely not a lawyer but that sounds binding to me ...
Soooo we sign it. They do not. At least I think that's how they can change things at will. Or it's in the fine print. Either way: Super happy fun times.
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2 minutes ago, meghan_sparkle said:
You would think! I had two current Chicago 2nd years tell me a couple weeks ago that aspects of their funding package have changed twice since they arrived, neither change benefitting the students and in both cases detrimental to them, and the administration has been very reluctant to explain the reason for the changes (I should have asked specifically what they were but the room was hot and I was two beers in, sry)—so it definitely does happen, even in times of institutional bounty. (Chicago for instance is rolling in dough right now through Mellon grant $$$, so like, why is the administration being obstinate about stuff like that? Not cute). Stipend amounts adjusting for inflation is also not always guaranteed, and funding plummeting past year five can be a question mark even at top 10 programs (my Berkeley stipend goes down by ~7k if not more from year 5 onward, for instance; Harvard's stipend goes down 5k from year 5 (no more summer stipend); have heard a recent Penn grad say there was always anxiety in her cohort about funding in the 6th year (though not sure if that's still the case). I think the fact of 5-6 funding packages are guaranteed, but the devil is in the details...
It's also the case that other than stipend, the funding offered by the department I mentioned (conferences, travel, etc) can absolutely change, at the discretion of either the dept or GSAS more widely; it's not like it's a part of our offer letters. I've heard from students at Brown and Harvard who are having enormous difficulty getting their expenses for conferences that cancelled due to coronavirus reimbursed (not all airlines are offering refunds; many hotels are not, and students have to pay in advance and make applications for reimbursement after the fact—the stickler being that for some universities the conference funds are only released if the conference actually took place! So they're having to take financial hits of anywhere from a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars. Insanity.)
I can explain Chicago. Stipends have been standardized across the humanities. Every PhD student is now guaranteed a set amount for the duration of their enrollment in the program. This change may prove to be wonderful should we need longer than 6 years to finish our dissertation. By year,I think it amounts to about 500 dollars more a year for me, but a decrease for second years, who had a higher stipend last year). For my cohort, this seems to be a net gain. And it certainly is for students in other departments. Before, from what I understand, other departments had significantly smaller stipends. However, this adjustment came with the caveat that the humanities can only take in a set amount of students per year, so many departments have had to downsize enrollment a ton. This is the scariest bit of it, English seems pretty safe so far. The stipend has seemed to always vary by year, which sucks for my cohort when I consider that last year's had a substantial research grant to buy computers and the like, on top of a higher base amount. But all things considered, I'm living pretty comfortably here, so I haven't felt any immediate outrage. It's unsettling to know that our financial contracts aren't binding on their end, though, but that just seems to be the case for every program.
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1 hour ago, digital_lime said:
I don't have any data to back this up, but it seems likely to me that a Ph.D. from a Harvard or Yale would get you a lot further on the alt-ac market. HR directors with BAs might not know that the University of Michigan, for example, is a top-tier school that is a peer institution of the Ivies, but they'll certainly understand that Harvard is impressive.
From what I've heard, the Ivies have a more traditional perspective of the field. You get a Ph.D. to become a professor. Other programs, like Chicago, are pushing a lot of resources towards alt-ac, since the job market is so bad. So Harvard may have the name recognition advantage when it comes to people outside of academia. But training and opportunity wise, it seems to be heavily in the opposite direction. Take this with a grain of salt, though.
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Faculty everywhere are panicking trying to get online classes up and running. It's likely to be far more difficult to get in contact with them in the next few weeks. Also, friends and family have taken on a different level of priority for everyone, so that factors into how quickly they may respond to emails.
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29 minutes ago, spikeseagulls said:
Thank you so much for this! The schools are UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara, if that helps at all.
I will for sure ask for the contact information of my potential cohort members! I didn't even think of this.
I will for sure keep that in mind! All schools have different recruitment methods, and the DGSs at both schools have been super helpful and transparent about the process.
I think the most important step at this point is for me to reach out in order to weigh the pros and cons.
I came into this process pretty blindly and without much guidance, so I've definitely been feeling lost lately lol
Irvine is phenomenal. And isn't the cost of living at UCSB really high?
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1 minute ago, meghan_sparkle said:
Yeah, agreed. I have what I think (?) is the highest fellowship offer from Berkeley right now and even then, it will go down to ~27k from year 5 onward according to the DGS. Trying to live on that in the Bay Area? Oh honey no. When Harvard's package is 36k, Chicago's and Yale's 31/32k, and Columbia's 34k for 6 years guaranteed ... it's just vvvery hard to see how I could justify it to myself, even though the faculty fit is fantastic.
