cruel optimism

If Northwestern and Harvard are ranked similarly in your field -- say, they're both within the top 10 or top 20 -- I doubt that the ranking discrepancies you mentioned would matter that much in job searches. After all, there are already such few jobs in the market now that an Ivy degree probably no longer guarantees anything. Besides, 1. Northwestern's name is quite legible in academic circles, and 2. Search committees may be less impressed by the school at which you've attained your degree than the people/advisors with whom you've worked. (If academia is said to be nepotistic, it's largely due to the connections that one's mentors or dissertation committees can afford them.) In this sense, if you're confident that Northwestern's faculty are not just doing better or more current work in your field now, but also actively supporting their students in their job searches (this may be evidenced by their quicker placements), then I think you're in a good spot.

The University of Arizona has already announced that it'll be furloughing employees (including faculty). I'm not sure how many other universities will follow suit, but this almost definitely doesn't bode well for humanities funding in the coming years: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2020/04/17/university-arizona-furlough-cut-pay-employees-due-shortfall/5154742002/?cid=twitter_azcentral

If it's to anyone's comfort, I don't think there's any one particularly "right" way of approaching the SOP, given that I've received tons of contradictory advice from applicants, current grad students, and professors alike on how to structure such a tricky piece of writing. And of course, depending on one's own personal/academic trajectory, there are likely varying aspects of the SOP that one might like to stress more (MA students might more often discuss their conference papers/presentations; someone with an unconventional life trajectory might want to discuss their own experiences; a student applying with a concrete project in mind might have some of the details laid out, etc). I'd also like to point out that different programs — or even readers, for that matter — appear to have their own expectations and preferences (for instance, it seems like comp lit/interdisciplinary programs favour SOPs that read like project proposals, because the nature of their work tends to be more individualised), so it's quite hard to say for certain what the departments to which you're applying want, really. In any case, there are far more factors than the SOP alone that matter in the admissions process (writing samples, fit, availability of resources, and so on), almost all of which are out of our control for now, so let's just hope for the best!

Congratulations! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some waitlist movements for you!

To be honest, I don't suppose that you're expected go into such immense and lengthy detail with your answers in interviews (they tend to only be between 15-30 minutes after all), lest it sounds like you're droning on. It seems like a nod to the faculty members with whom you hope to work (and the possible connections between your research and theirs) is sufficient as an answer to a question as general as "why our department". If your interviewers were more curious about the specifics, I'm certain that they would've asked more pointed follow-up questions, so don't beat yourself up about it!

Just a heads up that some schools do call as well (often ahead of the official email). So, in short, we're now all reduced to being teenagers waiting by the phone for our crushes (or schools) to call.

Oh hahaha I just realised how terribly I misread your original post!! (I really should get some sleep and stop squinting at my phone without my glasses on.) It sounds like you had such a lovely chat with your interviewers, and based on your description of it, I think they're rather thrilled for you to join their department! Fingers crossed!

Oh, what do you mean by "based on their language" (since it's not a comp lit or non-english program)? (Unless you're referring to Old/Middle English? It does seem like medievalists tend more often to receive interviews from departments that do so selectively, and now that I'm thinking about it, I suppose the language component's part of the reason for that.) And thanks for your reply anyway! It does seem like they're interviewing those whom they'd love to recruit, but whose projects they want to know about in greater detail (in a good way), so best of luck with your application!

Does anyone have any idea of what's going on with Stanford? It seems like they're bringing back interviews, but the invitations seem to be rather scattered. Are they interviewing all shortlisted candidates, or simply doing what Columbia usually does (interviewing according to sub-fields, and usually only the candidates about whom they're still on the fence)?

I’ve observed from previous years that Duke Lit’s interviews tend to be particularly tough as compared to those of other schools — it’s as if if you weren’t grilled, your interview probably wasn’t a productive one. So, I think you shouldn’t feel so disheartened right now. I’m sure the way you experienced the interview was quite different from how the panel saw it. (On my end, I did absolutely trip up, but I felt that their questions were really useful in helping me think more rigorously about the finer details of my project.)

Thank you @caffeinated applicant @onerepublic96!! Also, this is for Duke Lit! I think they've just started to roll out acceptances for English, so best of luck to everyone!

@SheCyborg thank you so much!! And thank you, @digital_lime for that timely reminder. I was just on the brink of panicking while thinking about all the reading that I might have to do tomorrow to keep up (even just slightly) with everyone (I don’t know who’s interviewing me, still) on the panel. But you’re right, I should be alright with admitting that I don’t know as much, since the faculty clearly has YEARS ahead of me. So thank you, again, for that reassuring advice.

Duke interview. Am freaking out. Any tips? (I'm exceptionally horrible at interviews...)

