ChunkyMonkey

Yale Comp Lit!

Officially starting at Columbia in the fall! 

Princeton, here I come!

Has anyone done this exchange? I'm really curious about it but can't seem to find as much info as I would like. How feasible is it? Can you do it more than once (it seems like you can)? Is it more difficult at some schools than at others? Does it change the conditions of your stipend? 
If anybody has any info on this, it would be much appreciated! Hope y'all are having a peaceful decision season (or at least as non-stressful as is possible lol)

Just returned from the visit to a school I had booked before I was accepted to my top choice MA. It ended up being a really wonderful experience! I was nervous having conversations with POI's knowing that I would probably not accept the offer. However, I reframed these conversations to be less about asking specific program questions and more about their current research interests and what is exciting them at the moment. This led to fun and informative talks, a lowkey kind of networking. I post this just in case anyone is a similar situation to me. 

I love this thread b/c of the role reversal!!! So nice to see students doing the rejecting, for once

owo I did not know about this at all, and it could potentially allow me to work with some of the major POIs put other schools higher up on my list than Yale
thank u for bringing this to my attention ?

Has anyone done this exchange? I'm really curious about it but can't seem to find as much info as I would like. How feasible is it? Can you do it more than once (it seems like you can)? Is it more difficult at some schools than at others? Does it change the conditions of your stipend? 
If anybody has any info on this, it would be much appreciated! Hope y'all are having a peaceful decision season (or at least as non-stressful as is possible lol)

Spend a little more time editing your writing sample to specific page lengths, if requested. Two of my programs specified "approximately X" number of pages, and I was lazy and spent about 20 minutes cutting out parts without really making sure things made sense--they're the two programs I'm waitlisted at.
Conversely, if you do already have a writing sample (as it seems common to revise and edit something previously written), it's not impossible to put together a decent statement of purpose in a month or two. I only had a paragraph of my SoP written by mid-November, and I hadn't started much earlier. I took my GREs in September, put together a school list shortly after, and formally asked for letters in October (although I had previously mentioned grad school ambitions to my mentors and one had already offered).
While I do think it would have been helpful for me to get more eyes on my SoPs (I only showed it to two of my friends), everything was all right. Just a gentle reminder that it's OK not to draw out this process and make it consume your life--although this forum has been super, super helpful and supportive, it also has the ability to make you feel like you're not doing enough. 
If that is the case, I direct you to Warelin's post: 
 

Off CUNY's waitlist :') 

Those pre-visit nerves right before you get onto the campus are #real 

In off the waitlist at Loyola

There hasn’t been Playyyyyzure here in 25 years!

Not officially buuuuut I got a phone call with some preliminary good news  

How does anyone afford 60,000 for tuition + 30,000 for living expenses when most of the scholarships are 10,000 to 30,000?  It's jaw-dropping.

the bottom line is that there are fully funded masters programs and unless it’s necessary to go this year, it’s usually a wider financial decision to just apply again the next year (unless you’re personally wealthy). there’s no program an maph from chicago will get you into that people don’t already get into without having an ma at all. 

got accepted to chicago maph with $10k scholarship!

Are you trying to which stipends are livable wages for their respective cities? I used a few different calculators when I was doing that:
Living Wage Calculator - tells you the hourly wage needed to support various household sizes in different cities
Cost of Living Comparison - let’s you compare two cities. I used this to compare new city and current city, and also potential school cities to each other. 
Sorry if that’s not what you were looking for, though.

