transrelativity

I'm rooting for you! Every day brings notification time closer. I did learn from a friend who is currently in the English Ph.D. program at Temple that her funding offer didn't come until March. I'm thinking of setting up a visit at Rutgers later in February so that I can meet some of the faculty and students and get a feel for the department; I might ask to visit Temple again, too, and perhaps sit in on a class there. Doing that kind of assessment might help me take my mind off the wait for funding, and will certainly help with the final decision. To all my fellow UPenn applicants: if history is any guide, I suppose we should be expecting decisions within the next week or two. I'm not sure how to feel; I have no idea whether or not my application was competitive. Just have to wait and see I guess!

That's fabulous news! CONGRATS on the acceptance!!!

Sorry to hear about the UW Madison result, @halcyonday. I'm sure your interview did go really well -- if they took the time to send you such a kind email, it means they really liked you. Don't let it knock you off your game for the next one.

Yes, still waiting on a funding offer from Temple. I'm getting more anxious about it now that I've heard from Rutgers. I also haven't seen any other Temple acceptances on the results page, so maybe they'll do the funding along with the main batch of notifications. I hope it'll be soon! Today I saw someone get waitlisted at Drexel, but I've still heard nothing. The portal still says no decision has been made. Sounds like a hard pass, but I wish they'd just tell me and put me out of my misery. I know what you mean about trying to limit the checks. I've had GradCafe open in two separate browser tabs for the last week or two, and it's making it hard to get work done!

I checked the web portal after seeing that someone else had a decision from one of my schools. I found an acceptance, but of course no details. I was in the midst of writing a post about it on another GradCafe thread when an email popped up with the funding offer!

Thank you for this useful thread! I was about to post the same question.

Hm, I'm not sure I would say Rutgers is my first choice. All other things being equal, Temple has more targeted resources and may be a better fit for my research. That being said, funding is a very important factor for me, and the Rutgers offer is excellent! I was not expecting to be offered a non-teaching fellowship, and that's extremely valuable in my situation. Ouch, March is a long time to wait. I hope you hear back soon from the American options! I'm definitely rooting for you!

What's the usual Canadian timeline, @jmc117? Do you expect to hear in February, or more like March? Today I got my first funding offer! Rutgers offered me $25k/yr plus tuition, fees, and medical for four years, with no teaching requirement in the first year. I am over the moon! This also takes a bit of the sting out of the presumed rejection at Drexel, heh. To those still waiting to hear back: stay strong! Good things are coming your way!

I would really like to read about the history of shoes in Chicago.

I see some decisions have come out from two of the schools to which I applied (Drexel and Rutgers), but I checked their web portals and saw no decision on my applications. In the case of Drexel, that's probably a bad sign, but with Rutgers I'm not sure. Still holding out hope for some funding from Temple! Can anyone claim the Drexel acceptance? If so, did you interview last Friday (2/1)?

I just had my video interview with Drexel. I think it went okay -- I perform better at in-person interviews, but that wasn't an option. The committee mentioned this event during the interview and invited me to come. It seems to be a public event, so if any other folks are local to Drexel and free at 4pm today, maybe you'd like to go? There was some implication that the committee members might be there. I plan to attend.

(Edited -- sorry, wrong thread!)

Thanks for this thread. I have a 15 minute Zoom interview tomorrow that I'm prepping for in a manner similar to what @LOiseauRouge described, and hearing about @palyndrone's experience is very useful. My interview appears to be with an admissions committee, but the person who emailed me to set it up was the person I listed third in my personal statement out of the faculty I hoped to work with in that program. She does not appear to be part of the admissions committee, because she listed their names separately in the email, but she implied that she would be present for the interview. I've been studying her in particular because I imagine this might mean that she, out of the three people I listed, is most interested in working with me. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Any advice to offer?