It seems like there's been an uptick across most (R1? Ivy/ivy-adjacent?) programs, though I'm guessing that Yale's shocking statistic could perhaps also be due to the fact that their English department has only quite recently dropped their subject test requirement? In any case, this doesn't seem to bode well for me...

Just wondering who your POIs may be, since I realised we’ve several subfields in common (and I didn’t receive a doodle poll email either).

Congratulations to you both, and best of luck with your interviews! This admissions cycle is beginning to seem more real now that we're starting to hear back from schools. On a side note, @merry night wanderer, having read a draft of your SOP, I'd say that the good news is more than well-deserved!

i'm an english phd applicant and won't mind helping you look over your work, if you want! (just drop me a PM.)

a modest proposal: an updike reading group, in which we mostly gasp in disbelief and awe at how ludicrous some of his portrayals of women and sex are. ? i've been meaning to read that for so long, but i just haven't been able to drop by the bookstore lately. will definitely update you on how i find the book when i finally get to it (maybe this weekend?) one of my two greatest loves in literature, aside from woolf!! was there a particular volume that you enjoyed more than the others? and whose translation did you read, may i ask?

oddly enough, this does make me want to read his books more, even if it's mainly out of spite now, just so i can prove... his ghost(??!) wrong. ?

just came across a comment that rita felski made on twitter that i thought i'd throw into this discussion, since i'm interested to hear your thoughts on this matter. but first, for a bit of context: following aaron hanlon's tweet about how literary scholars sometimes don't "love" or are "fans of" what they study ("the analogy I often use is expecting a physicist to have a favorite particle and if they don’t you assume they’re unhappy"), there ensued a discussion on whether enjoyment is, or should be part of the point of literary studies. that is, if literary critique sometimes elides enjoyment (i know, this is getting into the very contentious territory of "critique vs postcritique"). anyway, what felski had to say on this matter was: "I think this is perhaps the key division among literary scholars: attachment to objects (which we share with lay readers) versus attachments to methods (which we don't). Perfectly possible to be attached to both, of course!" so, a few questions: 1. is our current debate on jargon-packed academic writing tethered to a sort of "attachment to methods"? (it would seem so, if we were to take into account how much the discussion was centred around theory/ideology, but i'm curious to know if there are other ways in which literary studies might seem, or be made opaque to lay readers.) 2. do we really not share the same "attachment to methods" with lay readers? and is it just me or is that a slightly elitist opinion? or, is felski simply being realistic about the situation? (i've always liked to have more faith in her so-called "lay readers," since i think it's rather condescending to believe that people aren't going to be interested in, or that they can't appreciate and work with more specialised methods. i mean, as literary critics today, it seems we're often being called to be "amateurs" in fields related to, but aren't exactly our own. someone working in the intersection of literature and law might, say, have to teach themselves about an entire legislative system, whereas someone whose work draws on STS might have to learn how to navigate scientific terms. we're always drawing on, and adapting methods from other fields for our own uses and interests — aarthi vadde and saikat majumar's recently published book, the critic as amateur would probably be able to speak to this better than i can — so i don't want to presume that "lay readers" don't have the capacity to do the same.) 3. to paraphrase aaron hanlon's reply to felski, does the end of lit study amount to aesthetic judgement or historical/critical knowledge? or, in other words, what is it exactly that we, in academia (contra, perhaps, the pop culture critiques @politics 'n prose mentioned), are trying to communicate to our readers?

ohh greenblatt, classic! though admittedly, i'm still experiencing a bit of greenblatt fatigue after encountering him So Much across so many of my classes at university. i'll probably get to Adam and Eve much later in the future, but like most of his work, it seems like a worthy read. what do you think about updike? i've always tended to avoid his books because of his reputation for misogynistic depictions of women, and because there were always other books that drew my attention more. but now that i've a bit more free time on my hands, i might get into his rabbit series (partly because patricia lockwood's uproariously hilarious review of his work in the lrb got me quiiiite intrigued).

haha, i remember that (i'd been lurking then), but it was merely a confusion caused by users who posted about their interview requests, but didn't specify if they had applied to duke lit or english. that was why i felt the need to clarify earlier, just in case the same happens again this year.

Bringing this thread back, now that we're done with the Dec 15 frenzy and will likely need to take our minds off worrying about Application Things that are no longer in our control. I've got Sara Ahmed's What's The Use on the top of my to-read list. What about everyone else?

oh no, they didn't do it the last cycle! i remember emailing them to check.

To clarify, it’s only Duke Literature that does interviews (and there tends to be two rounds, the second being part of their campus visit). Duke English doesn’t have the habit of interviewing, I think?