digital_lime

Yes.

I still haven't heard back from either of the schools I'm waitlisted at, and it's past business hours at both institutions... anyone else having the same experience? I assume this means bad news, but it's really impossible to tell.

I don't have any data to back this up, but it seems likely to me that a Ph.D. from a Harvard or Yale would get you a lot further on the alt-ac market. HR directors with BAs might not know that the University of Michigan, for example, is a top-tier school that is a peer institution of the Ivies, but they'll certainly understand that Harvard is impressive.

Wow--my hot take on this was bombastically, unbelievably shitty! Oops! I'm going to thoroughly wash my feet with hot water and soap for at least 20 seconds before inserting them into my mouth. Stay safe, everyone, especially those who work in retail/other jobs that aren't able to be done remotely.

Finally rejected from Fordham! That's the end of phase one for this year's applications. Now I pray to the waitlist gods. How nerve-wracking.

I'm in purgatory too! I assume this thread might be a little barren, since by definition we don't have much news to report. I still haven't heard back from Fordham, but am thinking that because there are both acceptances and rejections on the board, and because waitlist notifications have tended to go out after acceptances and rejections, I may be waitlisted. Which would be cool!

Congratulations! I see that you're a medievalist, and can only hope that any Americanist acceptances simply haven't gone out yet!

I'm not a medievalist, but I go to a program with lots of them. They all seem to have a very high opinion of the medieval studies program at Fordham. I haven't heard anything about UW, though, so it's hard to compare. If it were me, I'd go to the school at which you believe you can produce the best scholarship. In terms of getting a job, prestigious publications will matter significantly more than the U.S. News ranking of the program.

Anyone want to claim the Fordham acceptance on the board? 😬

Edit: I accidentally posted on the wrong thread! Congrats y'all!

The news cycle is designed to induce, then monetize, feelings of anxiety. Your fears about the coronavirus are likely at least partially a result of your being emotionally manipulated for profit. If you're not traveling to China or Iran, the chances of your contracting the disease are extremely small. (The coronavirus has already reached my university, and nobody seems to care.) Even if you were to contract the coronavirus, there is an 81% chance that you would experience mild symptoms and then recover. The virus almost certainly won't kill you unless you're 80 years old or older, which I assume is not the case. If you are young and relatively healthy, and you have access to sufficient hydration, medical care, etc., you would likely be fine even if you contracted the disease. The virus hasn't killed anyone in the U.S., and there is likely no reason to believe that you would be the first. If you're worried, you should take care to wash your hands with soap and hot water reasonably frequently. Right now, the coronavirus does not pose a serious threat to your health and long-term well-being. I imagine that the anxiety you're feeling about the coronavirus might have multiple causes. I hope you're able to address every possible cause of anxiety: are you well-rested? Are you eating enough? Is stress from school or work contributing to these feelings? If you have a prescription for anxiety-managing medication, are you taking it? You're lucky to have the opportunity to go on these visits, and I hope that worries about this disease, which are probably not justified, don't ruin your ability to have a good time and to make an informed choice about graduate school. In three or four years, you'll almost certainly have forgotten about the coronavirus, but you'll still be in whichever program you choose.

Thanks for your kindness, internet stranger. You brightened my day!

I'm going to post a quick rant, which I'm writing for cathartic/therapeutic reasons. Don't take anything in it too seriously. In office hours the other day, I let my thesis chair know that I was not having much luck this season. She made a remark to the effect of: "I regret having wasted the time writing you a letter." She phrased it in a comical way--we joke darkly with one another--so it wasn't as if she was intending to be hurtful. But it stung, because before now, I had only thought of how disappointing it would be for me if I were shut out--not that it would be a disappointment to all of the people who took time to write letters of recommendation, look over my writing sample, listen to me stress out, and so on. I've taken on some debt in the course of my MA; I've also worked harder and for longer than I ever have in my life (and I have been in some strenuous work situations; doing physical labor for sixteen hours a day six days a week actually didn't feel as difficult as some moments in my MA). This was the only goal I have been working toward for years--the prospect of getting shut out now makes me feel so foolish. I exhausted myself in full display of everyone I care about and respect and it's beginning to look as if I have failed nonetheless. (What's even more aggravating is the fact that so many "radical" scholars are putatively opposed to hierarchy, while the Ph.D. admissions process is so clearly an orgy of fascination with prestige. Academics, once again, show themselves to be all theory and no praxis. I was rejected by all of the prestigious schools I applied to and waitlisted by all of the less-prestigious schools I applied to, leaving me to wonder if the extreme lack of prestige at my current institution was a deciding factor in admissions decisions--unless, of course, my writing sample was precisely good enough to grant me access to one realm of academia but not the other, which strikes me as a rather unlikely scenario.) Edit: with an hour's time between me and this post, I can tell that there's a somewhat unpleasant element of ressentiment to the above post. Of course, if I get admitted off of the waitlist (or to Fordham, the last school I've applied to but haven't heard back from), you can count on a post from me to the effect of, "The system works!!!! If at first u don't succeed, try, try again!!" and so on. As Bo Burnham says, though, if someone wins the lottery, they're going to tell you to buy a ticket.

I got officially rejected by UVa! It's a bummer, but I expected it, since I made a mortifying typo in my personal statement. Just three more to go--and then, I'll be waiting to hear whether I get accepted off of any waitlists! So this process could drag on until April! I think I'm just learning to live with the uncertainty.

I've been going through some similar feelings. I'm on two waitlists, but that's no guarantee that I'll get in, and last week, I was in a bit of a "dark night of the soul" place w/r/t grad school and my applications. After thinking about it a bit, I feel much better. Here's what I've been thinking: I think that many of us who apply to graduate school have this idea that getting a Ph.D. is the only possible route to a fulfilling life. That's not the case, though. There are many ways to live a creative, intellectual, productive life that have nothing to do with the contemporary university--and there is also no guarantee that being admitted to a graduate program will provide you with a fulfilling or meaningful career. If you are capable of performing well in grad school, which it appears that you are, there is no reason why you cannot work on a nonfiction writing project outside of the university (unless, I suppose, your current job situation is so oppressive and all-consuming that you can't find even thirty minutes a day to devote to something outside of it). There's no reason you can't do citizen journalism, or start a small business, or a blog, or a series of video essays, or a zine, or a podcast, or whatever (and all of these can be just as intellectually rigorous, in their own way, as grad school coursework or journal articles). There are so many ways for you to be creative and express your ideas. Eventually, you might be able to monetize any of these endeavors and--perhaps slowly, but probably in less than the five to six years that a Ph.D. would take to complete--could start earning enough money to make it a full-time job. The job market for any creative endeavor is awful, but I don't think any of them are worse than the job market for humanities Ph.D.s. And the skills you've already developed in order to make yourself a competitive applicant would give you a head start in any of these endeavors. This is, at least, what I have been telling myself as I face the real possibility of not going anywhere. But it's made me feel significantly better about the prospect of not going to grad school.