EDIT: Despite that it's still true that they have the best placement in the country rn! Which is hard to ignore.
34k in Manhattan sounds tough. I suspect you spoke to someone at bar night here about his Columbia MFA experience . If not, he could help you think about that option. Not sure how far the other stipends stretch besides Chicago.
You could make any of these work, but some will require more sacrifices than others.
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5 minutes ago, meghan_sparkle said:
I'm a broken record at this point but this whole thing feels really grim, don't know what else to say. I have zero idea how I'll make an informed decision given 4/6 of my visits have been cancelled. The number of "Email ___" or "Call with ___" entries on my to-do list is going up and up and up but every call leaves me less not more reassured, and my motivation to sit at my computer sending pointless emails (when I suck at email to begin with!!!) is just eroding.
At this point I wish I could defer but realistically I can't. It's the least of the world's worries right now, and I realize I'm in an incredibly fortunate position right now and in a sense "can't go wrong." But there's a real sinister irony about having a really shitty 2-3 years (during which my life felt purposeless and I constantly wondered whether I was cut out for a PhD, or whether getting on the Titanic ship that is academia was the future I wanted) only to have this ONE really really good thing happen and ... of course it had to fall into chaotic disarray and leave me feeling more confused and purposeless than ever, lol.
You have a lot of unknowns, and all of those programs are great. What they're not equal in, though, is cost of living. Think through the finances of your options and it may be easier to decide than you think. I know a few in my cohort who decided based on this factor alone. I love Cal. Do I love 2k+ studios? I do not.
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4 minutes ago, onerepublic96 said:
I’m still waiting on one school that (I think) is an implied rejection and one waitlist that I’m not optimistic about either.
I should probably contact my recommenders about now and ask if they’d be able to resubmit their letters again in the fall, but every time I start drafting emails, I start feeling so embarrassed and awkward and can’t figure out a way to start that conversation. I end up either saying something along the lines of ‘Well, looks like I was a failure this cycle, can you waste more of your time helping me try again next fall?’ or just feeling super embarrassed and like asking them again would make me seem obnoxious. It doesn’t help that this would be the 3rd time they’d have to write letters for me (they were my MA recommenders as well). Does anyone have any tips or advice?
Is there an opportunity for you to arrange in-person meetings? It might be helpful to review where you're at in the process. Are you still invested and willing to revise or are you just going through the motions of applying, using the same materials? These conversations are easier in person, I think. Also, I'm curious why you didn't seek any of your MA professors to write you a letter?
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21 minutes ago, The Hoosier Oxonian said:
So I'm finding myself in an unanticipated situation after my first two visits. I had thought the choice would be clear for me to go to Yale, and I did have a really lovely visit there - the current students I talked to were honest and kind, and at least four out of the six faculty members I met with seemed quite warm and supportive (and obviously none were unkind - they're recruiting, after all!) I liked the smallness of the New Haven community. I even liked (if I did chuckle at a little) the artificially aged knock-off Oxbridge architecture of the university. I like the structure of the program (except for wishing there was a bit more teaching, but I've already talked to the DGS about this and there may be other opportunities) and the stipend is very livable. In short, I walked away from my Yale visit thinking, "Yes, I could see myself here."
Fast forward to my Northwestern visit: if I thought the folks I met at Yale were nice, it was nothing (with one or two exceptions of outstandingly kind Yale people) to the welcome I received at Northwestern. The whole atmosphere of the visit was much warmer and more laid back than Yale. All the faculty I spoke with were intimately familiar with every detail of my application when I came into meet with them (which Yale faculty for the most part weren't). I also felt that I really clicked with my prospective cohort mates (most of whom indicated that they will probably choose Northwestern), an opportunity I felt I didn't have at Yale due to spending less time with fellow prospectives there (though I'm sure my fellow Yale admits are lovely people). Finally, here's the big factor I feel is pushing me toward Northwestern: there was one faculty member in particular with whom I met who basically told me he thought I was one of the most outstanding applicants he'd seen in a while. We had a great conversation about my work and his work (he's someone whose work I was in conversation with before meeting him), he gave me a long list of book suggestions and even emailed me a few days later with some articles he thought I might find interesting. He also addressed some of the personal elements of my less than traditionally privileged background and shared the story of working through undergrad himself, and I felt like he really understood where I was coming from in that regard. Basically, if I had sat down before my visits and sketched out my idea of the ideal faculty interaction, it would have been my meeting with this professor. BUT I want to be cautious about a few things: firstly, his effusiveness may just be a recruitment strategy and he'll lose interest in me as soon as I matriculate (or he might not but might turn out to be an egomaniac/hyper-controlling/insert other problematic behavior); secondly, as a person without significant father figures in my life, I'm well aware I tend to get excessively emotionally attached to men of a certain age who express a tendency to mentorship or in fact any interest in my general well-being, so I may be overreacting to this professor's behavior.
