meghan_sparkle

The simple answer is no. Plenty of people get into PhD programs without MAs. They can be great to prepare you for graduate work and for the application cycle, but the steep cost of no funding at a place like Georgetown—the tradeoff isn't anywhere near worth it imo. (I would say the same for the UChicago MAPH too, fwiw.) If you come from a wealthy family and dropping that kind of $ is not an issue, well, by all means I guess (still not worth it imo) ... but for most people, it just is not a great investment, just way too expensive when any kind of graduate work should be funded. When you add to that sunk cost the state of the job market and the effect COVID has had on admissions, even moreso. Plus generally unfunded masters in the humanities are cash cows for the university. Sorry to be a downer—I just think there are so many other ways in here, ones that don't come at that steep a cost.

Just poking in to say I can't imagine how enormously frustrating and sad this is for the fall 2020 applicants. If it's any consolation (not that there needs to be consolation) I think what programs choose to do this season (whether they pause and why, how true or false words about closing admissions 'to support current graduate students' end up being) will be really ... telling. Telling for what it would like to be in that program, telling for the longevity of the humanities PhD, telling for the profession ... There is also really no harm in taking a year out and working, if that would be possible. (Though I guess it's sort of like weighing up the choice to defer this year: there's no guarantee it will be better next year.) I worked for 2 years before applying and 1. professors mention my previous job all the time so clearly it's some kind of positive? 2. I really think the step back and gaining perspective was necessary, at least for me personally. Some go straight through (undergrad to PhD or UG, masters, PhD) and it works great for them, but I won't lie, most of the time, it really shows when someone has never been out of school as an adult before. (Sorry if that's a controversial view, don't mean to offend anyone—I just really genuinely think it can make you a better scholar and writer to step out of the academy for a minute, even if this year it may not be by choice for a lot of people.) Hang in there!

On a slightly brighter, albeit literature-grad-unrelated note: since you're straight out of undergrad, if editing is something you're really serious about, my sincerest advice would be to look into copyediting courses, e.g. in NYU's Continuing Education department. Once you've done that and studied some of the literature (e.g. Carol Fisher Saller's The Subversive Copy Editor; Benjamin Dreyer's Dreyer's English) you can contact various organizations/publishers/magazines about copy-editing positions; in the case of publishers, they'll give you a copy-editing test, which if you pass could very well lead to some beginners freelance sub-editing. This is great because even if you're not in the exact place you want to end up, you still learn from an editor's edits, which is crucial and tbh rarer and rarer in the modern world, imo. Freelance editing isn't a job (or I guess, it would be really hard to make it one?) but it can certainly lead you to a job in journalism or publishing. Anyway, sorry to ramble—good luck!

No, no, and no. I interned at one of the ones you list for about 6 months straight out of undergrad. An MA in literature really is not necessary to work at these; what's much more helpful is journalistic experience and connections (say, if your goal is NYRB/The New Yorker, try to write for LARB or keep an eye on entry-level positions going at, say, Slate—Slate has a lot of lateral movement to those places). PhD --> literary journalism has in recent years become something of an alt ac track; think Naomi Fry (NYU PhD --> New York Times Magazine --> New Yorker) or Josephine Livingstone (NYU PhD --> New Republic staff writer + freelance for New Yorker et al). But it's pretty rare, and in all cases, those who are successful at it 1.) Are very lucky 2.) Wrote freelance and networked throughout their PhD. So it's not necessarily that a PhD leads to these opportunities; more that when you're doing a PhD in New York and there are no job opportunities in academia, the next best thing for someone who also writes/edits freelance is to move into journalism. It's extortionately expensive and not funded, but if you reeeeally want to do a terminal MA, Columbia's journalism MA is going to get you in the door (as in, set you up with work placement opportunities and connections) much better than an MA in Literature would. The MA in Literature is set up to either be a terminal degree or to prepare people for PhD programs—I can't really see the connection to the career path you're highlighting. I also feel compelled to say this (don't shoot the messenger). Editing careers at the New Yorker, NYRB, Harper's, TLS (which is in London, by the way--wasn't sure if you knew, because the others you list are all US-based, but the News UK salary for the TLS will certainly not be high enough for a visa sponsorship if you're American), etc are extremely rare. Even if you've been educated at top institutions and have connections and can get a foot in the door, there's a huge amount of competition for a dwindling number of positions. The places you list all have fairly small editorial staffs with 1, maybe 2 interns—interns that are criminally underpaid (in Harper's case, not paid at all). The editors themselves have either been at the mag a very long time, or come with several years of editing experience from somewhere else. What's more, upward movement in these careers is rapidly becoming a thing of the past; hardly any entry-level internships ever see promotions to editorial assistant or assistant editor positions. Harper's also has a fairly dictatorial publisher who has driven out long-time editors over disputes related to, e.g., doxxing individuals related to the MeToo movement, which is par for the course in this industry. Literary magazines often exist through the benefaction of a single wealthy publisher, and thus are beholden to the wills and whims of rich people. Anyway—I really don't mean to rain on your parade, I promise, just food for thought. This is all intel that isn't clear to a reader of these mags on the outside looking in, and it's something I'd wish someone told me when I was just starting out.

oof ... hadn't heard this, good to know

Yayyyyy!

