goldenbowl

I can't really speak to the Universities -- but I think it depends on whether you're looking for your oustide-grad-school-experiences to be tied to the University or not. New Haven has much more outside of Yale than Princeton has outside of... Princeton, and there is plenty to do in the area besides the university itself. I think the locals would also appreciate students getting out of the bubble a little bit.

I grew up in Charlottesville, VA and have been attending undergraduate in Western Mass, so while I have not lived in either area I’ve had proximity to both. Im not really familiar with either school and you haven’t said anything about what each one offers academically. Purely in terms of city , I think that Boston is a much better place to live than DC/Northern Virginia. It’s a much more “academic” city, and I think you’ll be more likely to meet people with similar paths and goals. Networking wise, it’s probably better for most academic interests. You wouldn’t go wrong with DC though. What you lose from the network of universities located in Boston and Cambridge you gain from the availability of government facilities. Based on those I know who have moved/lived in both places, you might also be able to live more affordably in DC. If you are in Northern a Virginia though, be aware that DC is one of the few remaining US cities that retains the very traditional suburb to inner city dynamic, due mostly to the presence of wealthy government employees/contractors who work in the city but don’t want to live there.

Can Berkeley end this whole misery please?

I wanted to propose a bonding activity for all of us! I imagine that we all, well, read — and I’ve been wondering what books people have been reading — in and outside of our research— that have given us joy and pleasure through the application process. I’m collaborating with a friend of mine to teach a one-off class on formal analysis applied to Kafka, and I’ve been taking the opportunity to read all of the Kafka work I hadn’t read yet. I’m halfway through Amerika right now and I’ve been surprised to see Kafka be so light-hearted and humorous. It hasn’t moved me the way his other two novels did, but I’ve been enjoying seeing a very different side to his writerly personality.

Thank you so much for your advice, as its actually really helpful in assuaging my own doubts. Like you, I'm realizing over time that my anxieties are kind of ridiculous and this is an amazing opportunity for me . Glad to hear things are working out. I think we have similar moms! I am attending the open house in a few weeks, and part of my agenda is to ask about how fluid the relationships in the triangle are -- there is a professor at Duke that I really want to work with. There's also a partnership with Kings College in London, which has an excellent linguistics program. At the end of the day, I think I'm more still hurting from my Chicago rejection than anything else, and am having a hard time focusing on the positive.

I realize I made a post in the "decisions" forum when I should have checked this thread first, but I won't repost that here. Having said that, I agree that this thread probably needs a bump as people consider their options.

Hello, everyone! I've been dealing with a strange amount of catastrophizing and uncertainty about my graduate school situation, which is basically this: I applied as a senior year undergraduate to six English PhD programs, and got into one (UNC Chapel Hill-- I still haven't heard from Berkeley but I'm assuming it's an implied rejection). I received a stipend package and a fellowship to work in the William Blake Archive which is located there. My undergraduate thesis and much of my research interest centers around his work, and I was originally elated to hear this news. It also helps that Chapel Hill is in a relatively affordable area in comparison to many other programs, even if I have some anxiety about returning to the South and would prefer a more urban environment. I have been having some second-thoughts though. Not necessarily about the PhD, but more of a what-could-be kind of pondering. My top choice was the UChicago department-- which I know is a ridiculously tall order -- and I ended up being referred to the MAPH program like most rejects seemed to be. I have no desire to attend that program, but it has made me wonder what could happen if I applied again. As I've neared completion on my senior thesis, I already feel that I could produce a significantly higher-quality writing sample than the first chapter I submitted when I applied. I could also very easily boost my GRE scores much higher than they were. More importantly, I have become increasingly interested in applied linguistics over the course of this year as I have TA'ed a course on Discourse Coherence, and I very much want to continue to explore that in my work on the Romantics. All of the places I applied had strong linguistics programs -- except for Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill, however, has amazing opportunities in work with Blake and Digital Humanities -- which are both equally important to my research. Basically, my options are to accept the Chapel Hill program, or take a huge chance and live with parents for a year while potentially doing research-assistant work for my undergraduate thesis advisor, and apply for both PhD programs once more as well as research grants. Apologies if this post has been somewhat rambly, I really feel extremely uncertain at this moment. More scarily, I don't know if that uncertainty is rational or irrational.