tacocat211

This was posted on the Phil board and I think it may also be relevant to us here. I'll preface by emphasizing that, of course, we should all take our time and make sure we are confident and certain with our choice of program. But if you've been accepted to a few places, and you know which are your top choices, help out those waitlisted out there and decline the offers/remove yourself from the waitlists of the programs you're certain you won't want to attend. Declining is hard--we all put enormous effort into our applications and it may be difficult to let that go.  But we also all know the difficulty of waiting. And declining offers early to those programs you won't be taking has a ripple effect. Instead of thinking about declining as shutting a door, consider all of the doors you may open for other people!
Good luck ya'll, this is one hell of a process. 
 

Oooh, we should get @emprof to weigh in on this!

Ah, thanks so much for this advice! I hadn't considered the additional costs that me visiting might incur. I'll wait with fingers and toes crossed! Thanks again

Congratulations on your admission to your second choice, and I'll keep fingers crossed for you about UT! I understand the temptation, but I would advise against asking to attend the visit day if you weren't explicitly invited. Even though you wouldn't be asking for reimbursement for travel, there are costs associated with attendance in terms of resources, including food and beverages, logistical arrangements, and faculty/administrator time. Asking to be accommodated in a hosting schedule that is quite hectic, at least at my institution, might earn you some raised eyebrows at the least, and even some antipathy. If (and I hope when!) you are admitted, it would be perfectly appropriate to ask whether you could schedule a visit to meet with faculty in your field, tour the campus, and talk to graduate students about the departmental culture and atmosphere. Good luck!

What a day: rejected at Penn (not a surprise) but accepted to the University of Houston.

@amphilanthus
Yes I am happy we are here to reality check each other! what a wild ride this is. I'm really happy with the program I've been accepted to, but I would love to have had a choice/some funding leverage...

@tacocat211, @millw, @gloriagilbert: Hey all, current UT PhD student here. I'm not sure why the department hasn't updated the placement information yet, but hopefully that should happen soon. While all the standard qualifiers apply to the following statement (e.g. "the job market is tough, etc"), here it goes:
We have had several straight-to-TT placements in recent years, or at least TT after one year of completion. Generally speaking, UT fares better on the small-to-mid size universities, especially liberal arts schools, but if you're in the Rhet/Comp track you're likely to do extremely well, as UT is in the top three of that category and is generally well regarded, with lots of big names in that department. I would say that attrition is relatively common pre-MA; at least one person per year since I've been here has left after getting their MA, commonly due to losing interest in academia/not wanting to slog through the job market. Some have dropped out pre-diss defense but it is uncommon. 
My own feeling is that people who are fully committed to the job market typically end up coming out pretty well in lit (my field), with virtually almost perfect placement in the Rhet/Comp field (fewer of those students are accepted each year; it's something like 12-15 lit, 4-5 in Rhet Comp per cohort). I work in modern and contemporary dramatic literature, which is not a super robust field in literary studies on the comparative (in my experience looking for PhD programs back during my application season, when a department listed "drama" as a speciality of its faculty, it was typically a 60-90 percent Shakespearean subset of the professoriate), so I might have a harder time on the job market than some other fields, but overall I don't have anything above the typical sense of dread about the job market. UT is still a well regarded school with a large, respected faculty; it's a great place to study.
If y'all have any more questions specific to your field and interests, feel free to PM me. I can be more helpful if I know specifics about what you're working in.

The GREs are kind of a strawman argument. Half of us say they’re more important than people say, half of us that they’re less. Ultimately, all arguments dismissing them are anecdotal (“look, I had X and I got in, my friend had X+1 and didn’t”), but whenever people seemingly in the know come around they suggest that it’s dairly important (which admittedly is also anecdotal). Seems like professors know it’s bullshit but administrations value it. Administrations have the money so my takeaway is: get them as high as you can without sacrificing your meal ticket (SoP, WS) to give yourself the best odds.