I haven't been in your exact situation but I did go to undergrad in the same West Coast state fairly close to where I was raised and pretty much all of my friends/family from the first 22 years of my life are still back on the West Coast. I was terrified of moving to the Midwest and experiencing seasons for the first time and being away from everyone I knew and loved and to be very frank, my first semester of grad school was awful. My grades were fine but I cried all the time, constantly wondered if I'd made a mistake, was terrified of speaking up in class, felt like I was missing out when all my friends back home would hang out, and missed Thanksgiving with my family for the first time ever. It was your standard impostor syndrome mixed up with homesickness. What helped me was being proactive about my mental health; as soon as I first started to feel like I was on the verge of a breakdown, I signed myself up for therapy sessions at the university health services. I reached out to grad students in my program and hung out with folks a lot to be able to feel like I was building my own network and home away from everything I knew. I got an on-campus job to be able to meet other folks outside of graduate school and to make myself feel like I had other stuff going on in my life besides academia. 
Now I'm about a year and a half into my PhD program and I am genuinely very satisfied with my life. Of course, I still have crippling fear and doubts about the state of the job market but when I look back and assess everything, my quality of life is good. All this to say, yes adjusting to moving far away from everyone will be really tough at first. It will probably not be immediately fantastic as soon as you get there but I encourage you to just keep putting yourself out there and trying to meet new people and build a community, in and out of academia. Take advantage of sunny winter days whenever you can and try to get outside even when it's cold — sometimes just taking a walk and looking at all the pretty snow puts things in perspective for me. Being far away has also made me value and appreciate my relationships back home a lot more; whenever I visit, I really try to make the most of it and let people know I appreciate them and just try to spend as much quality time with folks as possible. Now, I am glad I moved because I've grown a lot and I feel proud that I've managed to build a good life here for myself. Good luck with your decision making process! 

Just accepted to Berkeley!!! I had completely written off Berkeley as an implied rejection, and was bracing myself for a shut out, so try to stay hopeful friends. 

Is anybody else dreading this coming week? Yale is going to break my heart into a million tiny pieces (i came this close to blocking their emails so I wouldn't even have to confront the possibility of rejection lmao)

As a current student, and someone who has a lot of friends in many different kinds/feels of programs, let me try to answer as best as I can, re: what to think about when visiting:
You MIGHT click immediately with the campus/faculty/students. Or you might not. Neither one is (necessarily) an indicator of anything. You might not click immediately because you're nervous, or the students you'll get along with best weren't around when you were visiting, or because some people take a while to get to know. Or you may click, and then it turns out that that faculty member is actually fairly hands-off when it comes to advising, or that student goes on leave, or the one conversation you had turns out not to be indicative of any further connection. 
I have a friend who is super close with their cohort and faculty members. I have a friend who gets along with some of the people in their program, but not all of them, and isn't close with any of them. They're both very happy in their situations. I'm somewhere in the middle, and also happy. 
Remember, this is a professional situation: as long as you feel like you can get along with people, and won't mind shooting the shit for a few minutes before talks/class/etc... that's the main thing! The friend who isn't close with anyone in her program has a huge friend circle totally outside of the school, and thinks of being in her program as going to work (note: this is, of course, easier to do in a big city. If you're in a small college town, maybe care much more about potential friends). While I know not all of you are coming right out of undergrad, if you are, remember that grad school isn't necessarily an all-encompassing social situation like college is. 
A few things I'd recommend thinking about, during visits:
1. Do you think the conditions here will allow you to work as best as you can? Will the stipend REALLY work, or might you have to get some loans/work an evening job? Does there seem to be a lot of structure? Is there a grad student union? What's expected of you over summers? Ask current students about one thing that they wish they could change about the program. 
2. Rates of burnout and depression are really, really high among grad students. Maybe you're the sort of person who likes to put your head down and do nothing but work... but if not, what other resources are available to you, to help you avoid that? CAN you find friends outside of the university if you want to? Is going to live music important? Do you like being able to go hiking? Are you really into, say, yoga-- and is there a yoga studio around that you think you'd like? Don't forget that you have to be a person, too! 
3. What's the insurance like? Do you have any specialized medical issues that might be affected? For instance, I know two students in my program who had to switch off of the school insurance plan because medications they needed weren't covered/weren't covered well enough.
4. Think about not just "can I survive?" on the stipend, but what it will get you. What I mean by that is: will you have to live with roommates? Are you REALLY ok with not living by yourself for the next six years? Will you have money to go out to eat every now and then? Do you like flying to see your family often? Yes-- you're probably going to have to live tightly and compromise no matter what, but genuinely examine what things in your life that cost money add significantly to your happiness, and decide if they can stay there on the stipend you're being offered. 
5. If you're a woman (and this probably applies to PoC and queer folk, too!), ask other female (PoC/queer/etc) students about their experiences there. Is there some institutional sexism? Are there other students (or faculty) that they complain about? 
 
