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Hey folks -- Old Bill here, reporting in for the first time in several years. Now that I've finished my Ph.D., I figured I would weigh in on a few things I learned throughout the process in the hopes that it will help your decision about applying to graduate programs, or what to do if you actually get accepted to one.

First, a brief update on my experience. In a nutshell, I very much enjoyed the process of obtaining the Ph.D. I managed to do it in five years, though fair warning: I'm one of only two people in my cohort (which had around a dozen Ph.D. admits and several M.A. / Ph.D.'s) who got through it in that time. I think it's starting to become more common to take as much time as you have funding for, though my own personal circumstances (including a touch of "vaulting ambition," as Macbeth would say) caused me to want to finish in five years, no matter what. As of right now, I'm still not entirely sure what the next academic year holds, though I have secured adjuncting locally, which I'm fine with. I've had several interviews over the past six weeks, and that's apparently unusual -- it's more typical to not receive interviews until you actually have the degree in hand. But I think that may have more to do with a shift in employment expectations than anything unique about me personally.

Anyhow, thinking about the job market is something comfortably down the road for many of you, though I'm guessing you've already had a great many people tell you about how awful the academic job market is. They're all correct, of course. If you have a fairly limited idea of what kind of institution you want to work at (i.e. an R1 institution, a SLAC etc.), and are adamant you need to teach your special subfield (i.e. 18th century, literature and medicine etc.), you're likely going to face a lot of disappointment. I applied quite broadly -- to generalist positions at institutions of all kinds, ranging from R1s and R2s to community colleges to SLACs to HBCUs and others. Most of those were tenure track jobs, but some one-year positions and a few seemingly permanent full-time gigs were sprinkled in there too. To be clear, I was never indiscriminate about where I applied, but was instead open to a lot of options and adapting as needed. Out of forty-four applications, I've had four interviews (thus far), which has a yield of one interview out of eleven applications. And that's considered good! I say all this relatively personal stuff simply to highlight that you ought to be aware of what the situation is like before you even decide to draft those Ph.D. program application materials (assuming an academic job is your initial hope, that is). As for myself, I was quite aware of the state of the market when I started down this path, and nothing I've experienced has surprised me too much. Many of the folks I know who have burned out, disappeared, or otherwise turned against the very idea of an academic career have done so out of disillusionment -- not having a realistic sense of how the hard work of a Ph.D. (and it's very, very hard at times) doesn't pave a clear road to the seemingly glorious tenure-track position. So don't be deluded. You can spend five, six, seven years of doing this and be faced with poverty and no secure job prospects. That's simply true. The question is whether or not you are mentally prepared to do that, and whether the payoff is worth it (to you personally) in the long run. It certainly was for me, but in this I do have to admit I'm something of an exception.

Assuming you still want to go down this path ("no power in the 'verse can stop me," I hear you cry...), I just have a few tips that I didn't quite glean from GradCafe's heyday. First, program fit is important, but advisor fit is equally so, if not more. If you're in the enviable position of having multiple offers once your applications are out there, make a point of talking to as many of your potential advisors as possible. And here's a very, very, very important point: don't default to the person with the best publication record or reputation. That only matters in some rare circumstances. It is far more important to find an advisor who you vibe with -- someone who has the same kind of working style as you, or has the kinds of expectations of you that you want. And here's another related very, very, very important point. Hell, I'll even put it in all caps: YOU CAN ALWAYS CHANGE YOUR ADVISOR. This process inevitably feels terrifying when you're early in the program, but there are almost never any hard feelings on the part of the advisor, and it's exceedingly rare for them to be at all vindictive. I changed my advisor after my comprehensive exams -- part of it was due to fit over field (I'm a poetry person, my first advisor was not), but the other part of it was working style. My first advisor was a very top-down taskmaster sort, which worked great for a lot of his other students. But I realized that that style doesn't work well for me. I like more of a hands-off approach, and to feel that I can work on my own for a month or two with self-imposed deadlines rather than advisor-imposed ones. I switched to an advisor that was more this way, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed the dissertation process as a result. I did my own thing, reached out as needed, received a boatload of constructive criticism when I was ready for it, and never felt pressured or coerced. The moral of the story here is that your choice of advisor may be the single most important choice you make in a Ph.D. program. I put that in bold, because it's something I really never expected once admitted.

One other tip is something that I'd heard, but never really internalized: think about publication options early and often in your graduate career. You're going to start out green, of course...but literally everyone does. Once you've made it through a year of the program, you'll likely have a good sense of A.) whether you want to keep doing it, and B.) what, specifically, you want to focus on. Yes, I know that you'll enter the program thinking you already know your focus, but more often than not students switch it up. And that's to be expected. But publications are a key metric on the job market for most positions. I did manage to get a nice publication during the writing of my dissertation, but I do wish that I had been thinking more seriously about it beforehand. The jury's out on whether having a single academic publication will hurt me on the market, but whether it does or not, the simple truth is that more can only be helpful (and ignore people who tell you it's too early -- editors and reviewers will screen out substandard work; let them be the ones to do it).