I think I had a similar experience to what @p287, @halcyonday, and @Psyhopeful describe. My BA and MA are both in English literature, but throughout my MA coursework I started focusing on gender, and my thesis was a combination of lit crit, film studies, and gender studies. I then developed a strong interest in global and East Asian studies through professional development seminars and grant projects over a period of about seven years. Those projects made me realize how much I love interdisciplinary work. Last year I applied to a gender studies Ph.D. program, which didn't admit me; they said they were looking for applicants whose work could only be done in their program, and that made me realize that the work I want to do (studying gender codes transmitted across national and cultural boundaries through TV, video games, and material culture) could take place in a LOT of different disciplines. I considered East Asian studies, cultural studies, and American studies, but eventually decided on communication and media; ultimately, I think it was the best focus for me. I was a bit nervous about coming in with a literature degree, since most of the faculty I see in communication programs have social science backgrounds, but I wrote in my statement about how I thought lit crit would serve me well in communication research. Hopefully the admissions committees agree.

This is just a post to say that upon first read, I thought @HealthyAnthro had an interview with Kingdom Hearts.

Definitely! I'd also love to know about any upcoming conferences that you might be thinking of attending. I'm still new to the communications discipline and I'm looking for venues that would welcome work on gender and culture.

Yeah, I've been in my current position for four years, but I've been teaching at community colleges for seven years, and I taught ESL abroad before that. I think I'm a bit older than most of the folks in this thread. I love teaching and I intend to continue doing it, but I've started to realize how much I love research and how much it enhances my work in the classroom. Community college teaching is very classroom-focused; my institution has some support for research and conference participation, but not as much as I'd like. Eventually, I hope to go on to a four-year school where I can teach upper-division courses and get more research support.

Congrats on your admission, @chavezye, and best of luck with Cornell!

There are other trans folks teaching in my department both at my current job and at my last position. I choose to believe that there are a lot more of us out there, and that over time we will become ever more visible. Yes, I'm local to Temple. I live one 20-min bus ride away from the Annenberg building. I feel really lucky that there's such a high concentration of universities in the Philadelphia area, because I don't think I could commit to Ph.D. study otherwise. I'm not willing to give up tenure, and I need to stay local if I want to keep my job. I'm still mulling over whether I'll take a leave of absence or try to go on teaching half-time while I do my coursework.

I'm so happy to meet more trans academics! Really glad we connected here! I was honestly expecting decisions to come much later, like in February or March. I definitely was not expecting to hear anything in January. Is it common for comm programs to decide this early? I assumed it would take longer to read all of our personal statements and writing samples and such.

Good luck, @uless! Sending positive thoughts your way!

Email to check the portal to download a rejection IS pretty raw.

I hope we can meet and talk about your work! I am transgender myself, and though my research focus is on masculinity more broadly, I'm always interested in seeing how trans folks are represented in the media. I've often thought about studying the ways trans folks present themselves in online gaming -- avatar choice, engagement or disengagement in voice chat, ways of typing, emoji use or non-use, stuff like that. I'm hoping to do a paper on that at some point, though it won't be the focus of my diss. I didn't end up finishing the UD essays, although they are mostly done from my last big push two weeks ago. I haven't done the video essay at all. I may yet, because the application isn't due until Friday, but I also have a lot of other deadlines on Friday that I'm juggling -- my tenure statement for work, a bio for a talk I'm giving in Feb, and preparing for the Drexel interview. If I magically get all of that done and have time yet, maybe I'll manage UD.

Ooh yeah, I must have missed that one. I suppose it's possible that they interview some, but not all, folks they're considering. At Temple, for example, I know I wasn't interviewed because when I visited my POI over the summer to talk about the program and get advice on my application, she basically considered it an interview; there was nothing more she needed to ask. That's quite different to the UPenn situation I'm sure, but it's possible that they only reach out if they need more information. In any case, that's what I choose to believe! Yes, I hope so too! I admit I come to comm from the humanities side; my MA is in English literature. I'm excited to shift my disciplinary focus more towards the social sciences, but I'll always have lit crit roots.

I think the only one who can tell you that is someone who works in that department. The application acknowledgement form suggests to me that your application did go through, but I would email the graduate department, explain the situation, and ask whether you should still submit the GRE scores.