 
Anyways, just a few things to consider! Good luck to all of you in visits!

Current 2nd year PhD student at a flagship Midwest school here. This time a couple years ago, I was deciding between 4 fully funded PhD program offers and even though each of them would have been great places to attend, I basically have never regretted my decision to choose the school I'm at now. To be honest, one of the main reasons I ended up choosing the school i I did and I think a really important factor to take into consideration (if your programs are all pretty much ranked the same, which mine were — ranked around 20 on the US News Report, whatever that's worth and all generally strong in 20th/21st century American which is what I do) is money. By that I mean, of course, how much your yearly stipend would be and how much that actually is when you factor in cost of living. I chose a stipend where I don't really have to watch every single penny and dime I spend. I am actually managing to save money for retirement, which I would have never been able to do with another offer I received from a more urban school with a much higher cost of living. A lot of the grad students I spoke to at the more urban school had to take out second jobs and live with roommates to make their stipend stretch further. Of course, there is nothing wrong with living with roommates for some people and I actually do right but I think the crucial thing is that I have the financial option to live alone if I ever wanted to. I love the flexibility that my more livable stipend affords me — I can go out for drinks and dinner with cohort mates and not stress if it's going to ruin my budget; I can pay for a flight for a conference and still pay rent while I wait for the reimbursement to come through.
And that brings me to another reason why I think money is so important — I think it's important to suss out how much money departments have for things like conference funding, fellowships, summer support, etc. Again, at the more urban school I was considering, I spoke to grad students who told me the max funding they got for conferences was $300. At my current school, you get a minimum of $300 for domestic conference travel. Most students there also began teaching their first year; while this might be unavoidable depending on the offers you have, if you have any offers that allow you to be on fellowship your first year, I would seriously consider those. Everyone in my program is on fellowship their first year, which gives you some time to get adjusted to grad school without teaching responsibilities and also allows you to knock a lot of coursework out in your first year. While I do enjoy teaching now, having that first year to just focus on adjusting to grad seminars and life in a new city was immensely valuable. I don't want to harp too much on the money because obviously we're not in this field to get rich but not having to stress so much about money has been great for my mental health and quality of living. 
One last thing (this probably applies more to people coming straight out of undergrad, like I was, but may apply to those with an MA too): your research interests might change and it's good to suss out if there's several people in the department you might work well with. For example, I applied to the school I'm currently at to work with one superstar professor in my specific field. But my research interests have shifted as I've taken more coursework and while I'm still interested in my initial field, my theoretical investments have shifted so that the professor I applied to work with probably won't even end up on my prelims committee. Of course, you can't predict how your interests might shift but when I was visiting programs, my undergrad advisors told me to make sure there were several people I could see myself working with, just in case a professor leaves or your interests do shift. I was quite sure that I would stay a 20th/21st century Americanist throughout (and still am!) but I made a point during visit days to connect with several other Americanists in the department besides my POI. I'm glad I did because that meant I didn't freak out when my interests began to change and was confident that there were enough Americanists in the department that I could form a solid prelims committee. 
Relatedly, when thinking about advisors, someone's specific research interests matter less than you might think. Obviously you want someone who is well versed in what you're working on, but many of my peers have found that it's more important that an advisor's personality and mentoring style line up with what you want, rather than making sure your committee is interested in exactly what you're interested in. Ask questions about a potential advisor's mentoring style (especially helpful to ask dissertators/people farther along if you can) — do they answer email promptly? Are they often on research leave and difficult to get a hold of? Do they let you know of relevant conferences and fellowships to apply for? 
 
This is a lot of information and I know the decision process can be overwhelming. Feel free to PM if you have any specific questions about the process and good luck to you all!