All this being said, I'd really appreciate the perspectives of current students: how important is finding the faculty mentor? Like many of us in this line of work, I'm excessively dependent on approval from authority figures, so my instinct is to think that having a really supportive advisor is quite important. Obviously I want someone who will work me hard and help me grow, but I don't think I'd fare well with someone who was all tough love and never had anything affirming to say about my work. But even supposing this one professor at Northwestern is the perfect mentor I've been dreaming about (which is a big supposition), is it worth walking away from Yale essentially for just one person? (There are lots of other things at Northwestern that are appealing in terms of campus/stipend/community/etc., but nothing that's a significant improvement on Yale). In this job market, am I an idiot to walk away from Yale under any circumstances? My takeaway on the overall vibes at both was that Yale would be more a more rigorous and Northwestern a more nurturing environment (though I'm not suggesting there's no nurture at Yale or no rigor at Northwestern), and I don't have a good sense about which of those two things is more important. All in all, I'm really surprised at how torn I feel - I thought it would be easy to choose Yale and be done with it, but walking away from this Northwestern faculty member (and from my truly lovely cohort group there) is going to be really painful, even though I still think it's probably right. Help?!
That's a really tough situation.
I want to be careful here and not give you misleading ideas about your visits. "But" my experience has been that I had anticipated, based on conversations during the recruitment process, to develop a mentor-style relationship with a faculty member. Or at least have some kind of advising-level interactions. This has not happened at all. I don't think I was misled or that the faculty member has been negligent in some way: A friend of mine at UVA received similar effusive compliments during his visit, and I don't believe he ever connected with that faculty member. I'm learning that academia never turns out exactly as you wanted or expected it to be.
So if your only reason for choosing Northwestern over Yale is to develop a close relationship with that faculty member, then you might feel disappointed somewhat. And, of course, I say "might" because it could be amazing and all the things you want it to be. Or it might be that this faculty member will happily be on our orals/dissertation committee but you don't develop that kind of proximity you're looking for.
I've heard similar things about Yale's visit days--feeling less warm and all. I don't know how much you can make out of it, but I'm definitely a big vibe person. Both programs are amazing, and I don't think you can make a bad decision either way.
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59 minutes ago, tansy, rue, root, & seed said:
I also just received the Princeton email. I'm so sad. I'm choosing between Princeton and Yale, have already visited Yale (thank goodness their visit was scheduled before this madness!), and just have absolutely no idea how I'm going to make a decision now. It feels so lopsided to try to make a decision having visited one place and not the other. I was planning to also visit Princeton "unofficially" this week for a different event -- my boyfriend's presenting at a conference there -- but I'm assuming that, too, will be canceled.
I understand the need for precaution, especially for those in precarious health and financial situations, but . . . the timing. Sigh.
Also, yes, solidarity with the ongoing COLA strikes! When assembling my school list, I immediately ruled out the UCs due to the outrageous COL and meager funding.
I'm wondering if we'll see lopsided cohorts because of cancellations. If we do, it may affect next year's cycle if, for example, Chicago's cohort size increases from 9 to 18.
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1 minute ago, meghan_sparkle said:
Y e p
That's brutal. I'm really sorry to hear that. I was speaking with a prospective yesterday who was headed off to Ithaca on Sunday and Princeton after. I take it that the emails made it explicit that they would not be reimbursing you. Missing the theatrics of visit days is fine, but not being able to visit at all is terrible terrible terrible.
2022 Applicants
in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
Posted · Edited by snorkles
Though not comp lit, this was my experience as well. "Tell me, why this book by Rancière?" "Uhhhhhhhhhhh....seemed like a good fit?" I still have nightmares.
I was unprepared and bombed the interview. Still got in somehow. I think being personable (and solid materials, even if you can't defend them in the moment) goes a long way.