deka

Eleventh hour acceptance off the UPenn waitlist on Monday!! Grateful. 
When I got the news, I was stranded in O'Hare after having been bumped from four (!) consecutive flights standby following Sunday's surprise snowstorm. I can now cross spending the night in the terminal off my bucket list. Eeks. The moral of the story is that this amazing news almost, almost made O'Hare tolerable. 
I forgot my GC pword for a while, but I want to say congrats to everyone--no matter what acceptances/waitlists/rejections you're left holding at the end of the cycle--bc this process is brutal and can be so heartwrecking. Last year at this time, I was bracing for another tenuous year of adjunct teaching. Academia is something, but it is not everything. 
 

Accepted off the waitlist at UC Davis. First acceptance out of 5 applications. 

I accepted the University of Michigan's offer, PhD in American Culture. Feeling strangely ambivalent about it; it's a great program with tons of resources and I'm excited to begin the journey, but I do not like the location at all. Hoping to make the best of it as no offer had everything I was looking for.
Now to have a glass of wine. I'm relieved that this part of the process is over. 

NYU sending a pitch for a master's that's 70% out of pocket is something - worse when you ALREADY have a master's degree. PLEASE. When I pay $100+ to apply to a well-respected academic institution's PhD program I do not want them to then try to sell me things after rejecting me ?

Officially starting at Columbia in the fall! 

Hello! I'm finishing up my undergrad and ended up applying this semester. Unfortunately, my timeline was not planned out so well, so I ended up taking my general GREs in July and squeezed in my subject test in September. I wrote my personal statement over winter break in addition to working one of my jobs and doing another project - it was incredibly stressful. Despite the time crunch, I don't regret applying this year, and I was lucky enough to get into two of the programs I applied to. I would not have been able to take a gap year for a variety of reasons, but financial reasons were the most pressing. If I hadn't been accepted to programs this year, my plan was to switch gears and find a corporate job, with the possibility of revisiting the idea of grad school later on down the road.
Throughout my time as an undergrad, I have worked a variety of jobs, one of which was in the industry my English major has prepared me for. While the job was great experience, I learned pretty soon into it that the industry was not for me. That being said, over my three years there, I was able to pick up a lot about how the corporate world works, along with other essential skills for surviving in business. As a side note, I was home-schooled throughout high school, so I haven't really felt the "burn out" that I've heard many students talk about - but I could imagine that being in a traditional school for almost two decades would make one feel the need to take a break before jumping into another 6-8 years of study.
Overall, I definitely see the benefits of a gap year. I'm very happy that I applied during senior year, despite how incredibly stressful it has been. However, taking a gap year would probably help mitigate some of the stress you'll already be feeling during senior year. I would strongly suggest considering the stress and anxiety that's caused by applying while you're in undergrad, because it can take a major toll on your health.
I know that my experience is anecdotal, but I hope that hearing a variety of experiences helps you make the decision that's best for you.

It's not just about the applying. It's also about the doing. Are you prepared for seven (or more) years of education after finishing this stressful senior year? When you land in grad school three months after finishing undergrad school, will you be ready for a marathon almost twice as long as your undergraduate career with a less clearly-defined social structure and fewer institutional supports? Do the schools you're applying to offer deferments in case you want to take the break?

I took a few years off and I think it's the best decision I ever made. I really highly recommend going out in the world and working a little... I don't know your life experience, but if you haven't held down a full-time job, I think it's an important thing to try before you commit to being a professional student. It really changed my perspective on time management, labor, problem-solving, teaching, basically everything. I think I'm a much better grad student for it.

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

@Bopie5 congrats! Currently at Villanova, it’s a really great program with wonderful faculty. You might want to look into Jean Lutes and Travis Foster (if you haven’t already). PM me if you have questions, or want to see what courses are being offered (if you haven’t received it already). Congrats again and good luck on funding!

In a change of pace from the US applications I was accepted to Hong Kong University with full scholarship! ? I’m almost in shock.... 

Thanks for all this sound advice. 
So as an update, I was pretty much committed to Duquesne especially after reading all this, but then Wake offered me a $10,000 stipend... And after talking with students there, no one seems to be going further into debt, and they have time to work part-time jobs to make ends meet pretty comfortably. Duquesne is still offering more money, but the program seems more rigorous at Wake (based off of my perhaps faulty one day visits). There are professors I like and share interests with at both places.
Oh the conflict!!