Heading to Yale!!!!!!!!! Was genuinely so tough to decide between Yale, Princeton and Columbia, as they were all legitimately tied as #1 in my mind and each had unique strengths for me personally, but something about New Haven just already felt like home. Whether that was just because they had their visit days and Princeton/Columbia didn't, it's a little hard to say, but at one point I just had to say to myself that counterfactuals aren't helpful in this scenario, it is what it is, and I have to go with my gut. If I'm honest I'm going to feel pretty sad about turning down Princeton/Columbia for a long time, but still feels like the right decision, if that makes any sense... Good luck to everyone in the next few days! Hang in there.

Belated, but turned down Columbia and Princeton in the last couple days. Columbia isn't keeping a waitlist this year but hope this helps someone for Princeton.

Just turned down Berkeley. That was incredibly, incredibly difficult.

Aaaaand just turned down Harvard!

Just declined Chicago. Damn that was difficult. Not sure if they have a waitlist but if they do, hope this helps someone on it.

One thing that has been helpful to me while trying to sort through my longings and instinctual impulses is remembering that the decision isn't just about the next year or two, but has to still feel right even in three or four years when dissertating. In that vein, a less stressful teaching experience should weigh more heavily in terms of your daily working schedule. Whereas having to move cross country—although it's a hassle, inconvenient, a lot of work and may distance you from family/friends—is something that will probably feel like a blip 6 months in when it's over and done with and you've started building a community of friends within your cohort + started to fall in love with a new city. I also note you said "possibly" less stressful teaching experience; maybe it will help to talk to a few more current students so you can see what the teaching is like functionally for them? At least for me, the question at bottom is: What's the ideal environment where I can most contentedly see myself writing for the next 5-6 years? Liking the city you live in certainly factors into that. But tbh, no summer funding and immediate teaching are both huge deals. Even in cities where it's reliably easy to obtain summer income through teaching summer schools/tutoring/research assistant work, that's a lot to wrangle each year, and a lot of work totally unrelated to your research. Plus there's no guarantee of it—for instance saw the other day that Stanford students (not English I don't think but other departments) who normally relied on teaching summer schools for summer income now have nothing because all those summer programs have been cancelled due to COVID. If they're both excellent programs with vibrant communities, you probably can't go wrong—pretty much all I would encourage is making sure that your instinctual pull covers quality of life (in terms of teaching, cost of living, general happiness) across the years of your program, as difficult it is to think big-picture in terms of such a large timespan.

For what it's worth I doubt this—there may well be fewer spots but I don't think that means MAs will be functionally mandatory. There are a good number of BA only applicants in all of my admitted cohorts, and to me they're indistinguishable from the ones with MAs, tbh. Ofc to a degree it's program specific (some already lean toward students with MAs, though not the ones I applied to, and maybe those will become even more MA-centric). What will get you into the PhD is an excellent sample and good recs, and an MA is only one way of many you can get there (I did a one-year masters, took a year out and worked after, and applied only with undergraduate materials that I revised while working in November 2019 before submitting in December. Obvs the fact of the masters on my transcript may have been a factor in my admissions, but purely in terms of materials I think it was revising my written work + having a year out to be a semi-normal adult that made the most difference.) Personally I wouldn't take on 70k of debt to do an MA thinking it will be mandatory/even more advisable than normal to get you into the PhD because COVID. Not least of all because even setting aside the question of how this crisis will affect funding/# of spots, there are almost no TT jobs at the end of the PhD (and will be even fewer in future), so you'll still have all of that debt following you while you're on the market, even best case scenario. The question of whether to risk taking on debt would be slightly different if there was actually a somewhat viable or semi-stable market at the end of all of it, but ... there just isn't, unfortunately

Hey, I'm really sorry. This must be awful, especially with faculty encouraging you like that—I wonder if it points to COVID really messing things up behind the scenes, making even fewer spots available when normally they would pull from waitlist when someone declines. Fwiw I haven't responded to Berkeley yet, though got a nudging checkup email from their DGS yesterday. To be honest I really wish what was going on behind the scenes with department admissions and COVID-19 was less opaque and cloak and dagger than it is right now. I imagine humanities budgets are being devastated left and right, which bodes badly for current students, admits, waitlists and future applicants in ways that aren't totally clear rn. My instinct is that the financial fallout from this crisis will hit a public university system that was already buckling under pressure (UC) very hard. And even though Berkeley English is in a better position funding-wise than most other departments, in all of my conversations so far I've gotten nagging sense that beyond what's explicitly outlined in my funding letter, not a lot can be promised. The faculty are stellar and I'm impressed by their recent placement record, but times like these really show how crucial it is to feel looked after and safeguarded as a grad student.

edit: nevermind!!