amphilanthus

hi all! I’m a current first year PhD student at UVA, and have been lurking on here a bit trying to message those who have been accepted/waitlisted just to say congrats and make myself available – but I’m sure I haven’t been able to catch every post, so figured I should probably say more publicly that I’m happy to answer any and all questions via PM! please reach out if you have any questions, or even just want to connect. I will answer all messages to the best of my ability and am maybe most qualified to talk about: UVA faculty/courses related to early modern lit or women & gender (a bit of 18th century + medieval knowledge as well) the waitlist process at UVA choosing a program sight-unseen grantwriting/the nonprofit sector as a path before or after graduate school moving away from one’s spouse/partner for a program (saw some discussion on this topic a while back in the thread I think) I also have a small amount of knowledge about Vanderbilt, Rutgers, and Michigan E&WS from last year, and would be happy to answer any questions that I can on those programs if (like I was) anyone is very desperate for information at this stage. wishing you all the best with a very, very long and miserable process! be good to yourselves.

today in surreal sentences: headed to UVA in the fall!

declined vanderbilt. agonizing choice - such an amazing, warm, brilliant community. unfortunately I’m not sure if this will help anyone as I know a fairly big group has already accepted, but fingers crossed!

yaaaay, congratulations!!!!

thank you both!!! very surreal! so, uh... related note, is there anyone who attended the UVA visit who wouldn’t mind messaging me? would love to be able to ask a few questions and hear impressions!

accepted off the waitlist at Virginia!!! screamed when I saw the email, to the horror of everyone else around me on the train...

I was told this by the DGS - early was his word, not mine! might not end up being the case but I want to believe.

anyone else feeling at least a little nauseous at all times as we enter the last week of waiting here? if not, that’s cool, I’m nauseous enough for all of us! it’s gonna be a loooong week (for the UVA waitlist crew: I heard movement is expected “early” this week, fwiw)

officially declined Rutgers today, pretty torn up about it. such a hard choice. hope it helps someone here out because it’s clearly an amazing program!

if anyone has questions about the details there feel free to message me and I can pass along exactly what was said! trying to preserve some small shred of online anonymity but happy to share what I have more privately

thank you! slowly but surely. hope you’re approaching something like clarity too - looking forward to hearing where you end up!

@The Wordsworthian unfortunately it’s the English/WGS joint program, so it’s a bit more up in the air. but thank you! fingers crossed all works out perfectly for you too!

@The Wordsworthian I haven’t officially done so yet because the idea of doing so makes me wanna barf (but I will before the end of the week, for anyone on the waitlist who’s dying for news!) but I’m going to be declining Rutgers’ offer. so, down to Vanderbilt and waitlists, particularly holding out hope for Michigan!

waitlist purgatory solidarity! the worst. finally made the choice between my two offers, which was agonizing enough already, and the idea of suddenly having to make another choice at the very last minute is my nightmare. two more weeks! we’re so close, y’all!

finally got the UVA waitlisted email too! got very excited (and terrified) to see an update but nothing new. glad that it’s at least official now.

yeah, also want to push back on the idea that a gap year will hurt your application! I graduated undergrad in 2017, and while it wasn’t exactly my original plan, I think it’s been incredibly helpful to take two years off. I’ve had multiple faculty members at my accepted schools mention my time away as a positive, actually, by suggesting that it must have helped clarify what I want to do (and it did!) and to go a step further: I haven’t done a single academic thing in these two years. I’ve been working full time in an office job with no connection to my academic interests, haven’t written anything more academic than my SOP, read...a little bit. ish. of course I’m sure people who spend their time off researching/reading/writing are in better shape than me! in an ideal world I would have done those things. I only want to mention this to emphasize that if for whatever reason you need to take a year off, it’s also totally okay to focus on your life. it’s fine to try other paths, or fine to focus on a job and saving money, or fine to just enjoy not being in school for a bit. anyway. if you’re reading this thread, thinking about something like the MAPH, and you’re worried that a gap year will hurt your application next time around: please don’t worry about that or let it be a deciding factor. the only “right” path is whatever feels right for you.

anybody headed to Vanderbilt this week or Rutgers the start of next? anticipation/nerves are steadily escalating now. can’t remember who else might be at either, but looking forward to meeting anyone there!

haha, very fair! I definitely know how this process makes the most irrational things make perfect sense. pretend I said nothing, then! schrödinger’s waitlist.

did you email? several folks in the mysterious-silence boat reached out the other week and found out we’re on a “semi-finalist waitlist” (whatever that means!). presumably the same for you and they can confirm! the DGA seems very friendly and is quick to reply.

ha, thanks for taking one for the team! can’t wait to see the thread fill up with decisions! I’m not so much as close to close to one yet, but super invested in everyone else’s anyway

imo it’s totally appropriate to do so - I got advice along those same lines from a professor when I expressed some waitlist stress, she encouraged me to ask questions and to let them know it would be helpful in evaluating my options. I haven’t actually done so yet, so can’t speak to how it might go over, but it sounds to me like it would be absolutely fine. my two cents!

I don’t think you need much more than that! when I did, I wrote something like “I’m an applicant for X program and I’m writing to see if there might be an update to my application status. my name is X and my application number is X. thank you!”

meanwhile.... waking up this morning to discover that the first thing I did after getting home last night was get on gradcafe and post a MAPH screed seems to be definitive proof that applying to grad school has permanently broken my brain

it’s about to be 3 am and I’m more than a little tipsy (A LOT! very much so!!! absolutely sloshed my friends) so take this with a grain of salt, but I’m feeling emotional about this and I would strongly encourage anyone considering the MAPH to... not. unless it works for you due to outside financial circumstances. especially do not take out loans for that degree. you - anyone considering this - you deserve more. your value is so much higher. it will not give you any advantage that you couldn’t get from taking an extra year to research and write and figure things out on your own (I’m about to be two years out from undergrad and have desperately wanted to apply since then and couldn’t before now and, you know, it wasn’t ideal, actually it sucked a whole lot, but the time away only strengthened my application - didn’t make things worse - waiting until next year is truly not the worst thing at all). beginning your academic career with enormous debt will do nothing to benefit you, and it’ll be this weight hanging over you for so many years, especially if you already have any undergraduate loans (like me!). I know it feels like an honor in some ways to be accepted by any program at a very prestigious school, but think of it as a vote of confidence that means you do not need their program in the first place! and think about how much you’ve learned during the application process, that’s honestly the most valuable thing you could bring into another round. tbh i’d do so much differently if I did this again and it’s nothing I could have learned in a masters program. I’m sure I’ll come back to this in the morning (the real morning) and cringe a lot because I am Out Of It lbr but I also know I’ll stand by the main idea, which is: know that you deserve better. nothing they can give you is worth debt. maybe it’s right for you, given personal circumstances, but if it’s right for you, you’ll know. but don’t let them profit off uncertainty. it might offer benefits, sure, but they don’t outweigh the negatives and they aren’t much different from the benefits you could add to your application on your own outside of their ridiculously expensive program. take the acceptance as a compliment but not as your only option. not sure how coherent this is but. anyway. that’s my take.

same offer, same feeling. just ridiculous. felt good to fill out the decision survey and write the polite, respectful version of "y'all are out of your damn minds."