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

Yale Comp Lit!

I have.... worse GRE scores than yours, and the program that I'll likely be attending is the ONLY program to which I applied that gave a crap about GREs...and I'm still accepted with full funding. I was told my CV and writing sample/SOP literally negated my crap scores.

It's very positive. We have this going on in my program now with a few different subfields. It often means that the program is trying to create programmatic emphases that showcase particular faculty. It might also just mean that a particular faculty member has spent a few seasons on the adcom. 
As a sort of lone wolf in my program in terms of interests as my work doesn't overlap substantially with anyone else's, it can feel a bit isolating. I'm a bit envious of people who can form clusters and share reading lists and things. I mean, everyone is still my friend and all, but when you share a subfield you can share more professionally and intellectually.
Also, you're so early on and your project is so protean that by the time you defend your prospectus you might be in a totally different subfield.

Another thing to consider: When I was applying to programs I had similar anxieties about one student seemingly combining two fields in the same way that I want to do. But when I emailed them to ask them a few (unrelated) questions and mentioned our similar interests, they told me that their profile hadn't been updated since they started the program. So the info stated on the website was a bit outdated, as their research project had taken a different shape since then. So. I wouldn't stress too much about it -- projects change. Yours likely will, too. 

Could be either.  However, I tend to look at it as a positive.  It's a way of showing that the faculty at that school support that area of research.  

@KennethBurked which programs are you considering? Which programs do you want to apply to but maybe feel out of reach? (I know a bit about new media and game studies programs)

Sure--It feels like it might be an open secret at this point! I'd been warned of tokenism by one of my POIs at another school (who had actually gone to Michigan), and it was also evident upon meeting the cohort and faculty. The admitted student group was not very diverse and neither were the current students or the faculty; as a POC it felt like I would struggle to find a place in the department, and this was emphasized when they had a separate diversity panel. (I appreciate that they are putting in effort to making sure everyone's voices are heard, but it felt segregationist and forced.) 
In my own personal experience, I had a bad encounter with a POI. I also heard secondhand from another POC admit who experienced something similar. Some of the students talked about having to lodge a formal complaint against a racist professor the previous semester, too. The visit was only two days, so I can hardly imagine spending five or six years there. 
That said, this is really only my own personal experience and I don't want to dissuade anyone from going there or applying in the future. It really is a very strong program, and the current students that I met there were very welcoming and seemed happy (including the ones who needed to lodge a formal complaint!). 

Is the visit just one day or does it stretch out so they have you there on the 15th? I just have this image of them saying, "No, you can't leave until you tell us if you're coming!"

Absolutely 100% talk to the department / the chair of graduate studies / whoever sent you the congratulations email. Tell them how you're honestly feeling and that the difference in stipends is making it very hard to attend Berkeley. They let you in because they really, really want you there. If Chicago's stipend amt and livability is making it difficult to impossible to choose Berkeley, you should let them know and see what they say.
 
Personally, I'm just waiting till the Chicago visit to decide... why is it on the 12th!!! It's torture!

It's looking like U Michigan for me, barring a status change on waitlists. 

ucsd! it’s a drag i hate the sun though

don't forget also that among their notable alumni is Richard Spencer ?