This post is getting long, so I'll just end with this little suggestion that I'm sure is going to sound impossibly twee: approach the academic path (from applying to Ph.D. programs to your scholarship in one and beyond) from a standpoint of joy. I'm not trying to Marie Kondo you here, or spout toxic positivity, but my observation is that a large portion of success and well-being in academia is attitudinal. There are many bitter academics out there who don't seem to love what they do. Resist that. It doesn't have to be the norm. Moreover, most of the academics I have gravitated toward do love their work and their students. Approaching this from a standpoint of joy simply seems to work far better than from a standpoint of "struggling through" or "grinding away." Find what you love about the process, and embrace it.

Hopefully this is helpful to some of you! I know GradCafe isn't as populous as it used to be, but I'm guessing there are still enough lurkers to make a post like this worthwhile. Be well, folks, and good luck in your academic journeys!

So, I have debated whether to weigh in here. I see a lot of merit to both sides of the debate here ... but my own perspective is very much colored by my own experience. In terms of these debates, I can never come down on one side or the other. Tl;dr: People need to just do what's best for them.
Long version:
I am one of the few people who made it through a lower-ranked program, spent a gazillion horrible years on the job market while a VAP, secured a tenure-track job ... only to lose that TT job when the pandemic began and my university had to make "significant cuts." Last hired, first fired, all that jazz. And I'm not the only one I know who lost a TT job last spring. You can make it all the way and grasp the brass ring only to have it taken away because universities are currently in love with austerity measures and out-of-love with the humanities.
I currently have a nonacademic job doing something else entirely. I don't call this an "alt-ac" job. In fact, I don't really see any merit to calling it anything other than what it is. It's a job. It pays the bills. In fact, it pays me far, far better than anything in academia ever did and--get this--gives me more time to write. I actually have more time to write now, while making more money, than I ever did as a professor. 
I have a feeling that I'm very lucky in that sense, though. I was lucky to land this kind of job in the middle of a pandemic. While I might have been extremely UNLUCKY on the job market, I lucked out in other ways. 
To give more of a rundown:
I come from a working-class background. I didn't go to grad school right out of college. Instead, I worked. I worked at the kind of "soul-sucking" jobs I see that other posters have already described here. I HATED these jobs. Going to grad school was my escape hatch and something I really idealized. I felt that my talents were being wasted in the ordinary working world, and they were--but so are everyone else's. 
I struggled just to get into grad school, and it took me a couple years. I had very few mentors to guide me along the way. My undergrad institutions did not open doors at the best programs. But once I got in, I thrived. I LOVED grad school--all of it. Most of all, I loved the research/writing aspects, which are highly important. 
I think part of what made me successful in grad school was the memory of the "soul sucking" work I'd done beforehand. I didn't want to end up back in that kind of job. Whenever grad school got bad--like my prospectus got shot down for the fifth time, or I got humiliated at a conference--I reminded myself that my life was so much better than the alternative I'd already experienced.
Other than going to a school that wasn't well ranked, I did everything "right" in grad school. I published. I won paper prizes at conferences and from journals. I got research fellowships, etc. etc. But for me, the job market was a brick wall. I came in second or third a few times, often losing to someone who was better pedigreed or younger or had an "Mst" from Oxford or was just a better "fit" or whatever ... In any case, I spent way too long on the job market, and those were the worst years of my life.
After being laid off my academic job, I discovered that finding a nonacademic job was surprisingly easy. This goes against what a lot of others have said here, and obviously YMMV, but I got a lot of interest in my resume and had many job interviews (even in the pandemic!) sometimes because of my PhD. Now, to be clear, part of that, I think, was because I had previous work experience. I'd already demonstrated that I knew how to show up to a job and work five days a week. I had other skills. I'd been successful in the workplace.
So that's one of my biggest recommendations: If you're considering a PhD, get work experience first. Any kind of "professional" type work experience will do. Your future self will thank you. A lot of people here are talking about doing internships during their grad school summers--that wouldn't have worked for me. I needed every ounce of energy to write my dissertation and finish my program while I was still funded. Many of you will also find the same thing is true. Getting a PhD is extremely grueling and takes everything you have. And teaching takes a huge bite of whatever energy you have left.
A couple other pieces of advice:
The job market is never coming back. It's just not. I went to grad school at the beginning of the Recession, and everyone talked about how it would turn around in a few years. It sort of did ... for a year. But not really. What happened was that universities discovered they could get by on less, pay professors less, and exploit people more. Even when the economy came back, universities didn't give a hot fuck. Instead of offering tenured lines, they transitioned to these endlessly renewable lecturer positions. (If you think you'll be happy in one of those once you're done, you won't. Trust me. They pay far less than a TT job and expect one to work much harder. You get treated like a second-class citizen in your department and have zero room for advancement.) 
My prediction is that the pandemic will have the same effect on universities. In the past year, they've figured out how much they can get away with in terms of online teaching and labor diversification. What I see for the future are a very small tenured few and a whole lot of everybody elses, teaching hybrid or online classes to students who figured out that they really don't need a brick-and-mortar to get the piece of paper, thank you very much. And I have to admit that I've been shocked, on some level, to see that people are still trying to apply to graduate school despite these conditions. When most of the programs are flat-out refusing to admit people, that's a sign, guys. They know that the party is over and the music has stopped. 
Going to grad school right now may indeed be really dumb decision. And if these programs were honest and ethical, most of them would have closed their doors already. I mean, my former PhD program isn't publishing their job placement statistics anymore, they're so bad. But they're still admitting people. I find this deplorable. 
Having said that:
I don't regret getting my PhD. 
Yes, that's right. After everything. After losing my TT job in the pandemic, after all the years of exploitation and heartbreak and humiliation, I don't regret it. The experience of having gotten a PhD informs every aspect of my life, and the weird little world to which I was a party was interesting as hell. It gave me a new vocabulary to describe my current situation, which I surprisingly find a lot more bearable than I would have BEFORE I got my PhD. Yes, the work I do is currently very boring and unstimulating. But I'm not as rattled by this as I was in my 20s. Grad school taught me how to look for fulfillment elsewhere. I still write and just had an article accepted to a major journal. I may finish my monograph anyway--we'll see. 
I do regret spending so much time on the academic job market. 
Seriously, give it two years, no more than three. Being on the job market made me a miserable person. It also doesn't get any better. My first year out, I interviewing for 2/2 loads at departments with graduate programs. My last year out, I was viewed as "stale" and tainted by my own VAP experience. (This is how academia thinks--if you don't land a job your first year out, you probably didn't deserve one anyway.)
Also, even though I refused to adjunct, I still allowed myself to be exploited by VAP positions. These schools act as though they're doing you a favor by paying you a salary with benefits. They're not. They're paying you far less and working you far harder than they are their permanent faculty. I wish I had seen this more clearly.
I wouldn't go to graduate school right now. However, no one would have been able to dissuade me from going to graduate school when I did. 
I think a lot of these discussions--in terms of convincing people not to go to graduate school--are largely pointless. People do what they want to do. I've never understood the point of trying to get people to give up on their dreams, because dreams are a highly personal, emotional thing. The me from 2011 wouldn't have been dissuaded from going to grad school regardless of how clearly the data showed I wasn't getting a TT job. Who in the history of the world has ever been persuaded away from such a personal decision by the existence of data? Getting married is usually a bad idea too, and we all have those friends who chose bad spouses, and the decision seemed obviously terrible to everyone looking on. Did they change their minds after hearing our objections? Seeing the data? Lol. Same goes for grad school. You have to experience it for yourself. 
The life of a professor is not all it's cracked up to be.
Others have already said this here, but it bears repeating. Yes, it's rewarding. Yes, it can be fulfilling. Yes, teaching is more interesting than churning out TPS reports. But it's also low-paying and very draining and often demoralizing. I worked far, far harder as a professor--for far less money--than I do now. Moreover, the academic life is one with a lot of roadblocks, in that you work hard for very little payoff. You spend all year writing an article, just to wait six months to get it back with snarky readers reports. You make all the changes the snarky readers wanted and send it back, just to wait another six months and have the article rejected anyway with even snarkier reports. Same with getting your book published. In no other sector did I sink so much time into projects for absolutely no payoff whatsoever (no money, nowhere else to submit, no credit toward anything, no "billable hours," etc.). 
It also goes without saying that academia has deep problems regarding equity and inclusion. I often got treated like a second-class citizen because of where I went to school--and that never stopped, regardless of how many awards I won or where I published. I'm actually glad to be away from that now, because it was just so damn toxic. I got so tired of having to justify my existence in a field that really didn't have any place for "people like me"--despite paying a lot of lip-service to the contrary.
So that's all I've got. And, oh yeah, Karen Kelsky is terrible at what she does for a living. Don't hire her.

Agreed with many points above re: the SoP. I'd also say put more weight on the WS. I always thought the SoP was the most important thing, but as it turns out, the WS is often what my AdCom and PoIs remember best about my application. It makes sense because people would latch onto things that resonate with their own work and that have concrete arguments and analyses. The WS is also where you prove that you are capable of doing the level of thinking and writing that you discuss in the SoP. 
I used my MA thesis, which was a good piece of work. I found it extremely difficult to cut it to the required length, because I wanted to include my introduction, which is long but includes a lot of theoretical and historical research that frames my argument. After seeking advice from a friend from my MA, who was very successful during their app cycle last year, I decided to forgo the introduction and used 2 chapters which analyzed 2 different texts instead. It was an agonizing decision but it worked out for me, as the WS ended up showing my ability to analyze different literary forms using different theories, while still containing some outside research. So my advice if anyone finds themselves in a similar dilemma, is to choose the writing sample that has more "close reading" than historical/theoretical framing. As I used an excerpt from a longer work, I put notes in the beginning of the WS to explain how it fits into my larger argument in the thesis.
Also, regarding prestige and whether to apply to Ivies: I wouldn't say anyone should not apply to Ivies simply because they are a nontraditional applicant or didn't come from a prestigious undergrad institution. If a school has multiple faculty working on the things you have done/hope to be doing, is in a location you want to live in, etc. and which is an Ivy, you should apply, as you never know what may happen. But I would also not apply to an Ivy school just because of their prestige. For certain fields/subfields, they simply may not be it (anymore). For example, my main field is postcolonial studies, and 2 of my recommenders went to Columbia and were students of Spivak. Both of them told me that I could consider Columbia but it's no longer particularly strong in PoCo, which I confirmed by scanning the graduate students' profiles besides the faculty's. Other top-ranked programs that are known for my field are UCLA, UPenn, and UT Austin, but the time periods that their faculty work on are different from mine. When I found NYU, however, it was a perfect match - strong in PoCo with a contemporary, Global South bend, and Robert Young is still there as the theoretical powerhouse. So really digging deep, knowing the state of the field, and looking at faculty's recent research, are very important for picking the right programs for your 1. theoretical frameworks and 2. time period.
Finally, apply to at least 8 programs! It is ultimately a numbers' game.  
 
 

Some tips for y'all--mostly made up of things I really wish that people had told me back when I was applying:
 
1 - Admissions committees often look to admit applicants who match up with their own interests or with the interests of faculty who have openings for new advisees.  Don't just look at who you want to work with.  Try and find out if they even take advisees.  Are they half a semester away from retirement?  Do they already have 15 advisees?  Are they the dept oddball who gets hidden during visit weekend?  Look at recent commencement info.  Most schools will indicate recent graduates and their advisors.  Those advisors may well have an opening.  So much of this is based on logistics as much as and even more so than pure talent on paper.
 
2 - People will tell you to apply to a range of schools.  I used to be one of those people.  You need to be thinking about your future job well before you even apply to grad school.  Do you want to get a TT job with a teaching load of 3-2 or less?  You need to limit your applications to top 10 programs. Yeah, there are outliers, but that's exactly what they are. Are you pretty sure that you want to go alt-ac after the degree?  Most top programs have NO experience in doing that, so much of the training they offer in that area will be woefully inept (I've even heard--refreshingly--a DGS at an R1 say that she's not remotely qualified to offer advice on pivoting out of academia).  You can't really change your institutional pedigree, so if you start at a mid-ranked school and then decide that you want to teach at an R1 or a SLAC, you have just given yourself absurdly lower odds of ever achieving that goal.
 
3 - Don't get all twisted up about the SoP.  Use it to give a clear sense of what you aim to do and why the people/resources at that school make it a good fit for your work.  Ask 15 people for advice on the "correct" format for an SoP, you'll get 20 different responses.  I went narrative in my first version.  A prof at my MA school told me that nobody cares about that stuff, and that "you are your project and nothing more."  So I revised to make it sound more Vulcan-esque.  My application cycle?  An admit and a pair of wait lists using the narrative SoP and an admit and a pair of wait lists using the Vulcan SoP. You can't predict how adcoms will react to things like style.  A style that generated acceptances one year might lead to rejections a year later under that year's different admissions committee.  Beyond making sure that you are conveying the info clearly (see 2nd sentence above), the rest is unpredictable and not worth stressing over. This goes double for the GRE, which most schools don't give a flying fart about.  
 
4 - The thing that IS worth stressing over? The writing sample.  Good writing is the universal greeting for grad school.  Someone earlier mentioned including an abstract.  That's excellent advice.  Other good advice--avoid the "biggies."  Are you a medievalist?  I guarantee you they don't want to see ANOTHER writing sample on the Canterbury Tales.  Find something interesting to say about a text.  Look to the top journals in your field for models to emulate.  Spend the lion's share of your time on that document. Spend even more on the first two and last two pages.  They may well be the only pages that get read, so make them perfect and make sure that your argument, methodology, and the stakes are stated clearly in those pages.
 
5 -  I was non-traditional (31 when admitted to PhD program).  If you are non-traditional, don't try to hide it, but don't shine a spotlight on it either.  People will say that emphasizing it will show all the things you've gained from those years of experience.  Your CV will do that.  There are schools who seem generally welcoming to non-traditionals (Indiana has a long track record in this area).  But the reality is that again--it's less about the school and more about the attitudes of the profs on each admissions committee.  If a school has one member of an adcom who is predisposed to toss non-traditional applicants in the bin, you likely aren't getting in there if your app makes that too obvious.  My own advisor, who was the head of the adcom the year I was admitted, had no idea how old I was.  In most cases, they aren't Googling you--they don't put THAT much time into each applicant.  Your age will never be the thing that gets you in, but it COULD be the thing that gets you tossed.  Don't emphasize it and don't apologize for it. TL/DR: Own your accomplishments.  They will be what gets you in. 
 
6 - Wait lists are WONDERFUL things.  Getting in off a wait list doesn't make you a lesser candidate.  Out of an initial cohort of 8, I was the only one admitted off the wait list.  I'm also one of the three who finished the degree (two are still dissertating), and only two of us ended up with tenure-track jobs (both with a heavy teaching emphasis).  Anecdotally, I've noticed that wait-list applicants in my old program tend to do better in the long run, possibly due to that anxiety that they weren't a "first choice."  That brings us to...
 
7 - Getting into a program is step one.  It's the starting line.  From that point forward, it is ALL about the hustle.  Build a network.  Start filling out your CV.  Don't look at seminar papers as "coursework"--look at them as first drafts of articles aimed NOT at your professor but at a particular journal.  Don't go to EVERY conference, but pick two (one regional and one national) to go to regularly.  Talk to people when you are there.  Get involved in committees and such.  We used to joke that you had to have the dossier of someone coming up for tenure just to get an interview for a TT job.  The job market was that bad.  It's about to get much worse.  You need to be ready to start the hustle from day one.  If you DON'T feel ready to do things like major conferences, networking, publishing, etc, then think about doing an MA first.  I did, for exactly those reasons.
 
8 - As PART of that hustle, build your CV in a way that shows you can wear more than one hat.  Teach/present outside of your main specialty in some way.  Do your thing and theory. Your thing and Digital Humanities. Your thing and Film. Your thing and one of its adjacent fields.  As schools get fewer and fewer tenure lines, departments are going to continue searching for candidates who can cover more than one area.  Build your CV with that kind of hybridity in mind.
 
9 - No matter HOW much you want that tenure track job, it might not happen, and it won't be because you did anything wrong.  The numbers are absurdly stacked against you.  I missed out on a job last year that was PERFECT for me.  It went to an Ivy candidate who was three years out from his PhD, had two prestigious VAPs, several journal articles and a book already published at a major press.  I would have hired him over me as well. I ended up with a TT position because I hustled from day one and I got absurdly lucky (a school that posted a position looking for my primary field with "preferred secondary interests" in literally everything else I do). Before that offer came in, I was already preparing to reach out to my alt-ac network. There will come a time on the job market where many of you will need to make a choice--toil as an adjunct for year after year, or walk away and refuse to be exploited in that way.  That's a very personal choice for most folks.  I recommend setting a set time frame (ala: 2 or 3 application cycles post degree conferral).  Set it, and then stick to it.
 
Insomnia has apparently inspired me to write a small novel here.  Apologies for the length and for any sense of doom and gloom.  For what it's worth, even if this job hadn't come through, I wouldn't change my decision to do the PhD.  I found my time in the program personally and intellectually rewarding and I met some of the best friends I've ever had, both in and out of the program.  I'm not saying "don't do a PhD because the job market is scary."  I'm saying "do a PhD with your eyes wide open." 
 
Best of luck, everyone.  And always remember to support each other.  Academia is (or rather should be) a community, not a blood-sport.  Don't aspire to grow up to be Reviewer #2.  
 

Accepted off the Michigan waitlist! Beyond thrilled.

I've accepted NYU! In light of the pandemic, staying close to home is a big plus for me right now. And, having the ability to commute (though I'd really rather not) in light of the present day-to-day ambiguity is a versatility I couldn't say no to. 
The funny thing is that NYU was my dream choice for undergrad and they rejected me. A no isn't a no forever

After several great, slightly patchy virtual conversations, I've accepted my offer from NYU. This is literally everything I dream of in a program (complete with a small cohort size), so it's unbelievable to me that it happened. This means I will give up my other offers and my waitlist spots. Best of luck to everyone making a decision!

Oh, Gosh. I feel like I've learned SO many things. Here, let me make a numbered list. For any future readers, know that these things are Rhet/Comp specific, but also, specific to a very small thread of Rhet/Comp, and an applicant who is disabled, graduating with two concurrent MAs, with teaching experience, loads of conferences, and fluent in multiple languages. Happy to discuss any of those things further by PM.  
1) Waitlists are genuinely a good thing. They felt like the end of the world at the beginning of this.
2) If you happen to submit your MA Thesis you're still actively working on as your writing sample, your materials will improve significantly even just over the course of the term you apply. This is normal. Don't drive yourself crazy by looking back at your WS and thinking you're so bad. Yes, this is a hugely important application, but admissions committees are aware that you're a student and you're in the middle of growing and learning. 
3) Rhet/Comp PhDs and sections of English Studies PhDs in our field often have very small cohorts. Smaller than you realize. Like, two sometimes. And that is in the ideal situation where they actually fill both spots -- they might not. So if you ever wonder 'what the heck does x person have that I don't?!?', it might be sobering to remember that it might literally be -A- spot. Some programs ARE larger, though.  
4) Really understanding not only who you'd ideally seek to work with AND who you'd work with in their stead if they took a surprise sabbatical during a pivotal time in your studies is crucial. I'd always heard folks say, 'Don't go somewhere just to work with one person in particular,' and I didn't really take it to heart -- turns out, from experience, that's very real. 
5) ESPECIALLY here on GradCafe: be very mindful of the differences between Rhet/Comp and Lit. This board is mostly Lit folks, which makes sense, but it also can get a bit confusing. It is completely normal (sadly) that our stipends are lower, that our cohorts are smaller, that our job market is a bit different (for better and for worse). We also don't really exist at the Ivies, whereas you'll see lit people on here ardently struggling to choose between Harvard and Yale and you might think, 'Oh my Gosh, my field doesn't even exist in those places'. That's all part of the deal. Literature is just a different ballgame, and that is okay. As you start your PhD, you'll likely learn a little bit about how Rhet/Comp emerged as a field, and a bit of the "contention" between our fields. It's friendly, but it's a thing that goes back forever. Keep it in mind, but don't take it to heart. 
6) In the same vein as #5, don't be shocked when you see a lot of Literature folks applying to PhDs as BA-only applicants. That's a thing in a lot of fields, but generally not ours. You will find that virtually all Rhet/Comp PhDs expect you to come in with an MA, and it is not a bad thing for you to have one. In fact, it's sometimes a very good thing. 
7) Sometimes, but not always, really good Rhet/Comp programs are in schools that you would never expect -- schools that are below the top 50, even below the top 100. That is okay. Remember: it's less about where you go, and more about who you study with and how you network. Our field is a bit unique. 
8 ) Important: you will get a job. Almost every university and community college in North America has some form of writing program. It is a LOT easier to place a writing specialist than it is to place, for example, a Queer Shakespearean scholar. Now, granted, the first job you do get might not be TT, and you might be in the middle of nowhere... but please trust me, as an anon person on the internet, from one panicked first gen student with no safety net to another: you will get a job. 
9) If you are on a waitlist, be prepared to be genuinely waiting down to the wire, to April 15th, or even beyond. Check the results history. Sometimes -- even not in a pandemic--people get offers a few weeks later than the 15th. 
10) Apply to more schools than you think you'll need to. 10 sounds like a crazy number, but in retrospect, having only done 5 myself this cycle, I now wish I had just bit the bullet and applied to those other couple of 'maybes' that I didn't, that have now in retrospect become more realistic places for me to live than the places I did actually apply to.      
And the most important: 11) So much of admission details comes down to minutia. I'm lucky to have an inside connection at a handful of the places I applied to, and I've learned that when it comes down to who is offered a place vs. ending up on a waitlist, sometimes it's genuinely stuff that the applicants have zero control over. This could be anything from how currently packed a POI's schedule is, searches going on at the school that are diverting attention from student-facing duties, whether or not a grant got renewed, or more. And that's just some of the handful of stuff on the department side. Sometimes decisions come down to things you as an applicant cannot really control, like maybe a bad GPA from literal years ago, or one candidate having more undergraduate research experience than another. In my own case, I transferred three times during undergrad and had gaps in my education to work. I started at a community college, then a regional school, then graduated from a top 20 R1. Although I probably had experiences to do research at that last stop, the reality was, my educational background and the ways I'm non-traditional meant I couldn't have those same experiences that sometimes adcoms use to make 'cut off' decisions. So, what this tells us is this: sometimes, you literally could not have done anything better or different -- it isn't you -- and that is okay.       
Most, most important thing: You will be okay. There is a place for you. You bring something meaningful and important to the table, and worst comes to worst, you just need to try again. Keep your chin up. ❤️  

Accepted to Johns Hopkins off the waitlist. So thrilled!

After several great, slightly patchy virtual conversations, I've accepted my offer from NYU. This is literally everything I dream of in a program (complete with a small cohort size), so it's unbelievable to me that it happened. This means I will give up my other offers and my waitlist spots. Best of luck to everyone making a decision!

After several great, slightly patchy virtual conversations, I've accepted my offer from NYU. This is literally everything I dream of in a program (complete with a small cohort size), so it's unbelievable to me that it happened. This means I will give up my other offers and my waitlist spots. Best of luck to everyone making a decision!

I think somewhere between 7 and 12 is good - not so big that you get lost in the crowd (not to mention a large cohort is unethical in this day and age) but not so small that you have no one to get along with. A friend of mine who's in her first year at a top program has a cohort of 9, and she says she enjoys that size because they all have such different personalities that if there were only, say, 4 of them, it would be difficult for her to make a friend in the cohort.

After several great, slightly patchy virtual conversations, I've accepted my offer from NYU. This is literally everything I dream of in a program (complete with a small cohort size), so it's unbelievable to me that it happened. This means I will give up my other offers and my waitlist spots. Best of luck to everyone making a decision!

After several great, slightly patchy virtual conversations, I've accepted my offer from NYU. This is literally everything I dream of in a program (complete with a small cohort size), so it's unbelievable to me that it happened. This means I will give up my other offers and my waitlist spots. Best of luck to everyone making a decision!

After several great, slightly patchy virtual conversations, I've accepted my offer from NYU. This is literally everything I dream of in a program (complete with a small cohort size), so it's unbelievable to me that it happened. This means I will give up my other offers and my waitlist spots. Best of luck to everyone making a decision!

After several great, slightly patchy virtual conversations, I've accepted my offer from NYU. This is literally everything I dream of in a program (complete with a small cohort size), so it's unbelievable to me that it happened. This means I will give up my other offers and my waitlist spots. Best of luck to everyone making a decision!

After several great, slightly patchy virtual conversations, I've accepted my offer from NYU. This is literally everything I dream of in a program (complete with a small cohort size), so it's unbelievable to me that it happened. This means I will give up my other offers and my waitlist spots. Best of luck to everyone making a decision!

After several great, slightly patchy virtual conversations, I've accepted my offer from NYU. This is literally everything I dream of in a program (complete with a small cohort size), so it's unbelievable to me that it happened. This means I will give up my other offers and my waitlist spots. Best of luck to everyone making a decision!

After several great, slightly patchy virtual conversations, I've accepted my offer from NYU. This is literally everything I dream of in a program (complete with a small cohort size), so it's unbelievable to me that it happened. This means I will give up my other offers and my waitlist spots. Best of luck to everyone making a decision!

After several great, slightly patchy virtual conversations, I've accepted my offer from NYU. This is literally everything I dream of in a program (complete with a small cohort size), so it's unbelievable to me that it happened. This means I will give up my other offers and my waitlist spots. Best of luck to everyone making a decision!

If you're an ambitious BA-only applicant, like I am, and you want to jump straight into a PhD program, please also consider applying to MA programs too.
I applied to 14 doctoral programs and was shut out. I did not apply to a single MA. But, at the last minute, I found some whose deadlines hadn't passed and now have standing offers.
I thought that I was a good candidate. It turns out, however, that the PhD pool is insanely competitive. Consequently, where I struggled to "keep up" with PhD applicants, I shined bright in my MA ones.
There are many wonderful MA programs, and these usually have deadlines in Dec/Jan (the same time that your PhDs are due). Please, please, please...heed my own warning. You can get into a doctoral program off the rip. People do it all the time--some have multiple/many acceptances. But, I think it still makes sense to add in a few funded MA programs into your list of "where I'm applying."
So, to reiterate, don't automatically pass on a funded MA because it is not a PhD. Deciding to apply to some may drastically increase the chances that you have a graduate program to look forward to next Fall.
As someone who is almost at the end of their first application cycle, I wish I had taken this notion more seriously. I am appreciative to have salvaged what almost became a relative disaster. I'm lucky to have MA offers, after a PhD shutout! If you really want to go all-in, it is, of course, up to you. Best of luck no matter how you decide to apply. It is still a (somewhat) uncertain-to-predict process.

I am pretty sure offer letters are signed by someone in the graduate school, at least in my experience. That said, I am sure there are mechanisms in place to change binding contracts in case of financial necessity. It would be up to student representatives/unions to fight against them, though it sounds like the Chicago thing was probably negotiated to some degree, since some groups gained money.
Also, re: 2008 crash, is this the same magnitude? I am not an economist so I don’t know but either way, if we’re talking 2008 crash then everything is fucked for years anyway (my country was still not fully recovered from 2008...) so while academia will certainly suffer it will suffer no more than other sectors (in fact, it will probably suffer less). 
 

Signing all of my Johns Hopkins paperwork today; after the visit cancellation, they did an exceptional job of setting up meetings with faculty and students, so I feel very informed, despite never having set foot in Baltimore. I have some feels about how my cycle went, but they've really convinced me I ended up in the exact right department for me. I'm grateful! 
Good luck to everyone still agonizing. I know it's got to be doubly stressful with everything else that's going on.

I don't think attending this MFA program will impact your PhD chances in any tangible way. IME PhD programs don't really consider the prestige of one's MFA as a factor in making decisions. If you are going for a literature PhD (and not a creative writing PhD), they don't really care that much about any creative publications or your creative writing life in general. They view it as almost a completely different discipline.  
Having said that ...
If this is how you feel about this program, I don't think you should go there. And I'm coming from a place of experience here. I did a creative writing degree right out of undergrad, and it was seriously the worst experience of my life. The professors had zero interest in my writing (and I honestly didn't like theirs either), the workshop was a mean, hostile place (probably because I wasn't doing the type of writing everyone else was, but also because there was loads of misogyny* and women in general were looked at as incapable of writing Real LiteratureTM) ... and it just sucked. 
And to be honest, I was so traumatized by my experience that it took me years--I mean, goddamn years--for me to start writing creatively again. Now, I realize my story is an extreme example here, and that you probably won't have the same experience, and YMMV and all that. But I do think that having good writers/mentors to work with is EXTREMELY important when you're doing creative writing. I mean, it's really the whole enterprise in a nutshell. If you can't trust your adviser/mentor with this thing that comes from a very personal part of you, then you really can't get the guidance and support you need. If you don't think you can do that at this MFA program, then you absolutely should not go.
Go to this program, for the funding if nothing else. 2x the funding you'd get at the MFA program is nothing to sneeze at, and congratulations. Plus, a lower teaching load is SO important. I can't stress that enough.
More importantly, if you finish the MA and decide that you then want to do an MFA (instead of a PhD), you will still have that option, and you may, by that point, have a portfolio that gets you into a dream MFA program rather than your last choice. Better to hold off and get your MFA from, say, Michigan or UC-Irvine, than from hole-in-the-wall University of Dingdongs with an MFA program that's just a few years old.
 
*This English department (department--not the entire university) recently settled a massive Title IX lawsuit due to its pervasive culture of sexual harassment, and for its willful choice to do jackshit to stop it. It wasn't just me (yay, I guess?).

Agreed with many points above re: the SoP. I'd also say put more weight on the WS. I always thought the SoP was the most important thing, but as it turns out, the WS is often what my AdCom and PoIs remember best about my application. It makes sense because people would latch onto things that resonate with their own work and that have concrete arguments and analyses. The WS is also where you prove that you are capable of doing the level of thinking and writing that you discuss in the SoP. 
I used my MA thesis, which was a good piece of work. I found it extremely difficult to cut it to the required length, because I wanted to include my introduction, which is long but includes a lot of theoretical and historical research that frames my argument. After seeking advice from a friend from my MA, who was very successful during their app cycle last year, I decided to forgo the introduction and used 2 chapters which analyzed 2 different texts instead. It was an agonizing decision but it worked out for me, as the WS ended up showing my ability to analyze different literary forms using different theories, while still containing some outside research. So my advice if anyone finds themselves in a similar dilemma, is to choose the writing sample that has more "close reading" than historical/theoretical framing. As I used an excerpt from a longer work, I put notes in the beginning of the WS to explain how it fits into my larger argument in the thesis.
Also, regarding prestige and whether to apply to Ivies: I wouldn't say anyone should not apply to Ivies simply because they are a nontraditional applicant or didn't come from a prestigious undergrad institution. If a school has multiple faculty working on the things you have done/hope to be doing, is in a location you want to live in, etc. and which is an Ivy, you should apply, as you never know what may happen. But I would also not apply to an Ivy school just because of their prestige. For certain fields/subfields, they simply may not be it (anymore). For example, my main field is postcolonial studies, and 2 of my recommenders went to Columbia and were students of Spivak. Both of them told me that I could consider Columbia but it's no longer particularly strong in PoCo, which I confirmed by scanning the graduate students' profiles besides the faculty's. Other top-ranked programs that are known for my field are UCLA, UPenn, and UT Austin, but the time periods that their faculty work on are different from mine. When I found NYU, however, it was a perfect match - strong in PoCo with a contemporary, Global South bend, and Robert Young is still there as the theoretical powerhouse. So really digging deep, knowing the state of the field, and looking at faculty's recent research, are very important for picking the right programs for your 1. theoretical frameworks and 2. time period.
Finally, apply to at least 8 programs! It is ultimately a numbers' game.