I, too, applied to direct admit programs straight out of undergrad and was rerouted to the MA program, and I think it was the best thing that's happened to me in my academic career. I was NOT ready for PhD level work straight out of my BA, even though I thought I was and even though I wanted to get through school quickly. Doing the MA (or really being forced to as I was technically a PhD shutout) really allowed me to both expand and focus my interests, improve myself as a scholar, and really learn how to grad school. My MA came with a TA-ship, no funding otherwise. I have accrued some debt, but not much. I did not have any debt from undergrad, and plan to attend a fully funded PhD program now, so my only debt comes (minimally) from my MA. For me, having the MA experience (though unintentional and not what I wanted at the time) was seriously the best choice for me. Would I have rather attended a fully funded MA program? Hell yeah. If I could have 0 debt, that would be amazing. But don't be afraid to attend an MA program after being a PhD shutout this cycle. Apply to MA programs that have later deadlines/are fully or partially funded is my advice. Taking the time to do my MA first changed my scholarly (and really my entire) life.
 
Edit: Haha, didn't realize you weren't English. I still stand by my advice, though I'm not sure of exactly how your field's grad school process works.

Thank you! I started to suspect I was accepted when, out of the blue two nights ago, I started receiving emails from a UPenn listserv... 

See guys? Yale procrastinates, too. Stars: they’re just like us! 

I was keeping my cool really well for the past three days and now I am too hyped. I need these three final results please!!
I have started writing research proposals for three programs/projects in the UK and Norway and am having trouble throwing my heart into that without knowing for sure.... AHHHHHH! 

GOT ACCEPTED AT UPENN! I'm still in disbelief. Got a phone call from the DGS, so seems like UPenn isn't closed today after all?

a Philadelphia area code called me today and i nearly fell off the elliptical because i thought it might be penn somehow. answered huffing and puffing and it was a job i applied to saying they wanted someone sooner than may. either way it was embarrassing.

i feel like i’ve learned so much since submitting my applications (two of my classes this semester are HEAVY rhetorical/digital rhetoric theory). i wish i could convey that to the adcomms, like hey, i’m actually a little bit better now than when i submitted my apps PLS ACCEPT ME

i feel like i’ve learned so much since submitting my applications (two of my classes this semester are HEAVY rhetorical/digital rhetoric theory). i wish i could convey that to the adcomms, like hey, i’m actually a little bit better now than when i submitted my apps PLS ACCEPT ME

I desperately want to hear back from my last few schools so I can start making decisions already. I feel like there's just a huge number of impending life choices waiting to crash down on my shoulders. Anxiety does not sleep and, apparently, neither do I.
Hope everyone's doing okay and managing the stress! We'll get through this one way or another. Fingers and toes crossed for each and every one of you!

i feel like i’ve learned so much since submitting my applications (two of my classes this semester are HEAVY rhetorical/digital rhetoric theory). i wish i could convey that to the adcomms, like hey, i’m actually a little bit better now than when i submitted my apps PLS ACCEPT ME

Yes! And perhaps even more importantly: if you know you *don't* want to come (i.e., you've been admitted to a school higher on your list), it's so helpful to know that ahead of time! Sometimes, knowing in advance of the April 15 deadline is what allows us to admit someone from the waitlist. So please don't postpone replying "no" once you know. 

I'm a fourth-year PhD at Ohio State.
Has your PhD so far been what you expected it to be?
The first two years were about what I was expecting and looking for. The seminars I took were, with a couple exceptions, fabulous and interesting. Reading for comps was even better -- I felt like I could finally do what I'd come to do, namely, sit and read wonderfully intricate, complex literature. The last couple of years, after I reached ABD, have been more difficult. I had a major "fuck this pointless shit" moment after my comps, and didn't do anything for a solid six weeks afterward. Morale has improved somewhat since then, and I've enjoyed working on my dissertation when I give myself the time to sit down and work on it. But the isolation and lack of motivation can be difficult. When you're in coursework or studying for comps, those things come from outside: you are around other smart people, and in order to keep pace, you push yourself to keep up with or exceed others. When ABD, in the absence of those things, you just have to train yourself to work regardless of motivation and the nagging suspicion that what you're doing doesn't matter. Overcoming that anxiety is half of the battle. And, to be frank, I wasn't prepared for the shift toward a structureless work life. It took me the better part of a year to write my first chapter, and far more time was spent on those process issues than the actual ideas of my chapter. 
What are you impressions of your program?
It's okay, though not fantastic. The size of the program makes it very easy for a painfully introverted person like me to be more or less anonymous. The department is so large that you will know a fraction of the people in it. If you come in with an MA, there's a good chance that you might get lost in the mire, because you're out of coursework so quickly that you don't have the time to build connections with faculty and other grad students. 
Has anything about your program surprised you?
The general lack of active interest people have in you or your project. They're willing to help you if you seek it out, but no one is concerned enough about you to "touch base." It can be easy to fall through the cracks. 

How are you feeling in general about your experience?
Not great, though I think that has less to do with my experience at OSU than my general sense that graduate education in the humanities is kind of a shit show. It's unconscionable how many admits programs make, knowing full well that a small fraction of them will get the jobs that they're all working toward. That's not right, and the pollyanna-ism that supports it ("You have got what it takes to make it! Your project is especially great!") is both pervasive and unbelievable, given how otherwise intelligent and aware of structural/systematic problems faculty are. 

Have you found your research interests changing?
Yes, of course. Your interests should change, because when you enter grad school, you really don't know much about what professional literary study involves. Personally, I found myself moving from the study of rhetoric and logic to premodern ecocriticism, the subject of my dissertation.  

Are there any hardships you've faced that you want to share?
I've already mentioned the isolation and motivation issues above, and to that I'll add crappy interactions with others. Don't get me wrong, there are a number of great, super cool people in grad school—other grad students, faculty, and staff. But there are also a lot of assholes in grad school, especially professors, who can be aloof, callous, and simply rude. Because I had such personable professors in undergrad, I wasn't quite prepared for the lack of "humanness" coming from some faculty. And, of course, this isn't meant to be an absolute statement. But the bad interactions seem to stick out more memorably than the good ones, unfortunately. 
How about any successes you'd like to celebrate?
Institutional fellowships, well-paid internships, well-received papers delivered at national conferences. It's not all bad! 
I think my big question for current students is: what do you wish you had asked about or known when making your decision? Anything undergrads wouldn’t have the foresight to consider about PhD life when applying? 
I would have asked more pointed questions about money and the longer arc of the program and how it imagines its advisors to operate. For the first, I would ask more about the actual conditions enabled by the funding you receive. Does it allow you to do the things you enjoy outside of school? (To stay sane, you must have a life apart from school, some thing or things that have nothing to do with textual criticism or departmental politics or the eccentricities of this or that professor.) Are vacations out of the question with the money you earn? (Probably, but still worth asking.) What kind of apartment can you get with the stipend? Can you go out and do things socially with the money? Etc. etc. etc. In short, you just need to think about your priorities beyond your education, and try to get a sense of how the material realities of grad school will allow you to stick to those priorities. 
Regarding the second, I would ask current students about how things have changed over the course of their tenure. How is life different in the coursework period from the exam reading period or the dissertation period? How has your dissertation advisor's role changed in that time? Has s/he continued to offer the same level of commitment or guidance, or has their interest in you or your project waned over time? If you already have a solid sense of the literary period you're going to be working in, you might start asking about how individual advisors work with their mentees. Which are the people who can never find time to meet with you? Which are the kind who will go out of their way to oversee and develop your work? Who will be honest with you about your shortcomings? (This is really important -- you ideally want to find someone who is both kind and honest. Many can be brutally honest, and many—most, even—will be too chickenshit to tell you when something sucks and why.) 
---

I'm in the second year of an MA/PhD program.
Has your PhD so far been what you expected it to be?
The first and most important difference is that the universe is much smaller than it was during undergrad -- I don't interact much with anyone outside my concentration, much less the English department. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the weird, freewheeling years of knowing everybody on campus are definitely behind me. 
Other than this, honestly, I don't remember what I thought grad school would be like. 
What are you impressions of your program?
Uh
I think that everyone in my program is a genuinely good person who is doing the work that we do because they think the world is better for it. 
I also think that they care deeply about the success of other people in the program. I don't know if I answered this question right.
Has anything about your program surprised you?
The amount of free time that I've had to schedule myself has been pretty massive. I know this is to be expected, but when you look at it and you're only on campus ten hours a week, after having a real person job and sitting at a desk for four times that long... well, it's strange.
The other thing is that, even though everyone in my program is really smart, nobody's, like, quoting Foucault at each other. We complain about overly opaque writing and heavy reading loads. There's no real need to present yourself as incredibly smart. We're all already here so we might as well be real with each other. At least, this is the vibe at my school.
How are you feeling in general about your experience?
pretty good.
Have you found your research interests changing?
Radically. Basically, when I came to grad school, I knew what I liked. Now, I know what the field needs and what I can do to help.
Are there any hardships you've faced that you want to share?
uhhhhh
it is sometimes harder than you'd think to find classes where you can write about the stuff you want to write about. this is probably because I'm still pretty early in the program. but because my concentration is small, there aren't a lot of classes. which sometimes means ending up in places you wouldn't expect. this is a good time to try new things, and new things can be good, but it can be a bummer when you don't have the chance to, you know, do the stuff you're trying to build a career around.
also (I keep editing this response as I think of new stuff, sorry). It is necessary, not just ok, but necessary, to build a life outside of your program. This doesn't necessarily mean a community if that's not your thing. But interests. Don't spend all your free time listening to podcasts about your area, or doing extra research. Do something else. Be a person in the world. You'll be much happier. 
How about any successes you'd like to celebrate?
going to my first conference in a few weeks!
I think my big question for current students is: what do you wish you had asked about or known when making your decision? Anything undergrads wouldn’t have the foresight to consider about PhD life when applying? 
When you visit, you want to know how people treat each other. There are SO MANY horror stories in grad school of students who double-cross each other, or advisors who give up, and stuff like that. I'd pay attention to how people treat each other, not just how they treat you. They know they're supposed to be nice to you. But if you pick up on really good communal vibes, that makes it seem like these people really care about each other, then maybe it won't be so bad spending seven years with them.
All of the stuff for finding faculty you vibe with and all that stuff... that stuff obviously matters. But in the day-to-day, you need your people. 
---
I'm writing here because I remember how I felt two years ago when I got that first offer. There was a snow storm and my workplace was shut down, so I was just sitting at home, refreshing my email. When the notification came in, I cried so much. I went straight to my friends' apartment and we ordered pizza and celebrated. It was such a great day. 
The thing about that day that I'm starting to realize was that it was exciting because I was going on a new adventure, and new adventures are exciting. And the validation of getting a yes meant so much. But now I look at that moment and think about how excited I was and, knowing what I know now, I think that I was justified in feeling that way.

Oh man for me the anxiety has only gotten worse. I had a dream last night that I was accepted to Penn and when I arrived on campus they handed me a mop and bucket and I was asked to clean the bathrooms... I then had the realization that they had accepted me to be... the janitor. ?

Waitlisted at Loyola!!!! Admitted to MA but waitlisted to PhD!!!! This is the dream school!   ahhhhhh! Email says they only had four funded spots this year!

Just got into Brandeis! Got a call from faculty member, still shaking...

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone here. It seems like a lot of other boards are distinctly unsupportive and sometimes downright hostile. I’m proud of all of us for creating a supportive as hell community in a very trying time. Y’all rock!