So, I am someone who is attending MAPH currently, and wanted to add my two cents:
1) The money issue is 100% valid. It costs a lot of money, and I would not have gone if I had to pay the full cost. I got a scholarship (for 27k - half the cost of the program), and I'm doing their new TLO second-year option (it makes MAPH into a 2 year program, with the second year focused on language study - the cost of the second year is 90% discounted, so comes out to about 5k). For me, this means that I ended up paying 16k/year. I had worked full time for several years before hand and had a decent amount of savings, worked part time during the program, and ended up with ~20k in loans, which is a lot less than what someone without those resources would have to take out; still, it's a lot of money. I don't think I can say if it's worth it to take out more loans than I did, or even as much as I did - it depends on your own situation. I don't think I would have gone if I hadn't gotten the larger scholarship – because of the financial burden, not because of the quality of the education. Fwiw, the TLO option gives you an automatic 5k grant to use on summer language study (which is more than enough to do a full intensive summer study abroad program, flights and all). You apply to PhD programs in your second year, having already finished your thesis, made connections and found recommenders, and taken a year's worth of classes – this avoids the gap year issue.
2) MAPH, like any unfunded MA program (which are way more numerous than funded ones), is of course a cash cow for the university. That doesn't mean that you don't still get something in exchange (a UChicago education). You pay for your undergrad, no? 
3) Like anything else, the program is what you make of it. If you want it and you work for it, you can squeeze every penny's worth out of UChicago, and get a great education. You have full access to UChicago resources, faculty, facilities, events, and grad student career counseling. I have worked with some of the most brilliant people I have ever met; I went to a highly-ranked state school for undergrad, and the pedagogy at UChicago is just leagues beyond what I had experienced there. I am leaving the program working and thinking on a level I never even imagined I was capable of, speaking 2 new languages, and starting my PhD at Northwestern in the Fall. 
4) The part about professors not caring about MAPH students is pretty bullshit. I did not have a single experience in which I was made to feel less important. My advisor, who has many PhD students and is a top name in their field, gave me a lot of feedback, time, and advising. I never felt slighted. There are, of course, exceptions, and some professors will say that MA students in general are not allowed in their seminars. Just go to the first day of class, say something smart, and ask the Prof. after class for permission to take the class. The one time this didn't work for a student, they petitioned the professor with help from the MAPH admin and the prof. opened up the course to MA students.
You are treated the same way the PhD students are treated, and it is pretty universally recognized among the professors that the MAPH year is significantly more intense than the first year in a PhD program (this is true – full course load, a thesis, performing at a UChicago level, and adjusting to a new place in one year was really, really hard). I have seen many course descriptions that say "MAPH students are welcome", and have heard several professors express that they quite like working with MAPH students and advising MAPH theses. 
5) MAPH is a really, really expensive way to realize you don't want to get a PhD. Unfortunately, that is something that a lot of people figure out while they're here. If, however, you realize that you do, in fact , want to get a PhD, MAPH is an absolutely excellent way to prepare for further graduate study. Performing on a UChicago level means you'll be able to perform almost anywhere else (in this regard, this school is kind of ridiculous, but that has nothing to do with maph). The MAPH office provides you with a ton of support and professional training, as well as teaching you what it takes to actually be a professional scholar (i.e. PhD student, professor, etc.). This is important: I re-read my SOP from when I applied originally (shutout, except for MAPH), and realized that I didn't understand the exercise at all - I had no clue what grad school was really about. Being at MAPH gave me a much clearer understanding of the field, and made my applications this round a lot stronger. 
6) This year, it seems that about half the people in the program applied to MAPH *directly*. There are many students in the cohort who went to T1 schools for undergrad (Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, etc.) These things make me suspect that MAPH's reputation is increasing, because the program does turn out some incredible students, who are also being placed well: many of the MAPH alum I know have gotten offers to phenomenal PhD programs, both T1 and T2, as well as great jobs in the pubic humanities, publishing, the art world, etc. 
7) It is shitty and elitist and snobby, and it shouldn't be this way, but a MA from UChicago opens a lot of doors and gets people's attention. That's just the way it is, because people who are on ACs know and respect the institution. Yes, it is a matter of 'prestige', which for some reason people seem to think is negligible in this process... while prestige doesn't guarantee you a spot in a PhD program, it does make people pay attention and really read your dossier, at which point it is really dependent on your application materials. Not to mention that UChicago recommendation letters are a really big deal, and carry a lot of weight.
? As some other people have mentioned, yes, you can of course get into PhD programs without going to MAPH, but it definitely makes it a lot easier, and you learn a whole lot in the process. If it were up to me, MAPH would be completely funded – it is so shitty that MA programs tend not to be, especially in an admissions environment where it seems that having an MA gives you a leg up in your PhD applications.
tldr; MAPH is expensive, but the quality of education you get is excellent; you get what you paid for, if you work hard for it, just like anywhere else. Academia is fundamentally elitist and exclusionary, but if you're trying to be in it, UChicago opens up doors. 
ok, that was more like 7 cents. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions!