thismortalcoil

Annnnd I just accepted my offer from the University of Pennsylvania. This was an agonizing decision but I'm convinced that I've made the right choice. So pleased to be joining a program featuring so many brilliant and generous scholars in and beyond my field. Equally thrilled to be doing a PhD in a city that I know and love. My path to the PhD has been rough, and for a long time I did not expect to get here at all, so this feels especially sweet. 

I just signed my lease in New Haven! At the beginning of June, I'll be moving out to the Texas countryside for three months to perform Shakespeare plays all summer, and then I'll be making a very condensed move to the northeast, just in time for registration.  

I would agree with this, if the purpose of wordstew's comments was simply to point out the inaccuracy of Rutgers' placement rate. As I said, that information is important, and we should be holding departments accountable for placement stats. The main thing with which I was taking issue is the second half of wordstew's post, the "this is the profession you want to enter" part, which to me smacks of the nihilism to which I refer.
Moving away from the troll-y stuff and toward Rutgers' actual placement rate: looking at their website, I would say that 10 percent is certainly too low in describing their placement, but I also think wordstew is right to say that 87 percent is a gross exaggeration. Unless Rutgers provides *detailed* job placement -- that is, name of PhD recipient, what year they earned their PhD, and then all subsequent placement(s) -- it is indeed irresponsible to make it seem as if getting a PhD at Rutgers will just shy of almost certainly land you a prof job. 
I'm going to be entering the job market phase of my PhD here in the next few years, and as I've been thinking about things I've looked at placement pages of numerous PhD programs. Generally speaking, I'd say that most programs are actually not great about accurately advertising placement rates. Typically, you see one of the following things:
"Our graduates have gotten jobs at": This is one of the worst, if not the worst way to list placement. This will simply be a list of universities where PhDs at that uni will "have gotten jobs," typically with no delineation of what type (e.g. TT, VAP, lecturership, etc).
Only good placements: It's also quite common to see graduate schools only list people who have gotten jobs of some type. While if specific enough this can tell you some things, it also masks the problem of ratios, for this doesn't give you the full picture of all PhD recipients. I saw this on Emory's page recently; I could see several excellent placements, but I have no sense of how many PhDs they're turning out vs. how many jobs are acquired.
Listing placements solely by year: This is where I give Rutgers some credence in how they present their 87 percent statistic. That number, it seems, is based on a "three year job market" period, meaning that it's not "87 percent get jobs right away," but rather that "87 percent within the now-standard 3 year job search will get jobs." It's better to be honest about that up front, as Rutgers is, because too often I see programs simply list job placements earned within a given academic year. But that doesn't tell us if those placements come from people who were on the market for years or only one year, which is a relevant factor in figuring out a uni's placement rate.
And these are not even to mention the surprising amount of schools I saw which made no effort to present even just their best-case placement rates!
I'd love to hear what y'all think, but to me a complete placement picture should look something like this: have placements broken down by academic year, but then in each year list name, year of PhD earned, and, if relevant, jobs earned prior to listed placement. I also think area of specialty should be listed, so that it's clear where a department is most successful at turning out scholars.
 
 

I would be shocked if any applicant did not know this to some extent. That people are still here, still trying, might be because the prospect of doing something they love and worrying about career prospects later is more appealing than worrying about finding career prospects (in fields they’re less interested in) now. Some might be blindly hoping the situation will improve, or that they will be the lucky ones, too. This is an issue that has been, is being, and will be discussed on this forum and elsewhere for a long time. Every year I have been here multiple members have come out, citing the same sources and making similar arguments. As with any advice, I think people appreciate the help but ultimately decide for themselves of this is a risk they’re willing to take. What’s less appreciated is being condescended to. All in all, this is an important conversation to have and should continue to take place as newcomers should be warned.

I think @beardedlady makes some fantastic points. While I can't speak for all of Rutgers' placement rates, I do know that they have a great early modern department and consistently get their early modern graduates t-t jobs at highly ranked schools. If I were you, I would take a look at their record and see where students in your field have been placed recently. Rutgers is not a top 10 institution, but it is a top 20, and from what I understand carries with its name quite a bit of prestige.  
That said, if I were to do this process again, I would apply to a number of schools, both top-10 and otherwise. As an international applicant, I decided (erroneously!) to apply only to ivies/pseudo-ivies this cycle out of the belief that these sorts of schools would justify my choice to pursue secondary education abroad. I was really lucky to be admitted to one program and made first on the waitlist at another, but wished, in retrospect, that I had applied more broadly, because it would have been nice to have more choices right now. The admissions process is so capricious and so hard to predict and there are so many factors outside of your control, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try! And I agree with what's been said above: if your profs say you can get accepted to a top-10, then why not shoot?

I don't know if this is the place to say but omg I just won a Fellowship and I'm quaking 

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.

Just confirmed with SUNY Buffalo Poetics!!!!!!!!! I am going to drink a beer the size of my face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! stay tuned for my tell all memoir regarding that deleted post from earlier this week lmao!!!!

@adornianjazz @The Wordsworthian @swarthmawr @arbie thank you all so much! I just confirmed my decision with Buffalo. I knew it in my heart but having such immediate responses in confirmation (plus one from my mom) helped so much.
@adornianjazz you sound exactly like me!! the constant back and forth literally made me sick. I spent the last week in bed with a fever/sinus infection! My visits really gave me the gut feeling, and I based it on the departmental approach to study as well as the fact that I just wanted to scream w/ excitement over their course catalog for Fall. UMass, not so much. Also keep in mind that 10 semester of teaching, despite the lower stipend, could be really good for your CV. I'm not concerned with a lighter teaching load (1:1 at Buffalo vs 2:1 at UMass) because I already have 4 years of teaching and an MFA.
AHHHH THANK YOU ALL I'M SO HAPPY

I don't know if this is the place to say but omg I just won a Fellowship and I'm quaking 

i've officially accepted michigan!! (which is a relief as my birthday was recently and a lot of my friends bought me michigan-related gifts... would've been an amazing but shortlived punchline to have been like "haha actually i'm staying at oxford but thanks anyway i guess"). 

I don't know if this is the place to say but omg I just won a Fellowship and I'm quaking 

I don't know if this is the place to say but omg I just won a Fellowship and I'm quaking 

I don't know if this is the place to say but omg I just won a Fellowship and I'm quaking 

I don't know if this is the place to say but omg I just won a Fellowship and I'm quaking 

I don't know if this is the place to say but omg I just won a Fellowship and I'm quaking 

I don't know if this is the place to say but omg I just won a Fellowship and I'm quaking 

CONGRATS!!!!!! That is incredible!!!

That's awesome! Congrats!

I don't know if this is the place to say but omg I just won a Fellowship and I'm quaking 

Princeton, here I come!

Officially starting at Columbia in the fall! 

Accepted my offer to Penn English! AHHHHHHHH

I couldn't have put it better myself. I just accepted my offer at Yale — see you in New Haven?  

Well, I guess this means turning down Berkeley and Chicago. Very painful. Loved the faculty at both places, Berkeley especially, but can't see myself settling there for six or more years (I mean the avg. time to completion is like 8??).